Former St. Mike’s principal cherished as advocate for Catholic education

[attach]7379[/attach]St. Michael’s College School said goodbye to former president and principal Father Thomas Mohan on Dec. 10, two days after he had died at age 84 following a battle with leukemia.

A native of London, Ont., Mohan was a lifelong educator. He graduated from St. Mike’s in 1948 and was appointed to Etobicoke’s Michael Power High School after he was ordained as a priest in 1959.

After 12 years of teaching, he was asked to found two other Etobicoke-area high schools in the 1970s.

He became president and principal of St. Mike’s in 1993.

Director of student services David Fischer, who began teaching theology at St. Mike’s that same year, remembers Mohan as a supportive mentor who shaped his approach to the profession.

“You could always drop in and talk with him,” he said. Mohan thought of Catholic education as “the church in study,” Fischer says, and his advice was steeped in his Catholic beliefs.

Mohan retired from St. Mike’s in 2000.

“He was a very industrious man,” Fischer said. “He worked long hours, he was at all of the social events, he loved to meet with parents and students and families.”

Mohan also officiated at Fischer’ marriage ceremony in 1999, and baptized the couple’s first daughter.

After retiring, Mohan lived at Father Henry Carr Farm in Beaton, Ont.

“He was a great administrator, a great teacher, and certainly one of the greatest advocates for Catholic education in Canada,” Fischer said of Mohan. “He’s going to be missed from that perspective, but I think from a personal perspective I’ll miss him as a priest and a friend.”