A funeral for a 68-year-old Catholic priest killed Sunday in a car crash on U.S. Highway 101 is set to take place tonight at the San Jose monastery where he had lived, according to a monastery employee.
Rosary and vigil services for the Rev. Richard Mandoli will be held at 7 p.m. at the Mount St. Joseph Carmelite Monastery at 12455 Clayton Road, the monastery employee said.
Mandoli, a native of San Francisco who was ordained as a priest in 1992, was one of several residents at the monastery, operated by friars of the Carmelite order, according to the monastery's the Rev. Matthew Williams.
At about 11:20 a.m. Sunday, Mandoli was driving a 2000 Toyota Corolla on northbound Highway 101 south of East Brokaw Road when the driver of a 1994 Ford Mustang lost control and crashed into the Corolla, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The impact sent the Corolla spinning off the roadway and down a dirt embankment and the driver's side door slammed into a tree. Mandoli died soon afterward at a hospital, CHP officials said.
The Ford then struck a center guardrail but the 27-year-old male driver, a San Jose resident, and his passenger were not hurt, officers said.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, CHP Officer Ross Lee said.
Local
The driver of the Ford may have lost control while changing lanes and did not see the Corolla when he crashed into it, Lee said.
The Ford driver has not been arrested or cited and alcohol or drug use was not a factor in the crash, Lee said.
Mandoli graduated from Balboa High School in San Francisco in 1963 and received an undergraduate degree in history at San Francisco State University in 1967, according to the monastery.
After working for years for Bank of America, he joined the Carmelite order at the monastery in 1986 and after his ordination took part in mass, confession and sacrament services, Williams said.
