Suplician Father Gerald L. Brown, who welcomed pope to St. Mary’s seminary, dies at 85

A funeral Mass for Sulpician Father Gerald L. Brown was offered Aug. 19 at Our Lady of the Angels in Catonsville. Father Brown died Aug. 11. He was 85.

Father Brown was born in Kansas, but raised in San Francisco. He joined the Society of St. Sulpice in 1966 as a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, for which he was ordained in 1964. 

Among his academic degrees, Father Brown had an master’s in divinity from St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, Calif., where he later served as president-rector (1978-1985 and 2004-2009), and a doctorate in communications from Temple University. 

In 1985, Father Brown was elected provincial of the U.S. Province of Sulpicians, based in Baltimore. He served two terms in that position (until 1997), during which he expanded the missionary efforts of the province in Central Africa (Zambia) and also in San Antonio, Texas. In addition, he served in several other seminaries during his ministry, including St. Thomas Seminary in Kenmore, Wash., St. Patrick’s College in Mountainview, Calif., Theological College in Washington, D.C., and Assumption Seminary in San Antonio. 

As provincial, he joined Baltimore Cardinal William H. Keeler in welcoming Pope St. John Paul II to St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore (1995).

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