Monsignor Thomas Donellan, founding pastor of the Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier, dies at 91

Monsignor Thomas J. Donellan Jr., founding pastor of the Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier in Hunt Valley and a respected leader in pastoral planning in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died Sept. 24 at St. Martin’s Home for the Aged in Catonsville, surrounded by the Little Sisters of the Poor. He was 91.

Monsignor Donellan’s long tenure at St. Francis Xavier began in 1988, when he was appointed coordinator of the new “Independent Mission of Hunt Valley,” which held weekend Masses at the Hunt Valley Inn. His assignment was to develop the mission into a full parish, filling a need due to explosive growth in northern Baltimore County. 

Monsignor Donellan led the parish from its birth as a hotel Mass station through its incorporation as a parish in May 1992 and onto the building and relocation of the parish to its current home at Serenity Farms on Cuba Road in January 1998.

“Father Tom was a visionary,” said Father J. Kevin Farmer, current pastor of the Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier, who first encountered Monsignor Donellan when he assisted on weekends at St. Francis Xavier early in his ministry. “This parish was the innovative parish 30 years ago.”

Father Farmer said Monsignor Donellan had a knack for attracting young families with fresh ideas, including his non-classroom approach to youth and family ministry and a parish-based stewardship model. He also emphasized the importance of people’s participation at the parish level. His motto was always “God is First.”

“Father Tom was ahead of the curve in so many ways,” said Father Farmer, who will deliver the homily at Monsignor Donellan’s Sept. 30 funeral Mass at St. Francis Xavier. “Between the secular society and COVID-19, we are all trying to figure out how to do church differently. Father Tom had that all figured out.”

Born in Baltimore, Monsignor Donellan attended Holy Spirit Elementary School in Sharon Hill, Pa., and St. Dominic Elementary School in Baltimore. After graduating from Loyola High School in Towson, he entered St. Charles Minor Seminary in Catonsville and eventually went on to study at St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park.

He was ordained May 26, 1956, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, and each year for more than 50 years, he gathered for Mass and a meal with his former classmates to celebrate their ordination anniversary.

Monsignor Donellan was appointed the director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for the western area of the archdiocese in 1962. 

Over the years, he served as the associate pastor of St. Mark in Catonsville; associate pastor and later pastor of St. Peter the Apostle in Baltimore City; and pastor of St. Michael the Archangel in Overlea.

After his work in those parishes, Monsignor Donellan served at the Catholic Center beginning in 1978 as the director of the Division of Buildings and Properties and then from 1979 to 1988 as secretary of the Department of Pastoral Planning before being asked to start the new parish in Hunt Valley.

Father Farmer said that no matter the hurdles he encountered in establishing the Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier – including a six-year legal battle to get the current property – Monsignor Donellan remained focused.

“Many people wanted to give up, but he knew that’s where we all needed to be,” Father Farmer said. “He was brilliant at fundraising. He, like so many visionaries, surrounded himself with the right people to support his vision and make it a reality.”

Judi Keys started working with Monsignor Donellan in 1988 as a volunteer typing up bulletins. The following year, when he opened up a basement office at the Monsignor O’Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks, he offered her a job. She later became the parish administrator.

Keys recalls moving offices several times, including to the basement of an art shop and the Executive Plaza. She took him to Mark Downs Furniture to buy chairs so they could have seats for Mass. At one point, Keys sent out postcards each Monday to let people know where Mass would be held the next weekend, because sometimes the hotel they were using was booked with weddings.

“Father Tom was such a good man – one of a kind,” Keys said. “He was such an influence on so many people, and I’m sure he didn’t even know how many. He was a really good friend.”

Keys worked with Monsignor Donellan until he retired in 1998. He remained pastor emeritus and came back to St. Francis Xavier to celebrate Thanksgiving Eve and other Masses. He moved from a local apartment building to Mercy Ridge, where he served on the finance committee. He also volunteered at the Esperanza Center in Baltimore City.

“He loved to read and he loved to be with people,” said Keys, noting that Monsignor Donellan was a humble man who preferred to be called “Father Tom” or “Tom”  instead of “Monsignor Donellan.” 

“He had more visitors than anyone else at Mercy Ridge,” she said. 

Daniel Medinger, former editor and associate publisher of the Catholic Review, said Monsignor Donellan was critical in putting the publication on more solid footing after it experienced financial difficulties in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The priest was appointed vice president of the Cathedral Foundation, the corporation that then oversaw the Catholic Review, in October 1982. He helped stabilize the newspaper over 10 years, serving part of that time while he was busy trying to start up St. Francis Xavier.

“He was just a wonderful priest, and one of his priorities was developing lay leadership,” Medinger said. “He had a love for Catholic media, and he was instrumental in getting the Catholic Review off and running again at a time when it was struggling.”

Medinger noted that Monsignor Donellan had a vision and brought in people who shared that vision “and got them to buy in.”

“He was a big part of why I came to Baltimore,” Medinger said. “Everything he touched, it just worked.”

Monsignor Donellan also served on the boards of Stella Maris, Good Samaritan Hospital and the Thomas J. O’Neill Catholic Health Care Fund, Inc.  

Mary Cohn, office manager at St. Francis Xavier, met Monsignor Donellan in 1996 when her children were young. She said the priest was welcoming and accepting of people where they were in their faith life. Her family grew close with Monsignor Donellan, and he even said the blessing at her daughter’s wedding.

“He would let you go one week without showing up at Mass, but if you went two weeks, there would be a knock on your door,” Cohn remembered. “He wanted to make sure everything was OK if he didn’t see you. That’s the kind of person he was. He will be so missed.”

When his health declined in 2019, Monsignor Donellan moved to St. Martin’s Home.

Patricia Allshouse, who joined St. Francis Xavier in 1990 and started volunteering soon after, said that people are traveling from all over the country to attend Monsignor Donellan’s funeral. 

“Tom was very much loved in the community, and many people from that original basement group still stayed in touch,” said Allshouse, now a pastoral associate at the parish. “He changed many lives. His vision of a parish was always that the church is not a building, but a gathering.”

A visitation, viewing and wake will be held Sept. 29, noon-8 p.m. at the Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier in Hunt Valley. The wake will begin at 7 p.m.

Archbishop William E. Lori will offer a 10:30 a.m. funeral Mass Sept. 30, also at St. Francis Xavier. 

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