Fr David Strong SJ, The Australian dictionary of Jesuit biography 1848-2015, Second Edition, 2017:
McEvoy, Patrick

Philosopher, teacher; born Brighton, Melbourne, 5 February 1910; died Sydney, 7 May 1982, aged 72.

Patrick McEvoy spent his boyhood in Croydon, Victoria, and was educated at Xavier College. He was always intellectually advanced, and completed his secondary studies when only 15 years of age. He entered the Society, 2 March 1926, Loyola College, Greenwich, a few weeks after his 16th birthday.

He pursued all his priestly studies in Ireland, at Rathfarnham, Tullamore, and Milltown Park, and gained a BA degree in classics from the University of Dublin. He never did regency, and was ordained, 24 June 1937. He returned to Australia in 1939, after tertianship in Wales, and remained on the philosophy faculty until the end of 1961, during which time he was prefect of studies from 1941-1961. He was transferred to teach secondary school boys Latin at St Aloysius' College, Sydney, 1962-82, and was prefect of studies, 1970-71.

McEvoy was never given the opportunity to undertake special post-graduate studies in philosophy, but that did not seem to worry him. He had a strong influence on many Jesuit scholastics, especially those interested in philosophy. He lectured in classically pure Latin for an hour without notes and with intense concentration and seriousness, in clear and logical fashion. He set high standards for himself and demanded the same of others. He was intolerant of weakness in people, and could not adequately deal with weaker students. He saw truth very clearly, and wondered why others could not be so enlightened. In examinations, however, he could be gentle, and was always courteous and respectful.

He was the most distinguished metaphysician in the province, drew up his own codex in rational psychology and natural theology, but otherwise, wrote little. He was not a neo-Scholastic, but rather belonged to the transcendental Thomist school of Pierre Scheuer and Joseph Maréchal from Louvain. Other professors did not always accept his views, and students were sometimes caught between these differing opinions, especially during the oral examinations.

McEvoy was a complex character in many ways, very clever and competent, with a childlike simplicity in many of his daily reflections on life. Whatever his task, whether as philosophy professor, teacher of biology, destroyer of forests, teacher of Latin, administrator of studies, he performed it all with extraordinary perfection. Yet, while always sure about his work, he seemed to be unsure of himself. From being a 'dapper young man' in his early days in the Society, he went to an extreme state of sartorial disrepair. When he took up biology, his room took on the air of a neglected slaughterhouse. At St Aloysius' College, his room took many months to clean up and paint and retouch the walls. He had lived in a slum. One of his major recreations was watching the wrestling on television on Saturday mornings while correcting Latin exercises.

A short time after giving a scholastic 'contio' on the sacredness of the priestly state in which he was reported as saying that any form of manual labour was beneath the sacerdotal dignity, he plunged himself into such a degree of servile work as had not been seen in a Jesuit before. He became a truck driver and woodsman. He built up a wartime woodpile at Watsonia that seemed to rival the Great Wall of China!

As a scholastic himself he was an enfant terrible with superiors. They wondered if he was suitable for ordination. But as minister of philosophers he was a very stern disciplinarian.

Only a magnificent physique such as he had could have stood up to the battering to which he subjected it. Periods of intense study alternated with bouts of excessive physical labour. He smoked with all the avidity of a confirmed addict. A home-made cigarette would be waiting with matches to be snatched within seconds of the end of a lecture. On Long Table days, and other days, he enjoyed the opportunity of partaking in any liquid refreshment provided. He appeared to have an indestructible constitution.

For years he belted around the countryside on a heavy motorcycle whose mechanism and eccentricities he soon mastered with his usual competence, and which he controlled in the same unrelenting manner with which he tackled everything. When he was at St Aloysius' College, every year he would travel from Sydney to Melbourne on his current rusty mount. He used to stop at Tarcutta, buy some meat pies and then sleep under a tree. On one occasion, making the journey by night, he was thrown off the machine. He lay unconscious on the ground for some time. When he recovered consciousness he remounted the cycle and continued riding. However, he soon discovered that in his semi-stunned state he was travelling in the opposite direction.

The change from philosophy professor to teacher of Latin to secondary boys was considerable, but McEvoy proved himself most adaptable. He was respected and even liked by the small number of boys who met him in Latin classes. With staff he was reserved except on those occasions of school celebrations, when he could prove that he had greater staying power than anyone else. He found it hard to relate to Jesuits, as he was very critical of their weaknesses. In recreation he would sit by himself, drink and read the paper. If greeted by a visitor, he would respond with a short burst of strained joviality and then, not being able to continue, would relapse into silence. He never gave the appearance that he was interested in others unless they related to him in some way.

This was the complexity of McEvoy, talented in so many fields and yet remaining manque. There was an intense shyness, perhaps even a totally unwarranted inferiority complex. He was not comfortable with his peers, but he enjoyed the company of the young, either scholastics or adolescent boys. With these he could be relaxed and at ease. He was not just a rationalist; he could meet people heart to heart. McEvoy, however, must remain an important figure in the Australian province. He was the real founder of the new Australian philosophate and a man of solid faith and unadorned spirituality; a man rough hewn perhaps by the unwisdom of other times, but never destroyed by it.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr David Strong SJ.)