Priests Retirement Trust Fund

Our Priests. Our Turn.

The dozens of diocesan priests supported by the Priests Retirement Trust Fund have each given many years, often forty or more, in service to God and the Catholic communities of New Hampshire. The parish priest is a part of every Catholic family. They offer counsel and comfort, and they lead us in celebrating the sacraments.

The Need

Parish priests generally retire sometime after 70 and often decide to live independently in retirement. Though retired, many senior priests continue to celebrate Mass and support parish life. The Priests Retirement Trust Fund provides a monthly stipend and benefits. For most priests this stipend is one of their only means of support. This fund helps many of our senior priests stay active in the community. We need your help to support New Hampshire’s retired priests.

Depending on Our Generosity

Last year was the fourth annual collection for this fund and, despite an ongoing difficult economy, parishioners gave generously, with total gifts of more than $260,000. The need continues this year. When you contribute to the Priests Retirement Trust Fund, your gift will go toward helping current and future retired priests. We also ask you to prayerfully consider giving more than a one-time offering through pledged or planned giving.

Donate online:

A Chance to Give Back

September 22-23, 2012

Please use the envelope from this brochure or your parish envelope for the diocesan Priests Retirement Trust Fund collection. One easy way to contribute a continuing pledged gift is with your credit card. You can drop the envelope into the collection on September 22 and 23 or you can mail it directly to the Diocesan Priests Retirement Trust Fund, PO Box 310, Manchester, NH 03105-0310. Each parish will be notified of gifts made by its parishioners received directly by the Trust Fund.

For those interested in planned giving please contact Melanie English at (603) 669-3100 or menglish@rcbm.org.

Msgr. Wilfrid Paradis

Msgr. Wilfrid Paradis was a young priest serving as a high school teacher in 1960 when he got a call from the new Bishop of Manchester, the Most Reverend Ernest Primeau. Would Father Paradis please come by the Bishop’s Office at his earliest convenience? When the two men finally met, what Bishop Primeau had to say left Father Paradis speechless. Bishop Primeau had been appointed to serve on a commission for the approaching Second Vatican Council. He wanted Wilfrid Paradis to come with him as his personal secretary.

The Second Vatican Council itself would come to be an enormous event in modern Church history, only the second such gathering of Church leaders in nearly 500 years. To be invited to participate was the chance of a lifetime. It would take years of preparation, and Father Paradis knew the work Bishop Primeau contributed to his commission would echo through history. At the end of that meeting, Father Paradis knelt in prayer in the bishop’s chapel. His life would never be the same.

The years that Msgr. Wilfrid Paradis spent at Vatican II would not only influence his life, but the life of the Universal Church. As he notes in a reflection on his experience, “the Church was in need of essential changes to speak to the people of the modern world. Society had been evolving rapidly … There was considerable ‘catching up’ to do relevant to the world without violating the basics of the faith.”

Vatican II would go on to revolutionize many aspects of daily Catholic life that had gone undisturbed for centuries. Following the Council, Mass was permitted to be said in the vernacular, priests faced their congregations, and lay people became more involved with their faith and their parishes.

“At the end of the Council in 1965,” Msgr. Paradis writes, “as we sat in the crisp, fall weather of a sunny day in Saint Peter Square, none of us could have foreseen the truly overwhelming changes that had taken place.”

Msgr. Paradis would return to New Hampshire for decades of faithful service. He retired in 1987, but remained active, publishing a history of Catholicism in the Granite State called Upon This Granite in 1998. To read from the history, CLICK HERE. You can read more about Msgr. Wilfrid Paradis and his life in the November issue of Parable Magazine.

Retired Priests Supported by this Fund

Rev. Marcel Allard	Rev. Paul Gregoire
Rev. Gerald Auger	Rev. Patrick Irwin
Rev. A. Albert Bellefeuille	Rev. Thomas Keenan
Rev. Florent Bilodeau	Rev. Edward Kelley
Rev. Roger Bilodeau	Rev. Francis Kelso
Msgr. Raymond Blair	Rev. Joseph Klatka
Rev. Roland Blais	Rev. Maurice Lacroix
Rev. Robert Boisvert	Rev. Donald Lafond
Rev. Gerard Boucher	Rev. Maurice Lampron
Rev. Thomas Bresnahan	Rev. Robert Marchand
Rev. Roland Cote	Msgr. James Markham
Rev. Emmett Coyne	Most Rev. John McCormack
Msgr. Charles Crosby	Rev. Paul McHugh
Rev. Wilfred Demers	Rev. Humbert Oliveira
Rev. George Desjardins	Msgr. Wilfrid Paradis
Rev. Charles DesRuisseaux	Rev. Stanley Piwowar
Rev. Anthony Di Russo	Rev. Victor Polito
Rev. C. Peter Dumont	Rev. Mark Rundzio
Rev. Gerald Dunn	Rev. Daniel St. Laurent
Rev. John Finnigan	Rev. Thomas Savage
Rev. Leonard Foisy	Rev. Norman Simoneau
Rev. Leo Frechette	Rev. Richard Smith
Rev. Andre Gagnon	Rev. George Soberick
Rev. Leo Gagnon	Rev. Daniel Szopa
Most Rev. Odore Gendron	Rev. Andre Thibodeau
Msgr. Donald Gilbert	Rev. Richard Vickery
Rev. Richard Giroux	Rev. James Walsh
Rev. Cornelius Goggin	Rev. Richard Wegman
Rev. Robert Goodwin	Rev. John Wright

Questions about the diocesan Priests Retirement Fund? Visit our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, or write to the diocesan offices by clicking here.