John Ferrer Arnold, O.P.

John Ferrer Arnold, O.P.

Born:  December 18, 1925

Professed:  September 15, 1950

Ordained:  June 8, 1956

Died:  June 3, 2003

Born in Washington, DC, on December 18, 1925, he entered Novitiate at St. Rose Priory in August, 1949 and made Simple Profession September 15, 1950. After Ordination he did Mission work in the South with Fr. Patrick Walsh, until the summer of 1956.

He was a Missionary in Pakistan from October 1957 to December 1999. He then lived with and was cared for by his sister, Mary Cogbill in Santa Rosa, CA from December 1999 until 2002. He was then transferred to the Mohun Health Care Center June 26, 2002, where he died the following year on June 3rd.

Ferrer was a dynamo of service to the people in Pakistan. He often had over a hundred villages under his care and would try to say Mass for each village each month — no easy job in places connected by poor roads and when temperatures were in the 90’s or more. He was zealous in promoting the rosary. In fact, too zealous, according to some diocesan priests: when he gave them a retreat the first time, he gave three conferences a day and each conference was preceded by the rosary.

He had many friends who made generous donations to the missions. This enabled him to help many people and to build a high school in Sahiwal during his last years in Pakistan.

The provincial, V. Rev. Dominic Izzo, O.P., was celebrant at the Mass of Christian Burial. Most Rev. Ernest Bertrand Boland, O.P., was the homilist. Burial followed in the Dominican Friars’ cemetery at St. Joseph Church in Somerset, OH.

MissionaryPakistanRosarySahiwalSt. Joseph Cemetery