Reverend Monsignor John J. Wiest
Pastor Emeritus, St. Mary’s Church, Manhasset
Former Rector, St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary

Monsignor John J. Wiest, who marked his 65th anniversary as a priest earlier this month, died after a long illness on June 13, 2006. He was 88 years old.

Born in Brooklyn on November 9, 1917 to the late Augustus and Margaret Heffernan Wiest, John Wiest attended Public School 97 and St. John’s Prep in Brooklyn. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1937 from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, a Master of Arts from New York University’s School of Education in 1944, and studied for the priesthood at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington.

He was ordained a priest by Bishop Thomas Molloy at St. James Pro Cathedral in Brooklyn on June 7, 1941.

After a year as an associate pastor at Our Lady of Loretto Parish in Hempstead, Father Wiest was asked to teach speech, english and religion at Cathedral College in Brooklyn. Eight years later in 1950, he returned to parish work as an associate pastor assigned to Our Lady Help of Christians Parish in Brooklyn. In 1953, he was transferred to serve as an associate pastor at St. Anthony of Padua Church in East Northport.

Shortly after the creation of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in 1957, founding Bishop Walter P. Kellenberg established a “minor” or “preparatory” seminary. The six-year curriculum at St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary included four years of high school classes and two years of college coursework. Father Wiest was selected to be the prefect of studies and taught English at the new school which opened in temporary headquarters in a former Greek Orthodox church in Hempstead in 1958. He was also the founder of the school newspaper. In 1963, Father Wiest was named the second rector of St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Uniondale following the appointment of the first rector, Monsignor James Coffey, to rector of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. As rector, Father Wiest prayed the invocation at the graduation ceremony for the first graduating class in 1964.

Father Wiest returned to parish work as pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in West Islip in 1967. Two years later, he was named pastor of the St. Mary’s Parish in Manhasset where he would serve until his retirement in 1987.

Father Wiest served on the Board of Directors of St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn from 1974 to 1987, two of those years as Director. He also served as a trustee of the Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception in Douglaston, on the Board of Catholic Charities, as a delegate to the Priests’ Advisory Council, a member of the Priests Senate and as a member of the Priests’ Retirement Board.

In 1980, Father Wiest was named an Honorary Prelate to his Holiness by Pope John Paul II with the title of Monsignor.