CUMBERLAND – Rev. Ralph Theodore Hall, O.P., a Dominican friar of the Priory of St. Thomas Aquinas at Providence College, died Jan. 9 at Mount St. Rita Health Centre on his 91st birthday.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was the son of the late Joseph and Clara (Brutscher) Hall. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 until 1946, being awarded the World War II National Defense Ribbon.
He studied in the pre-ecclesiastical program at Providence College from 1946 until 1948, when he entered the novitiate of the Dominican Friars (Order of Preachers) of the Province of St. Joseph at St. Rose Priory in Springfield, Ky. He made his simple profession of vows there on August 16, 1949, and continued his studies for the priesthood at St. Joseph Priory in Somerset, Ohio, and at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.
Father Hall was ordained to the priesthood on June 9, 1955, at St. Dominic Church in Washington by the Most Rev. Jerome D. Hannan, D.D., Bishop of Scranton, Penn.
Father Hall earned a bachelor's degree in pre-ecclesiastical studies from Providence College in 1952 and a bachelor's degree in sacred theology (1955) and the licentiate and lectorate degrees in sacred theology (1956) from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. From 1967 until 1968, he studied at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome, where he received a doctorate in sacred theology. He taught at Aquinas College High School and Mt. Carmel School of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio, from 1956 until 1957.
During the following school year, Father Hall was assigned to St. Dominic Priory in Youngstown, Ohio, while teaching theology and serving as co-chaplain at Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Penn. From 1958-1959, he was assigned to St. Peter Rectory in Memphis, Tennessee, while teaching at Siena College.
In 1959, Father Hall returned to Providence College, where he taught for more than 40 years in the Department of Theology, retiring in 2002 with the rank of associate professor. He also frequently taught courses in the Department of Philosophy.
Father Hall led many student retreats in the 1960s, and also taught evening, weekend, and summer courses at several sisters' institutions, including Emmanuel College, Mount St. Mary College, and Nazareth/Catherine Spalding College. He was a member of the Society of Catholic College Teachers of Sacred Doctrine and the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.
He is survived two sisters, Dorothy Benedict and Ruth Dornbush, and a brother, Edward Hall, all of Ohio.
A Mass of Christian Burial was concelebrated Jan. 12 in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary in the Priory of St. Thomas Aquinas. Burial was in the Dominican Friars' Cemetery on the Providence College campus.
