Inducted in 2022
Humanitarian
Co-Founder, Viva House, Baltimore, MD

“For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” — Matthew 25:35

Brendan Daniel Walsh was born in New York City in 1942 and grew up in Inwood where his family attended the Church of the Good Shepherd — a fitting place for Brendan to have heard his first homily on Jesus exhortation to Peter: “Feed My sheep.” Later on, the family would move across the Broadway Bridge to Riverdale and finally, to the University Heights section of the Bronx.  His mother, Cecilia Woods, was a nurse, and his father, Daniel Walsh, was a salesman. Brendan was one of four siblings, the brother of three sisters: Patricia, Eileen, and Maureen. Patricia would go on to become a Sister of Charity, and, interestingly, in her retirement, would move into facilities maintained by her order in a senior living home on Webb Avenue — nearly back to the same block on which the Walsh children had spent part of their childhood.

In September of 1956, Brendan made the trip up Fordham Road to begin his time at Rose Hill as a member of Homeroom 1C. A devout and strapping young man, Walsh soon found himself involved in various aspects of school life.  During his Shea Hall years, he ran track, sang with the German Choir, and devoted time to the charitable and spiritual dimensions of the Prep with the sodalities and the Knights of the Blessed Sacrament.  Moreover, Big Bren was a four-year footballer and a member of the Prep’s fabled gridiron squads of the late 1950s. His coach: none other than fellow Hall of Honor inductee, Joseph “Sammy” Ososki. And among his teammates: Bruce Bott, Class of 1959, an inductee himself and a Prep legend in his own right.

Graduating Fordham Prep in 1960 — a consistent A student in theology and public speaking — Walsh went on to LeMoyne College where he completed his bachelor’s degree in English in 1964. After his time with the Jesuits in Syracuse, Brenden discerned a calling to serve the Lord’s people and entered St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, NY. There he would spend over two years in prayer and contemplation as he trained for the priestly life.

But the late 1960s were troubled times, with social unrest at home and America’s entrance into the Vietnam War overseas.  Debates about justice and war and peace raged on in every corner of the society — including the Catholic theological college at Dunwoodie in Yonkers, New York.  And so, fifteen months before ordination, Walsh made the spiritually and emotionally difficult decision to leave the seminary. His life would still be a life of service, but one in which he felt he could tackle the issues of the day more actively and hands-on.

A civilian once more, Walsh supported himself by taking a position with the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission.  Moreover, with his student days behind him, he was once again eligible for the draft. Petitioning for conscientious objector status, he was given two years of alternate service as an aide at John Hopkins University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science. It was during these years in Maryland that he met Willa Bickham —a nurse, artist, native Chicagoan, and former member of the Sisters of St Joseph who shared Brendan’s call to radical discipleship and desire to work with the marginalized.

It was during these years in Maryland, that Brendan began to figure out what the Lord was asking him to do: to tend to His flock: specifically, the poor of Baltimore.

 Married in 1967, Brendan and Willa would co-found and move into Viva House in 1968, a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality. Their very first visitor: the Catholic Worker Movement’s founder, Dorothy Day, today recognized as a Servant of God, the Church’s first step in the formal recognition of sainthood.

Straightaway Viva House became a beacon of hope at 26 South Mount Street: a soup kitchen and pantry; a place of beauty and community; a place of advocacy and activism; a place of grace.  In all these years — more than a half century at the time of Walsh’s 2022 Hall of Honor induction — Walsh and Bickham’s mission has never changed: to live out the Corporal Works of Mercy, to resist the mechanisms of war, and to adhere to nonviolence in all things.

Though they would never think of taking tallies themselves — after all, is compassion countable? — it has been noted that under Brendan and Willa’s direction, Viva House has provided over a million meals down through the decades, has given temporary shelter to individuals and families displaced by tragedy and violence, has provided hundreds and hundreds of tons of groceries to area residents, and has been a center for residents, volunteers, and local and national leaders to come together to discuss and tackle some of the many facets of the complex problem of poverty.

In addition to his life of voluntary poverty and daily work at Viva House, Walsh, who has earned a graduate degree from Maryland’s Antioch College, is a recognized speaker and educator in the field of social justice issues.  His goal at the podium is no different than in the kitchen of Viva House: to bring about the Kingdom of God, a world where — on every level — people are willing to work together and to lend their time and talent for the common good.  With his wife, Willa, Brendan has written a book, The Long Loneliness in Baltimore, which details their experiences in Southwest Baltimore alongside the people who call the neighborhood known as Sowebo home.

The work of Walsh, Bickham and Viva House have been recognized by many institutions and agencies, receiving the People Not Politics Public Spirit Award in 1983, the Ignatian Award for Community Service from LeMoyne College in 1994, Baltimore’s Best Nonprofit Award in 2006, the Governor’s Volunteer Service Certificate in 2009, and the Baltimore City Historical Society’s History Honors Award in 2010 — among others.  Walsh has also been featured in various print and digital media, including a PBS documentary  exploring the problems of poverty and the many contributions Viva House has made to society.

Brendan and Willa are the parents of Kathleen, who earned her own Maroon credentials at the University, graduating in 1991. She and her husband, David Little, also a Ram, have three daughters.   

In discussing his remarkable accomplishments in Baltimore, Brendan Walsh once humbly remarked, "If somebody's hungry, you give them a sandwich. Doesn't everybody do that?"  Shades of Matthew 25, indeed.

Before Father General had ever distilled the Jesuit teachings on service into the phrase "Men for Others" in 1973, the boy from Good Shepherd parish had certainly learned these lessons well and would go on to live them out in a remarkable way.  For his solidarity with the marginalized and for his radical commitment to Christ’s flock, Fordham Prep will always be honored to number Brendan Walsh, Class of 1960, among its own.