World travelling Fr. Doyle called Toronto home

TORONTO - Fr. Michael Doyle, a Spiritan priest who served around the world but called Toronto home, has died. He was 82.

Fr. Doyle passed away peacefully at Toronto's Houses of Providence July 16. He had fought Alzheimer's Disease for many years.

Fr. Doyle made his first profession as a Spiritan in 1950 and was ordained a priest in 1959. Over his 56 years as a priest, Fr. Doyle — a native of Cork, Ireland — served in a variety of teaching, administrative and pastoral positions in Canada, Papua New Guinea, Italy and Australia.

First assigned to Toronto's Neil McNeil High School in 1960, Fr. Doyle became the school's principal in 1965. From 1968-71 he served as director of Student Services at Centennial College before becoming superior of the Spiritan District of Ontario in 1972 and later the first provincial superior of the newly founded Spiritan Province of TransCanada. He left that position to take up pastoral work in Papua New Guinea before a call to serve as first assistant to the Spiritan Superior General in Rome from 1986-93.

He returned to Canada in 1993 as associate pastor of St. Joseph's parish in Scarborough before returning to Papua New Guinea and later Australia. He came back to Canada in 1998, serving at St. Joseph's until 2001 when he became the Spiritans director of Vocation Ministry, retiring in 2008.

Visitation for Fr. Doyle will be held July 23 (7-9 pm.) at O'Connor Funeral Home at 1939 Lawrence Ave. E. and his funeral Mass will be celebrated July 24 at St. Joseph's Church at 200 Morrish Rd.