The Rev. Anthony Barrett Corrigan, A Jesuit And Chaplain

The Rev. James Royce remembers the Rev. Anthony Barrett Corrigan's approach on the golf course.

``He was a good athlete, and he played golf like he ran the dean's office. He was very methodical, businesslike and determined,'' Royce said of Father Barrett, known among his associates as ``Brick'' because of his red hair.

When Royce arrived at Seattle University in 1948 to join the faculty as a psychology instructor, one of his first contacts was Father Barrett, the school's dean of faculties.

``He was very energetic, very well-organized and very disciplined. But he was also a very kind man,'' Royce recalled.

Father Barrett, who served 14 years in SU's education department, helped Royce establish the university's psychology department in 1949.

``He showed me how to draw up a class schedule for a department,'' Royce said. ``Before he was dean, he was head of the School of Education, and he had strong administrative experience.''

Father Barrett, 79, whose Jesuit life was devoted to education and hospital chaplaincy work, died Tuesday (Feb. 5) at Mount St. Vincent Nursing Center in West Seattle, where he had resided a short time.

Royce said that after 1986, failing health confined Father Barrett to a retirement community, mostly in Spokane.

Born and reared in Seattle, Father Barrett entered the Roman Catholic Church's Jesuit order - the Society of Jesus - after graduation in 1929 from Seattle College High School. He studied theology at Santa Clara University from 1939 to 1943.

Father Barrett was ordained at Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco in 1942.

His academic career included two stints at Seattle University, from 1945 to 1951 and from 1965 to 1973. Between those periods he completed a doctoral degree at Fordham University in New York, and taught at Gonzaga University in Spokane and in Indonesia. He also had taught at Bellarmine Preparatory School in Tacoma.

``He was a very well-organized teacher, rather demanding but very fair,'' Royce said.

In later years, Father Barrett worked as a hospital chaplain for six years at Spokane's Sacred Heart Hospital and 13 years at St. Joseph's in Bellingham.

A vigil service was planned at 6:30 p.m. today in SU's Campion Tower. A Mass will be said at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow at Campion Tower.

Father Barrett is survived by a brother, Richard Corrigan of Seattle.