Having grown up on a family farm in County Derry, Ireland, Father Oliver McGready especially enjoyed being assigned to St. Peter’s Parish in Waldorf, Maryland a few months after his 1962 ordination to the priesthood.
“St. Peter’s was great, because it (Waldorf) was a small, little town (then), with only one traffic light between here and Washington,” said the priest, who was named a monsignor by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 . “There were lots of farms when I came down here, so it was like home. That’s why I always liked the country, because I grew up there, and that’s why I always liked coming back to country parishes.”
Now 83 and marking his 60th anniversary as a priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, Msgr. McGready is happily retired and back at St. Peter’s in Waldorf, the parish where as a young priest he served from 1962 to 1967 and where he returned to live after his retirement in 2010.
“It feels like home again,” he said in a recent interview. “I help with Mass and Confessions, and at all the parishes nearby that need a little help, (when) somebody goes on vacation.”
At his family’s farm in Ireland, the future priest pitched in with work there, as did his 14 siblings. After attending a Catholic boys’ boarding school in Armagh, he and a lot of his classmates entered the seminary and became priests.
“Faith was like work over there, it was part of who you were. People prayed and went to church each Sunday,” he said.
Father McGready was ordained to the priesthood in 1962 at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Carlow. In those days, many of the young men being ordained as priests in Ireland got to choose what country and diocese they would serve in. He chose Washington because he had a cousin in that area, and he became a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington.
After growing up in the peace and quiet of his family’s farm, the new priest took a flight to the United States and landed in New York City. “It was the worst experience of my life, all this noise!” he said jokingly, complaining about that city’s hustle and bustle. And to make matters worse, he was wearing a woolen suit on a 90-degree day.
But he soon settled in at his new archdiocese, serving for six weeks as a parochial vicar at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Clinton before his assignment to St. Peter’s, where he has said he learned all about being a parish priest.
“The people here were great,” Msgr. McGready said. “The thing I enjoyed most about my vocation was the parishioners who were always helpful and supportive.”
After his five years at St. Peter’s, the priest served as a parochial vicar at St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Silver Spring and at St. Philip the Apostle Parish in Camp Springs before being named in 1976 as the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in La Plata, where he served for nearly a decade.
Sacred Heart, he noted, “was my first pastorate. I always think of Sacred Heart as my first love. You never forget it. I made a lot of good friends in the parish.” Over the years, he remained friends with many of those parishioners. In addition to presiding at weddings, baptisms and funerals for their families, he socialized, played golf and went on vacation with some of them.
Then Msgr. McGready served as the pastor of St. Mary of the Mills Parish in Laurel from 1985-90. “That was probably one of the busiest parishes I was in,” he said, noting that parish in those years sometimes had about 100 weddings a year.
“The people were very nice, friendly and very supportive,” he said. “I’ve always found people in parishes to be supportive. They want the best for you.”
From 1990-94, he was the pastor at Holy Family Parish in Hillcrest Heights. “That was a mostly African American parish, that I hadn’t had before. That was a nice new experience,” he said.
Msgr. McGready returned to leading another large and very active suburban Maryland parish from 1994 to 2005 as the pastor of the Shrine of St. Jude in Rockville. Joking about that diverse community, he said, “They spoke 25 languages, and I only spoke English.”
Before his retirement, the priest served as pastor of a small country parish, St. Mary’s in Newport, from 2005 to 2010, and he felt right at home there. “The great thing about St. Mary’s in Newport, was you got to know everybody and their children,” he said.
One hallmark of Msgr. McGready’s priesthood has been his sense of humor. “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’d be in serious trouble,” he said.
In his free time he likes to read novels including mystery stories on his Kindle. Usually on Fridays, he gets together with a priest friend, Father Peter Sweeney, who is also a native of Ireland but was ordained a year earlier and is now 85. “We play a little golf… We’re both equally bad,” Msgr. McGready joked. They also have dinner together and sometimes play cards afterward.
Over the years, many of Washington’s priests who were natives of Ireland got together on their off days to socialize and play golf. Nicknamed the “FBI,” which stood for “Foreign Born Irish,” those priests were very supportive of each other, Msgr. McGready said. “Coming from another country… (those get-togethers) made you feel at home.”
Reflecting on his priesthood, he said, “I think the blessings I had were just working with parishioners, helping them get through life and find God, (and) helping them deal with problems they deal with… The important thing is to be available to people, that people feel they can come and talk to you, no matter what.”
In his six decades as a priest, Msgr. McGready served at country parishes and large suburban parishes, and now in his retirement he is back home at St. Peter’s in Waldorf where he started as a young priest. That parish and the Waldorf area are much bigger now, but his priestly work remains the same.
“I never really had a parish I didn’t like,” he said. “It’s important for a priest to love the people you’re working with.”
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Catholics encouraged to support Retired Priests Collection
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is having its Retired Priests Collection for 2022 at parishes on the weekend of Nov. 5 and 6.
In announcing the collection, Joseph Gillmer, the archdiocese’s Executive Director of Development, wrote, “Our priests have dedicated their lives to ministry and served our spiritual needs from Baptism until our final goodbyes.” Noting that retired priests “have guided us in our lifelong faith journey for many decades,” Gillmer invited local Catholics to honor those priests’ lives of sacrifice and service by supporting the 2022 Retired Priests Collection.
People can support the Retired Priests Collection in the following ways:
- Envelope – Local Catholics can use the envelope mailed to them, the envelope in the pews or near the entrance of the church, or the second collection envelope provided by the parish on the weekend of Nov. 5-6.
- Online: Please visit adw.org/rpc to support the collection online via credit card or cryptocurrency.
- Text: Please text “Priest” to (301) 231-1816. A text with a link to a secure form will be sent back to you to complete your gift for this collection.
- Stock/IRA/Donors Advised Fund: Please visit adw.org/rpc for instructions or call Joanne Pipkin at (301) 853-4486.
