He was ordained a priest on September 14, 1933, at St. Mary's Seminary in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he went on to obtain a bachelor of divinity in 1934.

[1] Smith had begun postgraduate work for a doctorate at Fordham University in 1938, but his studies were interrupted when he received an assignment to teach philosophy at Duquesne in 1940.

[1][2] An obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted that Smith's presidency "guided the university through a major post-World War II expansion fed by the influx of veterans studying under the G.I.

Bill" and "supervised an expansion of the school's physical plant, improvements in faculty benefits and the founding of WDUQ, the city's first college radio station".

Before his death, he resided at the Holy Ghost Animation Center in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park.