Capuchin Franciscan Father Robert Maher, who served as a parish priest on Oahu for 15 years and was one of the members of the diocesan tribunal that investigated the second miracle that led to the canonization of Father Damien, died Aug. 20 in Ridgewood, N.J. He was 66.
Father Maher served in Hawaii from 1997-2012. He was parochial vicar of St. Elizabeth Church in Aiea from 1997 to 2007, at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Waikane from 2008 to 2009, and was administrator of St. George Parish in Waimanalo for three years, from 2009 to 2012.
In 2003, the Franciscan was appointed by then-Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo to join a six-member team to examine the case of local schoolteacher Audrey Toguchi who received a scientifically unexplainable and permanent cure from lung cancer after praying to Father Damien de Veuster. Father Maher worked with doctors, other diocesan clergy and staff to conduct interviews and gather medical evidence showing the healing had happened through the intercession of Father Damien.
Their reports were sent to the Vatican and led to the elevation of the Belgian Sacred Hearts priest to sainthood in 2009.
Father Maher, son of George and Virginia Peterson Maher, was born on Feb. 2, 1947, in New York. He attended St. Mary Seminary in the New York city of Garrison before entering the Capuchin order in 1965. Father Maher was ordained on May 11, 1974.
His first ministries as a Capuchin Franciscan priest in the Province of St. Mary were in vocation and formation work, and as a hospital chaplain. He spent 16 years ministering in the northeastern U.S.
Later called to missionary work, Father Maher joined the Capuchins’ Star of the Sea vice province and traveled to the Pacific. He was a pastor in Guam for seven years before his mission brought him to Hawaii.
Father Maher returned to the eastern U.S. Province of St. Mary in 2012 and resided with the senior friary community of St. Clare in Yonkers, N.Y.
“In my life as a Capuchin friar and priest, I am constantly amazed at the ways God works in us and through us to touch others, especially when we least expect it,” he had said of his vocation.
He is survived by two brothers George (Valerie) Maher of Holbrook, N.Y.; Thomas (Joann) Maher of Atlantic Beach, N.C., and their children.
Funeral services for Father Maher were held Aug. 23 at the Whalen and Ball Funeral Home in Yonkers, N.Y. He was buried at the Province of St. Mary friar’s cemetery in Yonkers on Aug. 24.
