Maryknoll Father Frank Diffley worked 37 years in Japan, Hawaii

Maryknoll Father Francis Anthony Diffley, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a missioner to Hawaii and Japan for 37 years, died on March 27 at St. Teresa’s Residence in Ossining, N.Y., of a rare form of encephalitis. He was 81 and a priest for 54 years.

Among his last duties was as a counselor for the victims, service personnel and the families of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center terrorist attacks.

Born in Brooklyn, on July 29, 1923, Father Diffley attended Catholic schools before entering Maryknoll Seminary in Ossining.

Ordained on June 10, 1950, Diffley taught at Maryknoll College in Lakewood, N.J., for two years before receiving a 13-year assignment in Japan.

In 1959 he founded Hope House in Kyoto, a program for underprivileged people. The facility still offers a wide range of services including school programs for children, an eye clinic, an employment bureau and a credit union.

Father Diffley returned to the United States in 1965 to work at the Maryknoll Novitiate in Hingham, Mass., where he was named assistant director and then rector. While there, he started a pastoral education course for seminarians and novices at Boston City Hospital.

He earned a master’s degree in sacred theology in 1969 and a doctorate in ministry in 1972 from Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Center Mass.

Father Diffley was assigned to Hawaii in the early 1980s serving in parishes in Kalihi, Waianae and Honolulu. He was elected Maryknoll’s Hawaii Regional superior from 1986 to 1992 and then served as president of Maryknoll Schools in Hawaii from 1993 to 1998 while he was pastor of Sacred Heart, Punahou.

In Hawaii, he also became active in Worldwide Marriage Encounter, continuing his work with the organization in New York up until his recent illness.

In 1998, Father Diffley served his society in mission promotion and education work in the New York tri-state area, concentrating on vocation recruitment and then as pastoral minister for fellow Maryknollers living at the Maryknoll Center in Ossining.

After the terrorist attacks on New York’s Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, Father Diffley served as a volunteer counselor with the 69th Regiment Armory in Manhattan and then to Pier 94 on the Hudson River, offering consolation to people of all faiths mourning loved ones.

He described those experiences in a January 2002 Maryknoll magazine article in which he quoted the favorite prayer of Franciscan Father Mychal Judge, the New York Fire Department chaplain who lost his life in the attack:

“‘Lord, take me where you want me to go. Let me meet whom you want me to meet. Tell me what you want me to say. And keep me out of your way.’”

Father Diffley is survived by his sister, Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet Monica Diffley, of St. Bernard’s Convent in Levittown, N.Y., and a cousin, Maureen Lewis, of Latham N.Y.

Father Diffley’s funeral was April 1 at Our Lady Queen of Apostles Chapel, Ossining, followed by burial at Maryknoll Cemetery.

Memorial donations may be made in Father Diffley’s name to Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, P.O. Box 302, Maryknoll, N.Y. 10545.