Marianist Brother Joseph Lackner
Marianist Father Joseph Lackner of the Center Marianist Hale Malia Community at Chaminade University, died April 28 in Seoul, South Korea, while en route back to the U.S. from a Marianist teaching assignment in Bangalore, India. He was 71 and a Marianist for 52 years. He had been on the Chaminade faculty since 2011.
In the Marianists’ announcement of his death, Father Lackner was described as “a beloved teacher, homilist, administrator and campus minister.”
Born on Feb. 11, 1942, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Father Lackner professed his first vows on Aug. 22, 1960, in Marcy, N.Y., and his perpetual vows on Aug. 15, 1965, in Dayton, Ohio.
He was ordained a priest on Jan. 22, 1972, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Father Lackner began his educator’s career as a high school teacher. He moved to the college level in 1969 and in 1976 began a long association with the University of Dayton, a Marianist institution, as a professor, campus ministry director and residence hall campus minister.
He also taught at Xavier University in Cincinnati, St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, and Chaminade University in Honolulu.
The Marianist priest was a global teacher and learner, spending time in England, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, Japan, India and South Korea. He spent the second half of 2010 on sabbatical, traveling the Silk Road — the historical trade route from China to Europe.
Father Lackner had two doctorate degrees, one in historical theology, the other in private school education.
“Few people can take meticulous scholarship and speak it in such a way that the people listening hear the images and stories of a poet’s heart,” said Marianist Brother Steve Glodek, provincial of the Marianists’ U.S. Province.
“His wisdom, good humor and largeness of heart were inestimable gifts,” he said.
Honolulu’s Chaminade community celebrated a memorial Mass for Father Lackner on May 3.
Father Lackner’s funeral will be May 11 at the University of Dayton’s Immaculate Conception Chapel.
