Marquette University - Hilltop Yearbook (Milwaukee, WI)

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One student summarized Marquette’s identifying characteristic. “It’s the only place where you can find somebody teaching theology who hasn’t just memorized past theology,’’ he said. Father Cooke and his stall know that theology well,” he said. But the only reason they do is to theologize in the context of the modern mind.” Marquette and Father Cooke, he said, arc leaching persons to develop theology in the light of the modern Church, not just to memorize the old theology.” His conception of the doctoral and graduate programs springs from his understanding of the needs of the Catholic Church. A fellow Jesuit noted that even the other members of the community seldom sec him. He’s just too busy, the priest explains. We sometimes wonder how he keeps his sanity—he just never seems to relax. Obviously, the priest said, he is totally dedicated to God and to his work. Father Cooke is so absorbed in his work that he often does not say hello to friends. Once he asked his secretary why she had not been to work the previous day. It had been a holyday. A student who said he knew Father Cooke as well as anyone else does” has only seen him four times for more than 15 minutes since January, 1964. But the funny thing is. the student said, he knew everything I had been doing.” The fact that few persons know him well does not hinder his teaching ability. Marquette gave him the Pere Marquette award for teaching excellence last year. But his real laurel is the doctorate program in theology established for religious and laymen in 1963. Father Cooke, through his new program, molds theologians, not theology teachers. The doctoral program was not the first of its kind in the country, and there are other similar programs at Fordham and Catholic University of America. But like Father Cooke, the philosophy of the program is unique.

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21 to labor relations before the Milwaukee Ministerial Association, the Milwaukee Peace Council and the Northwestern Theological Seminary. He participated in the first inter-faith dialogue in Milwaukee with the First Methodist Church, and in a panel discussion with the Swiss Protestant theologian. Dr. Karl Barth, at the University of Chicago. Father Cooke is not really close to any of his students, graduate and undergraduate, though his name is nationally synonymous with modern Catholic thought. With his heavy black coat unbuttoned, hatless and carrying a bulging briefcase, he double-times between classes—more like a West Point plebc than a 42-year-old assistant professor of theology. He speaks slowly, softly and answers questions precisely. There is never embellishment or hedging. “It’s extremely hard to get close to the guy,” one theology graduate student said. “He moves so fast.” Students and faculty marvel at his pace. “'He’s up at 5 o’clock and in the ofiice by 7 each morning,” another student said. Father Cooke is still in his office at I 1 o’clock many nights. Father Cooke tapes his Origins of the Church television coarse.

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Father Cooke joined the Jesuit order in 1939 and received a masters degree in philosophy from St. Louis University in 1946. He was ordained six years later after completing his theological studies at St. Mary’s College, Kansas. He did advanced work in theology at Muenster, Westphalia. Germany, and attended the Institut Catholique in Paris from 1954 to 1956 when he received the doctorate in sacred theology. He joined the faculty here in the spring of 1957. Six months later he became head of the department. Father Cooke is simply a man, a priest, a scholar and an educator who gives unselfishly of himself. Not so simple.