The Western humorist Will Rogers was famous for saying, “I never met a man I didn’t like.”
When Msgr. Oliver McGready was interviewed in 2022 about his 60th anniversary as a priest that year, he remarked, “I never really had a parish I didn’t like.”
He added, “It’s important for a priest to love the people you’re working with.”
Msgr. McGready, a native of Ireland who was ordained as a priest for the Archdiocese of Washington in 1962, died on May 22, 2024 at Morningside House of St. Charles in Waldorf, Maryland. He was 85.
When he was interviewed about his 60th anniversary, Msgr. McGready’s life as a priest had come full circle. A few months after his ordination, he had been assigned to serve at St. Peter’s Parish in Waldorf in an area with a lot of farms, where he felt at home because he had grown up on a family farm in County Derry, Ireland. Over the years, he served in several suburban Maryland parishes, and at rural parishes in Southern Maryland. “I always liked the country, because I grew up there,” he said.
After his retirement in 2010, he moved back to St. Peter’s Parish in Waldorf to serve at the parish where as a recently ordained priest, he was a parochial vicar from 1962 to 1967.
“It feels like home again. I help with Mass and Confessions, and at all the parishes nearby that need a little help, (when) somebody goes on vacation,” Msgr. McGready said.
A viewing for Msgr. McGready will be held on Tuesday, May 28, at St. Peter’s Church in Waldorf from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m., with the Vigil Mass at 7 p.m. Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory will celebrate the Mass of Christian Burial for Msgr. McGready on Wednesday May 29 at 10 a.m. at St. Peter’s Church. Interment will follow at the cemetery at St. Peter’s Parish.
Msgr. McGready was named a monsignor by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. Over the years, he served as the Dean of Charles and Calvert Counties.
In the interview for his 60th anniversary, Msgr. McGready reflected on how his early life revolved around working on the family farm in Ireland and going to church. “Faith was like work over there, it was part of who you were. People prayed and went to church each Sunday,” he said.
Then-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 the hustle and bustle of New York City.
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 was his sense of humor. “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’d be in serious trouble,” he said.
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.”
