Rev. Bill O’Donnell, 73; Berkeley-Based Priest Was Devoted to Social Activism

The Rev. Bill O’Donnell, a Catholic priest and activist who was arrested more than 250 times during a life of social protest, has died of a heart attack. He was 73.

O’Donnell, who was known as “Wild Bill,” died Dec. 8 at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley, seat of the progressive parish he led for more than 20 years.

He had celebrated morning Mass, had breakfast with the parish staff and was at his desk working on an Advent homily when he collapsed.

Throughout his long career, O’Donnell gained a reputation for his fearless confrontations with police during antiwar, labor and civil-rights protests. His friends included Cesar Chavez, the founder of the United Farm Workers union, and actor Martin Sheen, with whom he had been arrested.

“I was really honored to know Bill,” Sheen told the San Francisco Chronicle. “If you meet one person like him in your life, you’re a lucky person. I’m a lucky person.”

O’Donnell not only marched with Chavez for the rights of migrant farmworkers, but also scaled a barbed-wire fence in San Francisco to protest repression of Indonesian citizens in East Timor, and traveled to Cuba to protest the U.S. embargo. He made 20 trips to Mexico and Latin America and two to the Middle East to champion the rights of the poor and oppressed.

He criticized the wealthy, once commenting that “as long as there’s a poor person, no one has a right to have more.”

Born and raised on a ranch just outside Livermore, Calif., O’Donnell was an identical twin with six brothers and sisters. He decided at the age of 12 that he wanted to become a priest.

“Bill heard the sister say being a priest was the best thing you could do with your life,” said his sister, Mary O’Donnell, an alcohol and drug recovery counselor. “He said, ‘Mary, I want to be a priest.’ I was surprised because he was such a hell-raiser.”

O’Donnell was ordained in 1956 at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, Calif., and joined the Catholic Diocese of Oakland in 1962. He continued to be something of a hell-raiser, often clashing with Catholic superiors and describing himself as “a bishop’s nightmare.” He defied a Vatican ban on discussion of ordaining women by praying for such ordination during Mass.

In 1973, O’Donnell became pastor of St. Joseph the Worker, a parish renowned for its social activism. After serving more than 20 years at St. Joseph, he relinquished his major duties eight years ago, but never completely retired.

O’Donnell’s concern for a variety of social causes was widely known. He demonstrated regularly at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a weapons laboratory east of San Francisco, and co-founded a drug rehabilitation program, Options Recovery Services, in Berkeley.

Last year, he joined a peace vigil at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Ga. Along with others, O’Donnell considered the institute a training ground for troops who supported Central and South American dictators.

When he was sentenced to six months at Atwater Federal Penitentiary for trespassing, O’Donnell accused the judge of being “a pimp for the Pentagon.” It was the longest jail sentence he had ever received.

Released in March, O’Donnell spoke shortly afterward at his Berkeley church, promising that serving time in jail would never deter him from what he saw as right.

“Protesting is a way of life,” he said in that March 9 address. “You’re never free of the responsibility to protest evil. Wherever lies are told, injustices committed, you have to protest -- you have no choice.”

He said he was sustained during the dreary jail time by more than 2,000 letters he received from supporters and by helping with weekly Communion services, praying with inmates and hearing their confessions.

O’Donnell subsequently returned to the Georgia institute to protest further.

Two weeks before his death, O’Donnell staged a sit-in at the San Francisco federal building to protest the war in Iraq.

In addition to his sister Mary, of Berkeley, he is survived by two brothers, Edward of Lafayette, Calif., and Jim of Moraga, Calif.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be sent to St. Joseph the Worker Church, Options Recovery in Berkeley or School of the Americas Watch.