Father James Kiernan, C.M., a member of the Vincentian Community at St. John’s University, Jamaica; a member of the school’s board of trustees; and a former member of the administration, died July 13. He was 64 years old.

Father Kiernan served as campus chaplain at the Staten Island campus, 1987-88, and one year later was named vice president for Campus Ministry in Staten Island. His duties were extended to include Queens as vice president for Campus Ministry for both locations in July, 1989. Shortly thereafter, he was named senior vice president for the Staten Island campus, with broad administrative responsibilities.

He left the University in 1999 to assume the role of pastor at St. Joseph’s parish, Emmitsburg, MD, and later served as director of the Central Association of the Miraculous Medal in Philadelphia. He was named to the St. John’s Board of Trustees in 2004.

A memorial Mass was celebrated July 17 at St. Thomas More Church on the Queens campus. A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated July 18 at the Miraculous Medal Shrine, Philadelphia, Pa.

Helen Wilson, who served as secretary and bookkeeper at Ascension Church, Elmhurst, for 30 years, died July 2 after a long battle with cancer. She was 83.

A longtime member of Ascension parish, she and her late husband John were married in the church in 1946, and their four children were baptized there.

She was a member of the Ascension Choir, Rosary Society, and President of the Golden Age Club.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated July 5 at the church.

She is survived by her four children, six grandchildren, and one great grandchild. She also was predeceased by her brother, Tom Biglow.

Father Richard J. Sammon, M.M., who died June 11, was buried in Portezuelo, Chile. 

A memorial Mass will be held at Queen of Apostles Chapel at the Maryknoll Society Center in Ossining, N.Y., on Thursday, July 26, at 11 a.m. 

Father Sammon is survived by his sisters, Theresa Friel of Valhalla, Ann Guerin of Yonkers and Eileen Sammon of Ossining, and his brothers, James of Seattle, Wash., and Walter of the Bronx.  His brother, Patrick, predeceased him.

Lady Bird Johnson, an Episcopalian, died July 11 just after a Catholic priest finished reciting the litany of the saints with her family at her bedside in Austin, Texas.

This ecumenical interaction was not unusual for the former first lady or for her husband, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, a member of the Disciples of Christ.

Their closest Catholic relationship was with their daughter, Luci Baines Johnson Turpin. It was Turpin who called Paulist Father Robert Scott, a senior minister at St. Austin’s parish in Austin, Texas, and at the University of Texas Catholic Center, to come to the LBJ Ranch when it became clear her mother was close to death.

Luci’s marriage to Patrick John Nugent in 1966 was widely covered, as she was the first daughter of a president to marry in a Catholic church. Her marriage at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception also marked the first time a president had visited the church.

Upon hearing of Lady Bird Johnson’s death, Austin Bishop Gregory M. Aymond honored the lifelong environmentalist by saying she was “truly a Texas treasure.”

“She found and spread God’s beauty in the simplicity of wildflowers and nature,” he said. “In faith, we trust she is resting in comfort in the Lord’s garden.”

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