Fr. Joseph McCabe
Fr. Joseph McCabe, M.M. has been a Maryknoll priest for almost 50 years, he has been privileged to serve in many ministries.
The first seeds of missionary priesthood were planted in his earliest years serving Mass for a missionary priest expelled from China. Although this vocation wavered a bit in high school, he was invited to attend Maryknoll’s Departure Day in June of 1966. He was inspired by watching so many men receive their Mission Cross and prepare to serve God in the four corners of the world. He decided then to enter Maryknoll the following year.
After ordination in 1977, Fr. McCabe was assigned to missions in Tanzania, where he moved from parish work to serving as a formator in a national seminary. When St. John Paul II came to Tanzania in 1990, he was asked to help coordinate his historic visit.
Shortly afterward, the Holy See asked Maryknoll to “release” him for work in the Vatican. In 1991, Fr. McCabe joined the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Evangelization of Peoples, where he served through Jubilee Year 2000. As much as this work was fulfilling, the pull of overseas missions was still strong. Father asked to be released from his ministry to the Holy See, and he volunteered to be part of a new Maryknoll Mission in the Russian Far East. Fr. McCabe was appointed pastor of the Catholic community in Khabarovsk for the next six years.
After establishing and building up one of the larger Catholic parishes in Russia, the Holy See under Pope Benedict XVI recalled him to serve in the Vatican as he had previously.
Fr. McCabe held that position until 2009 when he returned to the U.S. to work with Maryknoll’s Mission Promotion team… but only briefly, because his home diocese of Rockville Centre asked to appoint him as Diocesan Director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and of the Diocesan Mission Office.
When that assignment ended in 2012, Fr. McCabe embarked on another life-changing journey. He enrolled in the Catholic University of America for a degree in Canon Law. After graduation, Maryknoll sent him to the Diocese of Hong Kong, where he did both tribunal and pastoral work.
Fr. McCabe was recalled to serve the Society, where he now advises Maryknoll’s General Council on canonical matters, and as time permits, he helps out parishes on weekends or conduct parish retreats. But he keeps his passport handy. This past summer, Father directed a retreat for the pre-seminary candidates in Nairobi, Kenya. While there, he visited all the places in Tanzania where he had served for 16 years. He was blessed to meet many of my former students, parishioners, and seminarians (now priests and bishops) while also doing two radio interviews.
To say that his life as a Maryknoll missioner has been rewarding is quite an understatement. Fr. Joe McCabe thanks God every day for the riches of his missionary life. He also thanks you with a prayer that God will always bless you as he has been blessed.
