Wilanda “Pat” Wright, who served as the executive assistant to three cardinal archbishops of Washington, was remembered at her recent Mass of Christian Burial for having lived “a beautiful life.” She died on March 19 at the age of 90.

The native of Paris, Texas, was nicknamed “Patty Cake” by one of her aunts when she was a little girl, and the name “Pat” stuck with her the rest of her life, including when she later served as the executive assistant to Washington Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle who retired in 1973. Pat Wright served in that same role for Washington’s next archbishop, Cardinal William Baum, who in 1980 was appointed to lead the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, and then she continued working as the executive assistant for Cardinal James Hickey, the archbishop of Washington from 1980 until his retirement in 2000.

“That’s a lot of cardinals! And each of them was very different from the others. But with her typical energy, dedication and competence, Pat served them very well indeed,” said Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, who presided at Wright’s Funeral Mass on March 30 at St. Joseph’s Church in Largo, Maryland, her home parish for many years.

Archbishop Lori worked closely with Pat Wright when he served as the priest secretary to Cardinal Hickey and later as the chancellor, moderator of the curia and vicar general for The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.

He noted that when he began working for Cardinal Hickey, “It was Pat Wright who showed me the ropes. Pat took one look at me and quickly realized I didn’t have a clue about working in the bishop’s office.”

Baltimore’s archbishop added that her kindness went beyond professional courtesy. “She was a loving person. Pat knew the people she worked with, and I think we can all attest that she cared about us,” he said.

Her obituary online noted that Wilanda Inez Ray moved to Kansas City, Kansas, after high school to live with her brother Marion, and she earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Donnelly College in that city. Later she moved to Washington, D.C., and worked in the State Department, where her obituary noted that she met an engineer there, John Wright, who became “the love of her life.” After their 1954 wedding, they were married for 41 years until John’s death. They had two sons, Jeffrey and Westley Wright. 

When her sons were young, Pat Wright was initially a stay-at-home. When they started attending school, she began working as a volunteer secretary at St. Gabriel School in Washington. After her family moved to Maryland, she got a job working for the archdiocese’s finance department. Her obituary noted that after a few years there, “Cardinal O’Boyle moved her upstairs to work as his executive assistant.”

In his homily at her Funeral Mass, Archbishop Lori said that he was a newly ordained priest serving at St. Joseph Parish in Largo when he first met Pat and John Wright.

“I came to know her, not as the cardinal’s executive assistant, but rather as a parishioner and as a wife and as a mother, as someone who loved the Lord and loved her Catholic faith,” he said, adding, “I quickly learned that Pat’s love for her faith was not merely theoretical, she lived it. No matter how long and difficult her working days and weeks were, Pat and John were here (at Mass) every Sunday, and her loving enthusiasm for the faith and for the Church never waned.”

Archbishop Lori said that as a young priest starting out at St. Joseph Parish, he witnessed how “Pat and John had a beautiful marriage and a beautiful home.”

He praised John Wright for being “very patient as Pat met the demands of a very demanding job.”

Baltimore’s Archbishop said that John Wright “was also the best non-Catholic Catholic I ever met. John was with Pat week after week at Sunday Masses – they sat over there, and if memory serves, John even asked me one time to bless his new Chrysler Cordoba.”

Praising the work that Pat Wright did for the Catholic Church, Archbishop Lori said, “Pat was very, very good at what she did and uber-conscientious. She wanted to get it right every time. Back in the day, before we were using computers, that wasn’t so easy. If a letter wasn’t right, it would have to be re-typed.”

Noting how the mourners at her  Funeral Mass included some of her former co-workers and colleagues, “her extended ‘family’ at the Pastoral Center of the Archdiocese of Washington,” Archbishop Lori said, “As you recall and I recall, no matter how hard any of us worked, no matter how long any of us worked, Pat worked harder and longer than all of us.”

In recognition of her service to the Catholic Church, Pat Wright received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal (Latin “for the Church and the Pope”) from Pope John Paul II in 1979, one of the highest awards that a lay person can receive.

Archbishop Lori noted that “Pat was not merely a hard worker or a person pursuing a career. She was, above all, a woman of faith. She believed in the Lord, the Resurrection and the life, and she derived the strength she needed for her vocation and her work from her relationship with the Lord, her devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the support of her dear family.”

He added, “This was the faith that sustained Pat Wright throughout her life’s journey, a journey that led from Paris, Texas; to Kansas; to Washington, D.C.; and to (her home at) Mitchellville (Maryland).”

The first reading at her Funeral Mass, from Wisdom 3:1-9, included the line, “The souls of the just are in the hands of God.”

As he concluded his homily, Archbishop Lori spoke of those who live a good life finding joy and peace in heaven, and he said, “May Pat Wright be reunited with her beloved husband John, with her family members who have passed on, with her co-workers especially with the three cardinals she assisted so effectively, (and) may she experience joy in that place where no phones ring, no meetings need to be arranged, no accounts need to be balanced, and no letters need to be typed!”

Wilanda “Pat” Wright was predeceased by parents, Coleman Ray and Pearl McDonald, by her husband John Wright, her brother Marion Ray, and her younger sister, Betty Brown. She is survived by her son, Jeffrey (Lenka) Wright of Felton, Delaware; her son Westley (Karen) Wright of Mitchellville; by her grandchildren Bernitta, Janal, Hillary and Jillian; and by her great grandchildren, Elijah, Isaiah and King.