^{Monday, Dec. 19, 2022}

The University of Dallas community mourns the passing of Father Roch Kereszty, O. Cist., who served as one of the university's first campus chaplains and was among the longest-serving faculty members at UD. Fr. Roch passed away peacefully on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, in the prayerful presence of his brother monks who kept vigil throughout the night. His Rosary and Vigil will be at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 20, and the Funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m., Wed., Dec. 21, at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas. The services can be viewed online here.

His obituatary was published in the Dallas Morning News. 

In the early 1960s, Fr. Roch Kereszty, O. Cist., was one of a handful of Hungarian Cisterian monks assigned to teach at the nascent University of Dallas. Born in Hungary in 1933 and entered the Cistercian Order in 1951, at the Monastery of Zirc, living through the Nazi occupation during World War II and during the early days of Soviet communist rule of Hungary.

On Sept. 18, 1960, he made his solemn profession in Lilienfeld, Austria, and was ordained to the priesthood on Oct. 2, 1960, in the private chapel of the Bishop of Sankt Pölten, Austria. Fr. Roch emigrated to the United States in 1963, began teaching theology at the University of Dallas and served as the university’s chaplain from 1963-1965. He started teaching at Cisterican Preparatory School in the early 1970s. A wonderful profile of Fr. Roch’s journey from Hungary to Dallas was captured by an alumnus in this 2015 Dallas Morning News profile, and he also shared some fond memories of UD’s early days when the university marked 50 years of graduate education in 2014.

At UD, Fr. Roch taught theology until just a few years ago. During his long tenure, he generously and selflessly served our students, sharing memories from his witness of the early sessions of Vatican II, and publishing two books, The Church of God in Jesus Christ: A Catholic Ecclesiology (CUA Press) and Rekindle the Gift of God: A New Handbook for Priests (Ignatius Press). To many generations of UD students and to his brothers at the Abbey, he will be remembered as a brilliant theologian, scholar, and spiritual director, who no doubt led many young men to religious vocations.

It is fitting, Father Abbot noted, that Fr. Roch passed away on the vigil of Bl. John Brenner, the young Cisterican martyred in 1957. Fr. Roch’s favorite quotation from Bl. John’s journal, a text Fr. Roch translated into English, is, “My greatest desire is to become a saint and to make others saints.”

Please join us in praying for the soul of Fr. Roch and the Cistercian community:

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Memorials can be made to The Fr. Roch Kereszty Scholarship Fund at Cistercian Preparatory School, https://www.cistercian.org/giving.