Father James Berry served diocese for 22 years on Oahu, Big Island, Maui

By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Father James Berry, a former Crosier priest from Minnesota who came to the Diocese of Honolulu 22 years ago and served in parishes on Oahu, the Big Island and Maui, died on Jan. 2 at St. Francis Hospice in Nuuanu. He was the founding pastor of St. Jude Parish, and had been vicar for two islands. Father Berry was 59 when he died, and a priest for 31 years.

Bishop Larry Silva will preside at his funeral at 7 p.m., Jan. 15, in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. Father Thomas Gross will preach and Father Joseph Hennen, a longtime friend, will give the eulogy. Visitation will precede the Mass at 5 p.m. Burial is 10 a.m. the next day at Hawaiian Memorial Park in Kaneohe.

“We are certainly grateful to Father Berry for his more than 20 years of service to the diocese,” said Father Gary Secor, diocesan vicar for clergy.

“He loved Hawaii and its people very much,” he said. “His ministry here has been a blessing.”

Close friend Father Gross knew Father Berry for 45 years, since their days together in the minor seminary in Minnesota. It was because of their friendship that their vocational paths over the years, including the decision to join the Diocese of Honolulu, often followed parallel tracks. They talked to each other nearly every day.

Father Gross described Father Berry as a “very personable” priest who “liked people” and “liked to talk.”

His verbal abilities made him “good at preaching,” Father Gross said. “People enjoyed his homilies.”

“He also liked to enable people in the parish to do ministry,” he said.

“He was certainly dedicated to his priesthood,” said Father Gross, who is pastor of St. John Vianney Parish in Kailua. “He tried to use it to be of service to people.”

Father Berry was born in Minneapolis, Minn., on Nov. 6, 1947, the first of two sons of Francis and Jeanne Berry.

He earned an English degree from St. Francis College in Indiana, before continuing seminary studies at Crosier House of Studies in Fort Wayne, Ind., and Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He was ordained on Sept. 6, 1975, in Fort Wayne by Bishop Joseph Crowley of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.

After ordination he served for two years as a vocation director in Onamia, Minn., and for two more years as dean of students at Crosier Junior College Seminary in Onamia. From 1980 to 1984, he was a mental health counselor in Minneapolis.

He came to Hawaii in 1984 and worked as a drug counselor for a year. In 1985, he took an assignment as associate pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Pearl City.

In 1988, he became the founding pastor of St. Jude Parish in Makakilo.

He was incardinated into the Diocese of Honolulu in April 1989.

Father Berry served as administrator of St. Mary Parish in Hana from November of 1992 to June 1993, after which he became a full-time prison minister on Oahu, a post he held for two years.

In 1995, he was named pastor at St. Michael the Archangel, Kailua-Kona, and in 2002, pastor of St. Theresa Parish in Kihei, Maui. Illness forced him to leave St. Theresa last year.

Father Berry had also served as vicar of the Big Island, and West Hawaii when the Big Island was divided into two vicariates, and Maui.

In 2000, on the occasion of his 25th anniversary of ordination, Father Berry wrote in the Hawaii Catholic Herald, “The Lord has led me down many paths during my 25 years of priesthood. … All of my ministries have been fulfilling.”

“Being prison chaplain was especially challenging and rewarding,” he said. “One of the most rewarding events was the baptism of an inmate who, six years later is a solid Catholic, although still incarcerated.”

Father Berry is survived by his brother and sister-in-law William and Lisa Berry of Florida, a nephew James and niece Melissa.