OBITUARY
FATHER RONALD THOMAS TROJCAK
AUGUST 21, 1935 – APRIL 4, 2018
On April 4, 2018 at
about 3 pm, surrounded by his loving friends and caretakers, Hernan Castro and
his wife Alejandra Valencia, Father Ron
quietly, peacefully and with extraordinary grace and nobility slipped into
Eternity.
The son of Michael Trojcak and Rita Falk Trojcak,
Father Ron was born in Taylorville, Illinois on August 21, 1935. He is survived by an older sister, Jeanne, a
younger sister, Doris and three adopted sons, Ngandwe,
Marcelo and Dieudonne.
A brilliant student,
Father Trojcak entered the University of Illinois at
the age of 16 where he studied music
from 1952 to 1955. He then entered the
seminary at Notre Dame and moved to St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein,
Illinois in 1955. Following his
ordination on May 26, 1962 he served at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in
Effingham from 1962 to 1965, then at St. Patrick Parish in Decatur from 1965 to
1968. In Decatur, he became deeply
involved in social justice issues and civil rights. This activity initiated a lifelong admiration
for Martin Luther King, Jr. and his work in the civil rights movement and the
anti-poverty campaign. It is indeed fitting,
therefore, that Ron died on the 50th anniversary of the great man’s
assassination!
From 1968 to 1969, Father Trojcak
completed a Masters in Theology at the McCormick Theological Seminar in Chicago
and later moved to Toronto to begin his PhD in theology. He began teaching Scripture at King’s
University College, an affiliate of Western University, in London Ontario in
1972 and completed his PhD in 1978. Until he retired from the college in 2001, he
also served as college chaplain. Following
retirement he continued to teach for several years in the Social Justice and
Peace Studies program.
Father Trojcak’s love
for music was a passion that never left him and his sophisticated tastes were
always brought to bear on his approach to liturgy. He also accumulated an impressive library of
classical music that he was always anxious to share with friends and family.
During a sabbatical in 1980, Father Trojcak spent a year in St. Dominic's seminary in Lusaka, Zambia. While there he also acted as chaplain to an
orphanage. It was there that he met the
first of his three adopted sons, Ngandwe. About 3 years later he adopted Marcelo from
São Paolo, Brazil and soon after “rescued” Dieudonne,
who had been temporarily taken in by a Canadian family. At the time of his death, Ron may have been
the only Roman Catholic priest with several grandchildren.
While in Zambia, Father Trojcak also began to collect African tribal art, a passion
that lasted for the rest of his life. In
2000 he contributed a large part of his collection to Rust College in Holly
Springs, Mississippi, where he taught for a year.
Throughout his long and illustrious career, Ron touched the lives of thousands of students and gradually gathered round him a unique religious community. They came because they appreciated his extraordinary homilies. They came because they were seeking a critical approach to faith, a commitment to social justice and an admiration for the way Ron, even in this deeply troubled world, made belief in a loving, redemptive God a reasonable response. As he once put it, “Faith has to be the act of an intelligent human being. It cannot be a kind of escapism. You have to be able to coordinate the life of the mind with the life of faith.”
This community that Ron gathered over the years -- the many students whose lives he touched, whose hurts he helped heal, whose marriages he performed, whose children he baptized, whose lives he improved and whose faith he enhanced -- is a living monument that continues to provide clear evidence that he was deeply loved and profoundly appreciated.
There will be a Memorial Mass in celebration of Father Trojcak’s life on:
Saturday April 14th
Time: 11 A.M.
Location: Chapel- Windermere on the Mount- 1486 Richmond St., London, Ontario (intersection
of Richmond St. and Windermere Rd.)
Directions to Windermere on the Mount:
A Reception will be held immediately following the Memorial Mass
at King’s University College.
Location: 266 Epworth Avenue -Wemple Building- Vitali
Student Lounge- - (main building on the north side of Epworth Ave).
Directions to King’s University College:
Donations in Father Trojcak’s memory may be made to one of his favourite
charities: Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières -https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
