In Memoriam: Joseph W. Evans

By Ralph McInerny

Professor Joseph Evans, Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame since its founding in 1958, died on August 27, 1979. After a funeral Mass in Sacred Heart Church on campus, he was buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery.

No one who knew him evn slightly could have been unaware of Joe's devotion to Jacques Maritain. During his long tenure as Director of the Maritain Center, Joe labored to make Maritain known to English readers by way of a large number of translations, among them Integral Humanism, The Grace and Humanity of Jesus, and God and the Permission of Evil. At the same time , Joe introduced class after class of undergraduates to the thought of Maritain. Evans had become a legendary teacher and his passing was marked by a huge outpouring of grief on the part of his colleagues and the student body.

Before his death, Evans had completed English translations of Approches sans Entraves and Carnet de Notes. The Center contains some archival material of importance and a special collection of books which facilitate research on Maritain. Many friends of Maritain came to know Joe Evans over the years and they will know the depths and intensity of his discipleship.

We at Notre Dame are particularly saddened by his death and are resolved that the Jacques Maritain Center here, the first such center in the world and one founded under the aegis of Maritain himself, shall take its place among the many other centers that have sprung up since, not least the Cercle d'Études Jacques et Raïssa Maritain at Kolbsheim.

Originally published in the Cahiers Jacques Maritain (September 1980).