Dominican Father Victor Brown, former St. Dominic pastor

Dominican Father Victor B. Brown, the former pastor of St. Dominic Parish in New Orleans, died Jan. 9. He was 87 and had served for 60 years in religious life.

A New Orleans native, Father Brown attended Jesuit High School. He was preceded in death by his parents, Ernestine Lucille LeBourgeois Brown and Joshua Joseph Brown.

Father Brown received degrees from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama; Loyola University New Orleans; and the Dominican House of Studies in River Forest, Illinois, and Dubuque, Iowa. He also studied French at Laval University in Quebec and the University of Oregon in Tours, France.

Before entering the Dominicans, he served in the U.S. Navy from 1950-54. He entered the Dominican novitiate in Winona, Minnesota, in the Province of St. Albert the Great. He professed simple vows on Aug. 31, 1957, and solemn vows on Aug. 31, 1960.

He was ordained to the diaconate on Sept. 26, 1962, and to the priesthood on April 15, 1963.

He joined the Province of St. Martin de Porres when it was formed in 1979. He taught in Dallas and came to New Orleans in 1971, serving as pastor at St. Dominic for nine years.

In 1980, he served as Dominican chaplain at the Monastery of the Infant Jesus in Lufkin, Texas. For the next two years, he served as campus minister at Emory University in Atlanta. He also taught philosophy and theology at Aquinas Junior College in Nashville, Tennessee.

After serving as pastor at Holy Rosary Parish in Houston for nine years, he returned to New Orleans in 1996 and served for nine years as parochial vicar at St. Dominic. He served for the next three years as chaplain to the nuns in Lufkin and for four years at Holy Rosary Parish in Texas, before returning to St. Dominic.

His Funeral Mass was celebrated Jan. 13 at St. Dominic Church. Interment was Jan. 16 at the Dominican Friar Cemetery in Rosaryville.

In lieu of flowers, a donation can be made to the Southern Dominican Province, 1421 N. Causeway Blvd., Suite 200, Metairie, LA 70001.