Franciscan Father Vincent de Paul Cushing dies at 90

A funeral Mass for Franciscan Father Vincent de Paul Cushing will be offered at noon on Nov. 23 at St. Camillus Church in Silver Spring. Father Cushing died Nov. 14. He was 90.

Born in New York City, Father Cushing was received into the Order of Friars Minor on July 14, 1956, at St. Raphael’s Novitiate in Lafayette, N.J., where he professed first vows one year later. He was solemnly professed on Aug. 22, 1960, and ordained to the priesthood on March 2, 1963, at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, D.C. He continued graduate studies, earning his Licentiate in Sacred Theology from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He earned a doctor of sacred theology at The Catholic University of America in 1972. 

In the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Father Cushing assisted at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Crofton as a weekend associate for more than three decades until his retirement in 2021. 

In 1969, he joined the staff of Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., as an assistant professor of ecclesiology. He continued teaching after he became the Union’s third president in 1975, serving until 1999. During his tenure, the first laypeople were appointed to the board of trustees, the curriculum for the Master of Divinity degree was revised, greater emphasis was placed on educating lay students for public ministry, and a development program and endowment were established.  

Father Cushing served as the first Roman Catholic president of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, the agency that accredits theological schools, from 1982 to 1984. He also was the founding chairman of the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center and In Trust, a quarterly magazine focused on theological education. He also worked with The Lilly Endowment, Inc., to organize the Keystone Conferences, which focus on excellence in theological education. 

Father Cushing was a member of the board of trustees at Christ the King Seminary, St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, N.Y., and Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., and he served his brother friars as a Provincial Councilor for the legacy Holy Name Province.  

After he retired as president of WTU, he took a sabbatical to study ecclesiology, contemporary ecumenical studies and the relationship of Roman Catholicism to world religions. He returned to WTU and continued teaching systematic theology there until the school closed in 2013. He was one of the longest continually serving faculty members.  

Father Cushing also ministered in New York.

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