PROVIDENCE — What started as a one-year commitment to build a residence for those members of the clergy who’ve transitioned from active ministry to senior priest status eventually blossomed into a 39-year labor of love for Father Edward J. McGovern.
Although he already had a full slate of responsibilities at the time — for one serving as diocesan vicar for Financial Administration — it was his financial acumen and organizational skills that made him the ideal candidate to launch the project in 1977.
Bishop Louis E. Gelineau called upon him to first serve as chair of the administrative committee tasked with identifying a location for and then overseeing development of what would become the St. John Vianney Residence, and be located on the grounds of Our Lady of Providence Seminary on Mt. Pleasant Avenue.
On December 12, 1977, within four weeks of the project’s groundbreaking, Bishop Gelineau appointed Father McGovern as administrator of the new facility. A year later, he was named its director, and has remained at the helm ever since.
A staunch advocate for acknowledging the continued contributions of those he prefers to call “senior priests,” — priests who continue to serve the faithful in many ways, even after they reach the age of 70 and begin to retire from active ministry — Father McGovern plans to finish his career as director at the end of this month.
“I’m going to be 90 in May, so I figured it was time to start taking it a little easier,” he smiled.
“It’s time, time to get some new ideas,” he added, noting that he would still continue to reside at St. John Vianney and would provide any assistance needed to Father Roger Houle, who will take over as the new interim director until July 1 when a permanent director is appointed.
Bishop Thomas J. Tobin said he very much appreciated the decades of service that Father McGovern has provided in the care of senior priests.
“In his many years of service, Father McGovern has made, and continues to make, lasting contributions to the Diocese of Providence, especially in caring for his brother priests. We have all benefitted from his personal dedication and expertise, and for that we are deeply grateful,” he said.
Father McGovern said he is glad to be leaving a legacy dedicated to providing the best of care to priests who have given their whole lives in service to others.
“I operated on one simple principal goal for St. John Vianney and that was quality of services, especially the food service,” he said. “I wanted to make it a good program, a quality program.”
He is proud of the homelike environment that the residence provides for those living there, with services including daily meals, and weekly housekeeping, as well as a chapel and wellness program, in which a qualified nurse visits the residence regularly for health and nutritional checkups. Special dinner and social hours are also scheduled for the residents, who also benefit from the interactions they have with the young seminarians preparing for the priesthood across the grounds.
Through his experiences Father McGovern, who also holds a master’s degree in social work from Boston College, has found that from an interpersonal standpoint there are nuances present in dealing with a community of senior priests that may differ from the social environments of other retirement residences.
“Over the years, I’ve taken notice of the way the men interrelate with each other. They’re very good at helping each other. If someone is sick or needs a ride, they are there for them,” he said.
But, he’s also found that for senior priests, who have learned to be self-sufficient, they also need some balance in their lives.
“It’s a balance between helping each other and being very respectful of their privacy. That’s very important for priests, this respect for their privacy,” he said.
On Monday afternoon Father McGovern joined a few of his fellow senior priests around a table to chat in the comfortable dining room at St. John Vianney Residence.
Like a group of high school or college students decades their junior, the men needle each other with jokes and mock disdain until a peal of laughter envelopes the room, with all saying they are glad to be in this experience together.
“We hate to see you go,” Father Anthony Iwuc sings to the tune of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”
“He is a jolly good fellow, he really is,” he says of his friend, Father McGovern.
“Ed makes it special, living at St. John Vianney,” says Father John McElroy, who was ordained in 1945.
Father McGovern said he remembers seeing Father McElroy’s mother in the pews at Mass after he was ordained to the priesthood on December 8, 1951, after graduating from Pontifical North American College in Rome.
Despite being on the verge of turning 90, Father McGovern still displays a great deal of the stamina and intellectual curiosity that his housemates find energizing.
“Being so young at heart, you know, he keeps the rest of us young,” Father Robert Beirne said.
For Father McGovern it was sort of a running joke early on when people thought his only responsibility in the diocese was serving as director of St. John Vianney.
“They thought this is the only job I had!” he laughs.
Indeed, following his ordination in 1951 through to the present, he has worn many hats, including those of assistant pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish, where he began; director of diocesan Catholic Social Services; moderator of the Catholic Charity Appeal; coordinator of Catholic Charities; coordinator of the Bishop’s Campaign; vicar for Financial Administration; pastor of both St. Margaret and Mary, Mother of Mankind Parishes; advocate on the diocesan Marriage Tribunal; a weekend assistant at 10 parishes and assistant chaplain at the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary at Fruit Hill, a ministry he continues to serve in happily, regularly offering Mass for the Sisters there.
He has also held many leadership positions within the diocese, including as moderator and member of the Priest Council over multiple terms; a member of the College of Consultors; president of the R.I. Conference of Social Work; chair of the Governor’s Welfare Advisory Board; chair of the Advisory Board of Public Assistance; a member of the President’s Committee for the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth; dean of two diocesan deaneries; chair of the Ecumenical Council of East Providence; and member of the Board of the Council of Community Services of R.I.
“St. John Vianney was a side job,” he says, but one he treated with the utmost reverence.
For 26 years he was chaplain to the sisters at St. Vincent’s on Mt. Pleasant Avenue, an old orphanage with land in the back that had been cleared for the building of a home for unwed mothers.
When it came time to build St. John Vianney and the committee was scouting for a location, he suggested the open expanse behind what is now Our Lady of Providence Seminary, one the diocese had once considered using as a home for single, pregnant women.
“We were going to build it for unwed mothers, now it’s for unwed Fathers,” he joked in typical fashion at the opening of the 16-apartment facility on December 28, 1978.
Following the opening, Father McGovern asked Bishop Gelineau what he should do now that the facility was complete.
“Why don’t you take it on for one year,” Bishop Gelineau told him.
That year became two and so on until now.
About three months ago, Father McGovern said the idea came to him that it was time to draw the curtain on his 39 years of service at St. John Vianney.
“When I finally decided to retire I called up Bishop Gelineau and said to him ‘Bishop the one year is up!’
In reflecting on Father McGovern’s continued service at the residence through the years, Bishop Gelineau said that he had been a close co-worker of his since 1972 when he arrived in the diocese.
“One of the best things I ever did was to appoint him vicar of Finance. He’s got the right mind for that, he’s got a great love for the priesthood,” Bishop Gelineau said.
Through that appointment Father McGovern displayed the skills needed to manage the development of the retirement residence project.
“I thought that not only will he do a good job on the finances of it, but he will be especially good for every priest because he’s got great respect for the priesthood and for the priests of our diocese. He knows them all well. He has a great esteem for the good priesthood.”
“I think he’s done a great job for us. He gives his life for the priesthood and for the diocese and he’s done so very generously and very competently.”
Father Nicholas Smith, a native of Ireland and resident at St. John Vianney, appreciates the service Father McGovern has given to those senior priests residing there. He is glad that his friend and colleague will continue to live there and share his gift of friendship with everyone.
“It’s a delicate job and he’s done it with grace and with style and there are different personalities coming together. He’s been able to handle all these different kinds of personalities and that’s a gift,” he said.
