February 26, 2024
With sadness, we announce that our brother, Rev. Charles J. Brunick, C.S.P., entered eternal life this morning, February 26, 2024.
He died at the Paulist Motherhouse in New York City after a struggle with cancer. He was 80 years old.
Fr. Charlie had been a member of the Paulist community for 60 years and a priest for almost 54 years. During his priesthood, he was a parish pastor, campus minister, and staff member at Catholic Information Centers.
Charles Joseph Brunick was born May 26, 1943, in Quincy, MA, one of five children of Vincent and Elizabeth Brunick.
When he was in the sixth grade, his family moved to Camden, NJ, where he attended Catholic schools.
As a young teen, he went to a vocations exhibit in Philadelphia where he picked up a Paulist brochure with the title “Are You a Missionary to Main Street?”.
“The Paulist mission of doing convert work and instruction work, and helping people to understand the Catholic faith and find their place in it, was very attractive for me in my high school years and in the early years of the seminary,” he later said.
In September, 1961, he began to study at St. Peter’s, the one-time Paulist junior seminary in Baltimore, MD. He entered the Paulist novitiate on September 6, 1963.
He made his First Promise to the Paulist community on September 8, 1964, and his Final Promise on September 8, 1967.
During these years, he studied at St. Paul’s College, our major seminary in Washington, D.C., which was then a degree-granting institution.
He was ordained a priest on March 7, 1970.
Fr. Charlie was a campus minister for the first 15 years of his priesthood.
From 1970 to 1974, he served at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, TX. There, he taught for-credit courses in the “Bible Chair” program.
He served in Boston from 1974 to 1977 as director of the Newman Center at Boston University.
In 1977, Fr. Charlie became pastor at St. John XXIII University Parish at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN, serving there through 1985.
From 1986 to 1988, he was pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church in Layton, UT.
Fr. Charlie entered preaching ministry and evangelization work in 1990 as an associate director of the Catholic Information Center in Grand Rapids, MI.
That work took him to Chicago in 1993 where he spent the next 14 years as an associate pastor at Old St. Mary’s Church, while still being involved in evangelization work.
In Chicago, Paulist Fr. Frank DeSiano recalled, Fr. Charlie “was instrumental in the extensive, nearly 15-year transition from our place on Van Buren Street to South Michigan Avenue.”
“Many of the parishioners saw Charlie as the ‘continuity man,’ someone who represented the solid presence of the Paulists to them as they looked for a new site, struggled to raise money, and proudly built a new church,” said Fr. Frank.
In 2007, Fr. Charlie moved to Portland, OR, where he served first at the Northwest Center for Evangelization and Reconciliation. In 2010, he became pastor at Portland’s St. Philip Neri Church.
He entered senior ministry in 2016, living first at the Paulist Motherhouse in New York City. From 2018 to 2022, he lived at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Grand Rapids, MI.
In July, 2023, he returned to the Motherhouse.
In a 2022 oral history, Fr. Charlie said, “being a teacher and a preacher has been the most important part of my ministry.”
“I like to see the excitement when people make connections in their lives,” he said. “I have always felt we don’t bring God or Jesus to people. They are already there. But, through our preaching and our teaching, we can help other people have those ‘aha’ moments and help them recognize God’s presence and God’s work in their lives.”
Paulist Fr. Michael Evernden was in the seminary during some of the same years as Fr. Charlie, and they served together in Portland. He recalled that Fr. Charlie was willing to spend time with each person that he encountered.
“Living with Charlie was like living at home — in prayer, at work, and just hanging out together — I was at home, we were at home. You can’t ask for more than that,” said Fr. Michael.
In addition to his parents, Fr. Charlie was preceded in death by his brothers, Vincent and John Brunick; and his sister, Jane Kolongowski.
Fr. Charlie is survived by his brother Paulists; his sister, Betty Ann Wells; and many nieces, nephews and cousins.
Our prayer for our brother, Charlie:
May the angels lead you into paradise,
may the martyrs come to welcome you,
and take you to the holy city,
the new and eternal Jerusalem.
Arrangements
The Mass of Christian Burial for Rev. Charles J. Brunick, C.S.P., will be celebrated at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 2, 2024, at the Church of St. Paul The Apostle in New York City.
The celebrant of the funeral Mass will be Very Rev. René Constanza, president of the Paulist Fathers.
The homily will be shared by Rev. John Collins, C.S.P.
There will be a time of visitation from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Saturday in the church.
The Funeral Mass will be broadcast live online here.
Burial will follow at St. Thomas the Apostle Cemetery in Oak Ridge, NJ.
