Father Donald Francis Finlay, CSB, was a familiar face on the University of St. Michael’s College campus from his time as a student in the early 1960s through his years as Chief Librarian of the John M. Kelly Library in the 1980s and 1990s, where he would often be found as a welcoming presence in the library lobby.
Father Finlay died earlier this month at Presentation Manor, the retirement home for Basilian priests. He was 88.
Father Finlay worked first as a teacher in Toronto’s Catholic school system before entering the Basilian novitiate in 1957. He enrolled in St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology in 1962, receiving his S.T.B. degree in 1965, and was ordained in December of that year.
After earning a Master of Arts degree in Library Science, he was appointed Librarian at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) in 1967, while also being named the local Superior of the Institute Basilians and later of the wider community of St. Michael’s. Appointed Acting Chief Librarian of the Kelly Library in 1985, he was named Chief Librarian later that year. Father James Farge, CSB, who followed Fr. Finlay as a Chief Librarian at PIMS, recalls the dedication he had toward student education, meeting with students to help them determine how best the Kelly could meet their needs. The dedication created fans in all sorts of places. Once, recalls Father Farge, Father Finlay was at the airport and was asked by the ticket agent behind the counter: “But who is saying the 12:10?,” a reference to the noon Mass at St. Basil’s Church.
Father Finlay also served as a don and was widely respected by the students under his care, many of whom stayed in touch for years after graduating. Rod McEwan (SMC 9T5) recalls arriving at what was then Belisle House (now Founders House) and seeing Father Finlay sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, reading the paper. McEwan recalls feeling a bit intimidated but that impression soon changed.
A month after arriving at St. Mike’s, as a student from a small town he made the mistake of answering the front door late at night to a grifter, who convinced him he had lost him money and needed to get home to somewhere out of town – money he promised would replace.
“I gave him my last $50, not realizing it was a scam,” McEwan recalls. A few days later, an unmarked enveloped appeared under Rod’s door. For a long time he thought the man had returned the cash until it dawned on him: Fr. Finlay had replaced the money himself.
In 1992, when Father Finlay was assigned new duties within the Basilian community, Father Michael Fahey, SJ, then Dean of the Faculty of Theology, presented a citation to the university’s Collegium, where Father Finlay had served, that included thanks for his “yeoman’s service” as Master of Ceremonies at liturgical functions. That service extended to work on the Liturgy Subcommittee before then-Pope John II visited Toronto in 1984.
Father Fahey’s citation also noted that Fr. Finlay’s “broad cultural instincts” were “invaluable for judiciously discerning how our various library collections should be strengthened…. thanks to his leadership our Library remains a magnificent instrument to assist research and student alike.”
That sentiment is seconded by James Roussain, who is the William D. Sharpe Chief Librarian and Director of Special Collections at the Kelly Library.
“Fr. Finlay’s work in building the collections that are now core to the Kelly Library cannot be overlooked: we owe much to his dedication to St. Mike’s and to its students.”
In 2017, PIMS named the Donald F. Finlay Reference Room in the Kelly Library in his honour.
Fr. Finlay was also dedicated to broader community engagement. As his collegium citation noted, “Father Finlay was a faithful and long-suffering member of the University of St Michael’s College working committee that dealt with the Bay Street development proposal. He sat side by side with Jack Layton and Liz Amer, as well as citizens on both sides of the issue, and was a paragon of level-headedness.”
The University of St. Michael’s College extends our condolences to the Basilians and to Father Finlay’s friends and family.