MY FAVORITE PRIEST

A dedicated Dominican
By Arthur J. Brew

When he offered his first Mass in his home town of Acerra near Naples, Italy in 1931, Father Salvatore DiNardo’s mother made sure that everyone in the area would get to the church on time. She set off fireworks at dawn and had the sexton ring the parish church bells for almost an hour.

The 92-year old Dominican, one of the oldest active priests in California, had been ordained a week earlier in Naples in a much quieter ceremony and, for the past 69 years, he has done his loving mother proud. Father DiNardo gives some of the best sermons heard anywhere, seven days a week. Quite often he will talk about the saint of the day, a brief biographical sketch stressing how this holy man or woman relates to our own daily lives. His favorite saint is St. Thomas Aquinas.

“He was adamant in his vocation giving up a life of prestige, power, and comfort and resisting his own family in order to enter the Dominicans, and, at the same time, he was simple and humble. Deep in theology, he could teach and write about it with clarity and ease. Besides,” he adds, with a measure of pride, “he was Neapolitan and I occupied a cell not far from the one that had been his in the same monastery.”

Father DiNardo is a linguist (English, Italian, Latin, French, Spanish, “and the Neapolitan dialect which allows me to enjoy a conversation with a paesano and maybe to sing those immortal songs”) a musician, teacher, and a much beloved priest. Except for a balky knee and a slight hearing problem, he is not about to slow down. Asked when he plans to retire, he responds with a smile and points skyward, saying, “When he decides I should.”

For the past 30 years he has been the chaplain at Villa Siena Nursing Home in Mountain View in the heart of the Silicon Valley. He makes calls at a nearby hospital, at another nursing home, and visits the city jail once a month. Twenty four hours a day he stands ready to counsel anyone in need of spiritual advice and guidance. Father DiNardo is particularly fond of the Sacrament of Penance and is never too busy to hear someone’s confession. He doesn’t believe in confessions by appointment or on a Saturday afternoon from 4 to 4:30.

Father DiNardo has some thoughts about our present day Mass “The Latin language is foreign to the congregation, conveys an aura of mysteriousness and mysticism that fills the whole temple and our minds. I like it because I know Latin. But for our people, a Latin Mass remains a ritual spoken in a different hard to understand language which forces them to use a translation in the vernacular from a prayer book. So it seems reasonable for the celebrant to use their native language.

“I would change the Communion ritual. We receive Communion practically at the end of the Mass when the celebrant offers a short prayer and unceremoniously tells the faithful to go home because the Mass is ended. And they go away chatting and forgetting immediately that they have just received the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. They are allowed no time for thanksgiving. Communion should be received right after Consecration so that we can spend the rest of the time of the Mass in prayers of thanksgiving. But maybe for this change we need Vatican III.

“It was St. Philip Neri who with a lighted candle in his hand started walking beside a man who, after receiving communion, was leaving the church. To the flabbergasted man who wanted to know why, St. Philip explained, ‘You have just received Holy Communion. Jesus Christ is still in you and you have not finished your thanksgiving. So I am accompanying Him.’”

He loves his Dominican Order and its white-robed priests and brothers. Last summer his fellow Dominicans at St. Albert’s Priory in Oakland feted Father DiNardo with a special Mass and dinner on the occasion of his switching provinces from Naples to California. His father, a musician, came to the States before World War II and was a naturalized citizen. Father DiNardo holds dual citizenship—U.S. and Italian. While visiting his family in the States after the Second World War, he was asked by the Superior General of the Dominicans, an old friend, if he would consider staying in America and serving in California. His initial assignment was an Italian parish in Pittsburg, east of Oakland, and he taught for three years at Loyola Marymount in Palos Verdes. Later, he was invited to serve at Villa Siena after giving a retreat in Mountain View. No small number of church goers have drifted to the handsome Villa Siena chapel from their regular parishes to attend a simple, old-fashioned Mass and hear an exceptional sermon.

Father DiNardo would like to return to his beloved Italy one last time to walk the lanes and back alleys of Acerra, to visit relatives and old friends, and to relive once more that magical morning when his mother set off those fireworks which could be seen as far away as Naples. His tired and well-traveled knee may not permit this long journey home but Father DiNardo returns often in his thoughts and prayers to that special day almost seventy years ago.

Back to Homiletic & Pastoral Review Table of Contents February 2001

Back to Catholic Information Center Main Periodical Page