Father Patrick R.
Morrissy C.Ss.R.
July 10, 1929 - January 2, 2004
Father Patrick R. Morrissy
C.Ss.R. passed away at about 3:30 a.m. on Friday, January 2, 2004 at
Bangkok General Hospital. A wake was arranged for 2 nights at Holy
Redeemer Church in Bangkok January 2 and 3. All projects’
representatives and handicapped students from Pattaya attended the
requiem in Bangkok.
Father
Banchong guides the hearse to the final resting place.
The requiem continued at St. Nikolaus Church in
Pattaya until Tuesday, January 6 when over 1,000 people turned out to
pay their last respects to Father Patrick Morrisy at St Nikolaus Church.
All the children from the Redemptorist Center’s five projects, members
of the local administration and business community congregated to say
their goodbyes to a great man who had given his life to the service of
others for more than 40 years.
Final
prayers are recited before the casket is lowered into the grave.
Following the 10 a.m. mass, conducted by Bishop Yod
Pimpisarn, the procession was led to Father Morrisy’s final resting
place in the St Nikolaus Church cemetery, next to his long time
colleague and friend Father Ray Brennan, where mourners placed flowers
and said their final goodbyes to yet another great man lost from Pattaya
and Thailand’s community.
Early Years
Pat Morrissy was born in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A. on
July 10, 1929. His parents, Patrick and Ellen, were immigrants from
Ireland. They had 8 children, 2 girls and 6 boys, of whom Patrick was
the youngest. Two of the boys did not survive infancy. Patrick grew up
in Detroit and was a member of Holy Redeemer Parish there in its heyday
as the largest English-speaking parish in the world. There were more
than 20 Redemptorist priests attached to the parish and over 40 I.H.M.
nuns. He completed his primary education at Holy Redeemer School.
Seminary Years
At the age of 14, Patrick entered the Redemptorist
minor seminary at Kirkwood, Missouri. He finished high school and two
years of college at St. Joseph’s Preparatory Seminary by 1949. After a
year of novitiate in De Soto, Missouri, he made his vows as a religious
of the Redemptorist Congregation and proceeded to the major seminary of
the Redemptorist Fathers in a town called Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. There
he studied philosophy, theology, sacred scripture and other subjects
necessary for training for the priesthood for a period of 6 years, and
was ordained a priest in 1955. In 1957, having completed his education
for work in the Redemptorist apostolate, he was assigned to the
Congregation’s foreign mission in Thailand.
Thailand
His first year in Thailand was devoted to the study
of the Thai language. This was done under the direction of Brother
Ludovico, a religious belonging to the Brothers of St. Gabriel
Congregation. Following his introduction to the Thai language, Patrick
was assigned to begin his missionary career in Northeastern Thailand.
For a period of 6 months he worked under the direction of Fr. Bob Martin
in Viengkhuk village. For this period of time he was attached to the
Redemptorist community in Nong Khai.
Khon Kaen
In 1959 he was assigned to a new community of
Redemptorists opened in the city of Khon Kaen. While attached to this
community with Frs. Tom Griffith and Harry Thiel, Patrick undertook the
pastorate of Thabom church in Loei province. He was stationed there for
5 years. During this time he was slow to adapt to the Laotian dialect
spoken through the Northeast because of the particular difficulty of
listening to the dialect spoken in Thabom. Some thought that he just
didn’t have a knack for learning language, but it was more a problem
of listening to the rapid fire speech of the Thabom people. In later
assignments he advanced much more rapidly in his use of Laotian.
Grieving
relatives and loved ones bid Father Morrisy a fond farewell.
Patrick’s second assignment was as superior and
pastor in the city of Khon Kaen. He did not change residences, he just
changed hats. He took over the assignment from Fr. Tom Griffith and
worked in Khon Kaen for a period of 6 years. His assignment coincided
with the opening of the Catholic School in the city, also named Holy
Redeemer. He began a long, fruitful relationship with the Infant Jesus
Sisters who took over as directors of the school. That first year,
Patrick also taught English in the school in addition to his pastoral
duties in the parish. While directing the community and parish in Khon
Kaen a new community residence and chapel were built.
Further Assignments
Following his 2 terms as pastor and superior in Khon
Kaen (6 years), Patrick was assigned as assistant in Holy Redeemer
parish in Bangkok. He stayed there for almost three years, then was
returned to the Northeast, being attached to the Nong Khai community of
Redemptorists. He remained attached to this community from 1972 until
1978. He spent two years in Xang Ming when the parish that served as the
first home of the Redemptorists 30 years before was returned to
Redemptorist care. At the end of 1973 he was made pastor of Phonsung and
Ban Dung parishes. While in Phonsung he oversaw the building of the new
church dedicated to the Holy Family. Brother Cornelius served as the
builder of this church that seats 800 people.
Minor Seminary
In 1979 Patrick was reassigned from Nong Khai to the
Redemptorist community at the minor seminary in Sriracha. There he
teamed up with Father Banchong Chaiyara in training minor seminarians
for the priesthood. His duties mostly consisted in teaching English to
the seminarians and helping out in parishes on the weekend. Sometimes he
also preached days of recollections to communities of religious women.
In 1981 he was once more back in the community of Khon Kaen and
entrusted with the apostolate for leprosy patients and their families.
Work for Leprosy
Patients
Patrick was involved in work for leprosy patients in
Khon Kaen right from the time of his first being assigned there in 1959.
A mere 6 months before, Fr. Leo Travis began the work when he made
contact with patients in a village just outside the city. Though never
having direct charge of the work in those early days, Patrick
nevertheless joined with Frs. Griffith and Thiel in evangelizing
efforts. He kept up contact with these people for more than 20 years
before being given direct charge of the work in 1981. It was there that
Patrick picked up the nickname “Father Deng” that would stick with
him ever after. This was due to the fact that his face was perpetually
flushed a bright red.
The work there was not limited to just that one
village but also took in a church and school in Nonsombun, the site of
the government leprosarium, and two other villages with large
populations of Leprosy patients. The work for these unfortunate people
began with Frs. Travis and Griffith and expanded during the long
pastorates of Fr. Dick Thiele and Larry Patin. By the time Patrick was
assigned to the work full time in 1981, the religious congregations of
the Brothers of St. Gabriel, the Sisters of the Infant Jesus and the
Daughters of Charity, and lay missionaries from the U.S.A. had brought
their special dedication and skills to the work. The Brothers of St.
Gabriel ran a vocational training school for boys who were sons of
leprosy patients and worked in various development projects; the sisters
of the Infant Jesus taught in the schools; and the Daughters of Charity
cared for the patients in the leprosy clinic and the government
leprosarium. The lay missionaries worked both in the leprosarium and in
the center for handicapped children.
During Patrick’s term of pastor (6 years in all)
four programs were implemented. First there was a new nursery built for
the care of children before the age of kindergarten. A live-in facility
for leprosy patients was built there to provide temporary care for
patients who experienced severe reactions to leprosy medications. A
large facility was constructed to teach vocational skills for daughters
of leprosy patients. A program began to care for severely handicapped
children, and finally a center was built in honor of St. Gerard to care
for them both on a live-in basis and out patient basis.
Patrick’s career in the Northeast came to an end in
1987 when he was assigned to the Redemptorist Center in Pattaya. There
he has served as pastor of St. Nikolaus parish (9 years), guest master
at the Center complex and more recently as director of the vocational
training school for the disabled.
May he rest in peace.
