June 10, 2024
With great sadness, we announce that our brother, Rev. Vincent McKiernan, C.S.P., entered eternal life on Monday, June 10, 2024.
He died at Mohun Health Care Center in Columbus, OH, after a struggle with prostate cancer. He was 93 years old.
A priest for 67 years, Fr. Vinny was a Catholic campus minister, spiritual director, retreat director, director of novices, author, and mentor, beloved by countless lay people and Paulists alike.
Fr. Vinny had a lifelong relationship with the Paulist Fathers. He grew up in a Paulist parish and entered our one-time high school seminary program at age 13.
Vincent McKiernan was born January 15, 1931, a son of Patrick and Elizabeth Coogan McKiernan.
He grew up in Inwood, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan in New York City where his family attended Good Shepherd Church, a parish served by the Paulists from 1911 to 2006.
“It was an Irish-Catholic enclave at the very tip of northern Manhattan. My mother and father were from Ireland but they met in New York City. There were seven children born during the Depression,” he later recalled. “And the parish was the centerpiece of the neighborhood.”
He entered our then-high school seminary program at St. Charles College in Baltimore, MD, in 1944, and continued to St. Peter’s College junior seminary for his first two years of college.
He entered the Paulist novitiate on August 24, 1950, made his First Promises on September 8, 1951, and Final Promises on September 8, 1954.
He earned his undergraduate degree at St. Paul’s College, our former major seminary in Washington, D.C., which was then a degree-granting institution.
He was ordained a priest on May 11, 1957.
In his first priestly assignment, Fr. Vinny was associate pastor of Good Shepherd Church in New York City through August, 1958.
After a year of graduate studies in Greek and Latin at the Catholic University of America, he became a faculty member at St. Peter’s College, our junior seminary, teaching there through 1968.
During those years, he was involved with the Christian Family Movement.
On August 28, 1963, Fr. Vinny accompanied a bus load of people to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
In September, 1968, he moved to Oak Ridge, NJ, to become the Paulists’ assistant director of novices. The following year, he became director of novices, a role he served in through 1976. He is remembered as one of the finest and most beloved novice masters in Paulist history.
“Every year, a new group came in. And each group had their own flavor. I let them develop their own way of being there,” he recalled in an oral history.
In 1976, he moved to Boston. He served on the staff of the Paulist Center in Boston from 1979 to 1988, and was superior of the Paulists based in that city.
During his years in Boston, he began to lead weekend retreats and one-day workshops on centering prayer.
From 1988 to 1990, he lived in Tahoe City, CA, on a sabbatical and then leading parish missions.
In 1990, Fr. Vinny moved to Columbus, OH, where he would live and minister for the rest of his life.
He served as an associate director at St. Thomas More Newman Center at The Ohio State University through July, 2022.
In Columbus, he continued his “Introduction to Centering Prayer” ministry, leading retreats and workshops at the Newman Center, other Catholic parishes, and other Christian churches.
“This has been a rich gift for me. Centering prayer is a beautiful gift to share. It’s a way of helping people with their relationship immediately with God,” he said.
Fr. Vinny also led retreats at St. Mary’s of the Lake, the Paulist summer home on Lake George, NY.
He also loved a short turn of phrase. He called his own sayings “Vin-a-mins,” combining his name with the word “vitamins.” He compiled them into spiral bound volumes in the style of a daily desk calendar and also shared them on Twitter.
An interviewer once asked Fr. Vinny, “What is spirituality?”
He responded, “In actuality, spirituality is life. Prayer is one type of activity. But, I think at the end, at the judgment, God’s not going to ask you, ‘How often did you pray?’ God’s going to ask, ‘How often did you love someone?’ and ‘How often did you engage people where they are?’
“Jesus did very human things. He fed the 5,000. He changed water into wine. He celebrated people’s basic needs. That’s spirituality. Prayer is just one form of spirituality. It’s when we are explicitly trying to be in relationship with God. But hopefully we are doing our whole life in God.”
Fr. Vinny was preceded in death by his parents; his siblings: Patrick McKiernan, Robert McKiernan, Mary (May) Teates, Sr. Kathleen McKiernan, S.C., John McKiernan, and N. Anne McKiernan; his sisters-in-law, Glynis and Elvira (Vera); his brother-in-law, Robert Teates; and his niece, Glynis.
In addition to his Paulist brothers, he is survived by his sister-in-law, Peggy McKiernan, his nieces and nephews: Deborah Pero, Patricia McKiernan, Timothy McKiernan, Karen Allen, Charlene Sagar, Gail Peterson, Shawn Teates, Robert McKiernan, Jr., Christopher McKiernan, Mark McKiernan, Elizabeth Healy, Peggy Ann Panker, and Patrick McKiernan; many great-nephews, great-nieces and cousins; the Paulist Associates in Columbus, OH; his friend, Sr. Florence Mallon, S.C., and many other dear friends.
Our prayer for our brother, Vinny:
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
Visiting hours for Rev. Vincent McKiernan, C.S.P. will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 14, 2024, at the Egan-Ryan Northwest Chapel, 4661 Kenny Rd., Columbus, OH 43220, with a vigil service at 7:30 p.m. led by Fr. Steven Bell, C.S.P.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 15, 2024, at St. Elizabeth Church (part of the future St. Josephine Bakhita Parish) at 6077 Sharon Woods Blvd., Columbus, OH 43229.
Beginning at 9 a.m., there will be an hour of visitation in the Church prior to the Mass of Christian Burial.
The Mass will be broadcast live on YouTube.
The principal celebrant of the Mass will be Very Rev. René Constanza, C.S.P., president of the Paulist Fathers. The homily will be shared by Rev. Stuart Wilson-Smith, C.S.P.
On Friday, July 12, 2024, a 10 a.m. Mass also will be celebrated at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City.
Fr. Vinny’s cremated remains will be placed in the Paulist section of St. Thomas the Apostle Cemetery in Oak Ridge, NJ.