Father Charles McCann, a retired priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, died on July 5, 2024 in his native Northern Ireland. He was 85. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1969, Father McCann in his 55 years as a priest served and lived at a dozen parishes in the city of Washington, in the surrounding Maryland suburbs and countryside.
In a 2019 interview for his 50th anniversary as a priest, he reflected on the parishes that he served and noted, “I probably slept in more rectories than most of the priests in the archdiocese, and I enjoyed them all.”
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated for Father McCann on July 7 at St. Michael Church in Lissan, Northern Ireland, with interment in the parish cemetery. He had been baptized at St. Michael Church as an infant and ordained to the priesthood in that church as a young man.
Father McCann noted that vocations were so plentiful in Ireland then, that some Irish seminarians studied for the foreign missions, which in his case was the Archdiocese of Washington. Two other priests of the Archdiocese of Washington also hailed from his home parish in Northern Ireland: Father Lawrence McGlone, who died in 1981, and Msgr. Oliver McGready, who died on May 22, 2024 at the age of 85.
Asked about the roots of his vocation to the priesthood, Father McCann said he was inspired by the Holy Spirit, by the faithful devotion of his family, and by the example of his parish priests at St. Michael’s in Lissan, Northern Ireland. His parish there “was supportive of anything Catholic,” he said.
After his ordination to the priesthood in 1969, Father McCann served for a year as a parochial vicar at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, D.C., and then from 1970-78 in that role at St. Bernadette Parish in Silver Spring, Maryland. Father McCann said serving the families and youth at St. Bernadette’s Parish in his early years as a priest “gave me a grounding of what parish life is all about.”
Father McCann served as pastor of St. Peter’s Parish on Capitol Hill from 2005-07, and earlier served in the Prince George’s County suburbs as pastor of St. Philip the Apostle Parish in Camp Springs from 1991 to 2005, and as administrator of St. Hugh of Grenoble Parish in Greenbelt in 1990. From 1986-89, he served as pastor of St. Peter Claver Parish in St. Inigoes, a country parish near the southern tip of Southern Maryland in historic St. Mary’s County.
Over the years, Father McCann also served as a parochial vicar at St. Stephen Martyr Parish in Washington, at Sacred Heart Parish in Bowie and at St. Jerome Parish in Hyattsville, and as a senior priest at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Clinton and at Jesus the Divine Word in Huntingtown.
Father McCann said people at every parish where he served in Washington and Maryland made him feel welcome and at home.
“Working in the Archdiocese of Washington gave me the exposure to such a variety of people, whether in the city, suburbs or the country. I’ve worked in all three (areas),” he said. The priest said he also enjoyed serving people of all ages, “from grade school children to seniors older than myself.”
Reflecting on his priesthood, Father McCann said, “The Lord has blessed me in many ways.”
After retiring in 2009, Father McCann was in residence at Jesus the Divine Word Parish in Huntingtown, and then returned to Northern Ireland in 2010 to provide ministerial assistance to the Archdiocese of Armagh.
From 2014-17, the retired priest lived at the Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington, where he celebrated Masses, heard Confessions and joined the seminarians in their spiritual exercises. Father McCann said he was inspired by the faith of the seminarians, and he joined them and the priests there in welcoming Pope Francis during the pontiff’s 2015 visit to the seminary. “It was an exciting time to be there,” he said.
Then in 2017, Father McCann lived in residence at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Clinton, Maryland, and he celebrated Masses there and at neighboring parishes before returning home to Lissan, Northern Ireland in 2021.
