[Deathwatch] Bishop John Raymond McGann, bishop, 77

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Death was January 29, 2002

Bishop John Raymond McGann was born on December 2, 1924 in Brooklyn,
NY, the son of the late Thomas and Mary Ryan McGann. He graduated from
Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish Elementary School in June, 1938. He
pursued studies for the priesthood at Cathedral College Preparatory
Seminary, Brooklyn (1938-44) and Immaculate Conception Seminary,
Huntington, NY (1944-50). 

    Ordained to the priesthood on June 3, 1950, by the Most Reverend
Thomas E. Molloy, third Bishop of Brooklyn, Father McGann was assigned
to St. Anne's Parish, Brentwood, New York, where he served as assistant
pastor from 1950 to 1957. During that period, Father McGann also served
as assistant chaplain at Pilgrim State Hospital, Brentwood, and from
1950 to 1954 as a faculty member of St. Joseph's Academy, Brentwood.

    Shortly after the Diocese of Rockville Centre was established in
1957, Bishop Walter P. Kellenberg appointed Father McGann an assistant
chancellor and, in 1959, as his assistant personal secretary. Father
McGann was named Secretary to Bishop Kellenberg in 1959. That same
year, Pope John XXIII appointed him a papal chamberlain with the title
Very Reverend Monsignor. From 1957 to 1971 Monsignor McGann resided in
the rectory of St. Agnes Cathedral Parish, Rockville Centre, where he
also assisted with the parish work.

    Monsignor McGann assumed additional duties in October of 1967 as a
vice-chancellor and secretary to the Board of Consultors -- a group of
priest/advisors to the diocesan bishop -- and retained those positions
until his appointment as Auxiliary Bishop in November, 1970. From that
time until his appointment as Ordinary in 1976, Bishop McGann remained
a member of the Board of Consultors. During this period he also served
on several other diocesan boards.

    In 1969, the then Monsignor McGann became one of 10 diocesan
priests chosen from around the country to be named to the then newly
formed National Advisory Council to the U.S. Bishops, a fifty-member
body made up of clergy, religious and laity. He was nominated for this
post by the Priests' Advisory Council of the Diocese and he served from
1969 to 1970. 

    On November 12, 1970, Pope Paul VI appointed Monsignor McGann
Titular Bishop of Morosbisdus and Auxiliary to Bishop Walter B.
Kellenberg. He was ordained bishop on January 7, 1971 and in November
of that year was appointed vicar general of the diocese and episcopal
vicar of Suffolk County. Subsequently, in 1976, he was named Ordinary
of the Rockville Centre Diocese in succession to Bishop Walter P.
Kellenberg, the founding bishop, who had retired on May 3, 1976. Bishop
McGann was installed on June 24, 1976.

    Bishop McGann has served on various committees of the New York
State Conference of Catholic Bishops. In November, 1984, he was elected
to the office of treasurer of the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops (NCCB) for a three-year term. He assumed the chairmanship of
the board of directors of the Catholic Telecommunications Network of
America for the period from May 1, 1990 to December 31, 1992. In
November, 1993, Bishop McGann was elected chairman for the NCCB's
Region II, which is made up of the eight dioceses of New York State.

    Over the years, Bishop McGann has been awarded numerous honorary
degrees, including a Doctor of Laws degree from St. John's University,
Jamaica (1971); a Doctor of Humanities degree from Molloy College,
Rockville Centre (1977); a Doctor of Ministry degree from Immaculate
Conception Seminary, Huntington (1990); and a Doctor of Humane Letters
from Long Island University, C. W. Post College, Brookville (1997). 

    Bishop McGann was invested as Knight of the Equestrian Order of the
Sepulchre of Jerusalem in 1970 and as a member of the American
Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1985.	 

    On December 4, 1993, Bishop McGann received the Nassau-Suffolk
Hospital Council's Theodore Roosevelt Award for Outstanding Service in
recognition of his efforts to serve the health care needs of Long
Islanders. St. Mary's Children and Family Services in Syosset awarded
him its 1997 Humanitarian Award. In anticipation of his retirement in
1999 at the age of 75, numerous institutions honored Bishop McGann. He
was awarded Molloy College's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Long
Island Association's Lifetime Achievement Award and St. Charles
Hospital's Lifetime Achievement Award.

    Upon receipt of the Holy See's acceptance of his resignation on
January 4, 2000, Bishop McGann retired. 

    Survivors include a brother, James and a sister -- his twin --
Sister John Raymond, CSJ, former General Superior of the Sisters of St.
Joseph, Brentwood. Two other brothers, Thomas and Joseph, and two
sisters, Sister Thomas Joseph, CSJ and Madeline McGann, are deceased.