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Father Patrick O'Donnell
contributed by The Hugo Daily News

     CINCINNATI - Father Patrick O'Donnell, who worked in Catholic missions in Hugo, Antlers and Idabel from 1987-94, died July 22, in Cincinnati. He was a member of the Cincinnati-based Glenmary Home Missioners for 54 years. Born June 11, 1919, in Gary, Ind., Father Pat, 85, died peacefully at Mercy Franciscan Terrace, a Cincinnati retirement center. 
     "No one has done more to supply American Catholics with memorable images of the U.S. home missions than Father Pat O'Donnell," says Father Dominic Duggins, vice president of Glenmary, who also served in the Southwest with Father Pat for five years. Father Pat's award-winning black and white photos filled the covers and pages of Glenmary Challenge, the quarterly magazine of Glenmary Home Missioners, for over 30 years. When he retired as editor in 1980, a selection of his home mission photos were displayed at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
     Father Pat became interested in missionary work in the United States while a graduate student in philosophy at The Catholic University of America, where he was mentored by the late Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. In 1945, over Easter break, he came to Cincinnati to meet Father William Howard Bishop, who had founded Glenmary Home Missioners just six years earlier. Father Pat decided to join this society which he described later as "this new mission group working in the South, using innovative missionary techniques to enter previously perceived Protestant strongholds."
     Father Pat was ordained a priest in 1949. But even while in training, his artistic talents were recognized and he was put to work editing Glenmary Challenge, his major ministry focus for the next 30 years. In that capacity he drew on his undergraduate training in art and photography at the Chicago Art Institute.
     Father Pat was also a hands-on missioner, not just a writer and photographer. While serving as editor from 1949 to 1980, he also had mission assignments that took him to Russellville, Ky., as associate pastor (1950-52): Otway, Ohio, as administrator (1952-55); Fayetteville, Ohio, as chaplain for the Glenmary Sisters (1961-66); Vanceburg, Ky., as pastor (1967-80). 
     His accomplishments in Glenmary's Vanceburg mission drew on his commitment to address the needs of this impoverished area of Eastern Kentucky, to build up the Catholic Church and to use his particular artistic gifts in the process. The church in Vanceburg, Holy Redeemer, is one of many he designed and built in mission communities. Even the stained-glass windows were his creation. 
     After a period of renewal in Rome in 1980, Father Pat returned to the mission field as pastor in Elkton, Ky. (1981-87) and Idabel, Okla. (1987-1994). After becoming a senior member in 1994, he continued to live in the Southwest and fill in as needed in various missions including Antlers, Okla., Mt. Vernon, Texas, Monticello, Ark., and Hugo, Okla. His last years in the Southwest were spent in retirement in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, a former Glenmary mission.
     On the occasion of the golden jubilee of his priesthood in 1999, Father Pat said, "It has been 50 years of serious fun, releasing the bubbling fountain of goodness which flows from the hand of God when you are trying to serve him among his own kind of people, the very poor."
     Father Pat is survived by a brother, Ligouri A. "L.A." O'Donnell of Malvern, Penn., nieces, nephews and his fellow Glenmarians.
     Visitation took place from 6-9 p.m. Tuesday evening, July 27, in Our Lady of the Fields Chapel at the Glenmary Residence, 4119 Glenmary Trace, Fairfield, Ohio. A prayer service was held at 7:00 p.m. 
     Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Wednesday, July 28, at 10 a.m. at St. Matthias Church in Forest Park, Ohio. Burial was at Gate of Heaven Cemetery.
     Memorials are requested to Glenmary Home Missioners, P.O. Box 465618, Cincinnati, OH 45246-5618.
     Glenmary Home Missioners is a Catholic society of priests and brothers who, along with coworkers, staff over 60 missions and ministries in 13 dioceses throughout Appalachia, the South and Southwest. Through service, word and sacrament, Glenmarians strive to bring spiritual development and social justice to the neglected rural areas of the United States.
     News announcement