He is the senior member of the Viatorian Community in this country, and a career mathematician who has inspired countless students. But it’s not vectors and equations that Fr. Arnold Perham, CSV, shares in this podcast episode. It’s his story.
And it’s a veritable history tour, from his birth two weeks after the stock market crash in 1929 — the same year St. Viator Parish in Chicago was dedicated — to his years at St. Viator School during World War II, to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in his sophomore year.
“The priests and nuns (at St. Viator School) took it upon themselves to be beacons of hope,” Fr. Perham says. “They developed an environment where the kids felt at ease, welcomed and safe.”
In this in-depth edition of Viatorian Voices: Conversations on the Way, Fr. Perham shares his story with Br. John Eustice, CSV. Between his birth and formative years at St. Viator through the present, it adds up to nine decades of witness with the Viatorian Community.