The Dominican Mission to Pakistan - 1963

It was a different world when the Dominican mission to Pakistan was begun in the mid-1950s, following the expulsion of the missionaries of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph (the Eastern Province in the United States) from China. In 1963, Michael Kalish produced a documentary on the Dominican mission in Pakistan. The documentary was made for WJRT-12 TV, the ABC affiliate in Flint, MI.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen blessing Dominican missionaries to Lebanon and Pakistan, August 31, 1956. The friar standing on the left (to Fulton Sheen’s right) is The Very Rev. William Dalmatius Marrin, O.P., Prior Provincial of the Province of St. Joseph from 1955-1963 and Preacher General. He died on June 27, 1982, and is buried at Mt. Olivet, Washington, D.C. The friars being sent to Lebanon were:  Fr. Alan Smith, O.P. (the tall friar kneeling in front of Fr. Marrin; Fr, Smith was a Scripture scholar and brother of Fr.Raymond Smith, O.P. and Fr. Elwood Ferrer Smith, O.P.); Fr. Thomas Heath, O.P. (on the far left with face blocked; Fr. Heath, brother of Fr. Mark Heath, O.P., Fr. Walter Heath, O.P., and Maryknoll Sister Mary Heath, was a scholar and missionary and later served in Kenya where he was killed in 2005); Fr. Robert Louis Every, O.P. (kneeling to Fr Smith’s left and in front of Fr Heath. Fr. Louis Every later served as Prior Provincial of the Province of St. Joseph); and Br. Richard Long, O.P. (third from left). For more information about this picture and the names of the Pakistani missionaries blessed by Archbishop Sheen see the Province of St. Joseph site here. The history of the Dominicans in Pakistan is described at the site of the Ibn-e-Mariam Vice Province here.

For the story of this 1963 documentary on the Dominican Mission in Pakistan see the Province of St. Joseph site here.

Some of the friars who served in Pakistan