Father Mark Richard Heath, O. P.

My service, as Chairman will be to promote and facilitate that dialogue and communication which is the life-action of any personal and primary community, and particularly of Christian teachers dialogue with one another, with students and other faculty of the college; and as Pope Paul puts it: even with the world. The special context of the dialogue for the next few years will certainly be to bring fruition the doctrinal seed which the Second Council of the Vatican has sowed in the Catholic World. These will profoundly affect the program of college theology. Remarks by Fr. Heath in accepting his appointment as Chairman of the Department of Theology, Providence College, April 1967.Father Mark R. Heath, older brother of Fr. Walter J. Heath, was born in Jamaica Plain, MA, on April 20, 1919. In many ways Father Mark paved the way for his younger brother Walter. Both brothers followed a similar educational path, which included attending Boston College, service with the U.S. Navy, and Providence College (Class of '43) While Father Mark attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating with a Bachelor of Science, his brother, Walter, entered the US Naval Submarine Service as a commissioned officer during World War II. Prior to coming to Providence College in 1967 to assume the chairmanship of the Religious Studies Department, Father Heath taught theology and philosophy at La Salle College, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Dunbarton College of Holy Cross, and the Dominican House of Philosophy in Somerset, OH. Father Heath's time at Providence College unexpectedly ended in 1971 when he accepted the position of Director of the Washington Theological Consortium.