Sacred Hearts Father Paul McLeod was a priest in Hawaii for 24 years

By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Sacred Hearts Father Paul McLeod died at his home on Kauai on Oct. 20. He was the spiritual care coordinator for Kauai Hospice in Lihue. A priest for 24 years, he had been “absent with permission” from active priestly ministry for about three years. He was 68.

According to an e-mail message by the Sacred Hearts superior Father Christopher Keahi, his landlady saw him praying his Divine Office when she brought him juice the morning of Oct. 20. When she checked on him at lunch time, he had died in his chair.

A funeral Mass was scheduled for Oct. 31 at Immaculate Conception Church in Lihue, where he once was pastor. He had requested to be buried at Kauai Memorial Gardens in Lihue. Father Keahi, who called Father McLeod “my wonderful brother and friend,” was to preside at the Mass.

Father McLeod served as a parish priest at Maria Lanakila Church in Lahaina, Maui; St. Augustine, Waikiki; St. Patrick Church, Kaimuki; St. Michael Church, Waialua; and his last assignment as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, Lihue. While on Kauai he was also the island’s vicar and a member of the Presbyteral Council, the bishop’s group of priest advisors.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Father McLeod came to Hawaii in 1958 after attending the University of Southern California. He worked at various jobs, ending up as the head of the graphics department of a local printing company.

After a reawakening of his faith, he joined the Sacred Hearts Congregation in the mid-1970s. In his formation for the priesthood, he earned an undergraduate degree in sociology and took advanced courses in psychology and gerontology at DePaul University in Chicago. He received his master’s in religious studies from the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario ordained Father McLeod at age 44 on Nov. 23, 1984, at St. Patrick Church in Honolulu.