A funeral Mass for Father William (Bill) Cleary, CSsR, was celebrated Jan. 3 at St. Clement Redemptorist Mission Community Chapel in Barnhart. Father Cleary died Dec. 29 at age 89 while hospitalized in St. Louis. A Redemptorist missionary of 68 years, Father Bill was a collaborative leader who mentored generations of Redemptorists and will be remembered for leading a small group of confreres from the former Oakland Province who established a Redemptorist foundation in Nigeria.
He was the second child born to Michael and Wilma (Duffy) Cleary on March 21, 1936 in Portland, Oregon. The family — which grew to include five children — lived one block from Holy Redeemer Church and was well acquainted with the Redemptorists. He knew he wanted to become a Redemptorist from the time he was an altar server.
After graduating from Holy Redeemer Grade School, he attended the former Oakland Province’s West Coast minor seminary, Holy Redeemer College in Oakland, California. Although he found the courses difficult — especially Latin — he remained diligent and was accepted into the Redemptorist Novitiate at Mount St. Clement College in De Soto, Missouri. He professed temporary vows on Aug. 2, 1957, and proceeded to Immaculate Conception Seminary in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. He professed perpetual vows on Sept. 2, 1960, and was ordained to the priesthood on July 2, 1962.
Father Bill returned to Holy Redeemer College for his pastoral year in 1963 and began a series of parish ministry appointments, including St. Thomas Parish in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (1964-66), briefly at St. Alphonsus Parish in Fresno, California, and returned to Holy Redeemer College in 1967. After a year, he was assigned to the team of confreres that fulfilled an agreement with the bishops in Alaska to provide spiritual care for several parishes in the former Diocese of Anchorage. He enjoyed the beautiful, rugged countryside and spent the next six years serving in parishes in Anchorage, Kodiak, Seward, Homer and Kenai. In 1978, he was appointed superior of the local community and pastor of his home parish in Portland. After six years, he was elected provincial consultor of the Ordinary Provincial Council and relocated to San Francisco in 1984.
Toward the end of his three-year term in leadership, the superior general of the Redemptorists in Rome asked the Oakland Province to begin a mission in the African country of Nigeria. Father Bill — 51 years old and celebrating his 25th jubilee of ordination — agreed to serve as superior of the small group of confreres chosen for the mission.
They began a new parish at Sts. Michael, Raphael and Gabriel Catholic Church in Satellite Town, Lagos on Sept. 30, 1987. They started to minister across a large portion of the country, and within three years they opened formation houses and were accepting 12 men per year to establish native clergy.
By 1993 the “Mission of Nigeria” had evolved into a region, and by 2008 it had become the vice province of Nigeria, boasting more than 100 Nigerian Redemptorists. Father Bill served in Nigeria for 21 years and considered it the highlight of his entire Redemptorist ministry. He returned to the United States in 2008 and was assigned at Sacred Heart Parish in Seattle. Although he officially retired in 2010, he continued to minister at the parish and help out throughout the Archdiocese of Seattle until last September, when health issues necessitated his move to the St. Clement Redemptorist Mission Community in Barnhart.
A private burial is planned later at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.
