Marianist Father Joseph Priestley
Marianist Brother Thomas Payne
A Marianist brother and a Marianist priest, both who reside in Hawaii, are celebrating milestone jubilees this year.
Marianist Father Joseph L. Priestley, who resides in retirement at Marianist Hall on the Chaminade University of Honolulu campus, is marking his 70th year of profession.
The first association with the Marianists of the Honolulu-native began in grade school in 1933 at the Old Saint Louis College on Nuuanu Stream in Honolulu.
The young student followed the Marianists in 1939 to their present Saint Louis location in Kaimuki. During World War II, he lived and worked on the campus which had been transformed into an army hospital.
In 1943 he entered the Marianist novitiate in New York. He made his first profession on Aug. 20, 1944. After a few more years of study he was assigned to teach in Cleveland, and then in Hilo and Saint Louis in Honolulu where he directed the famous Saint Louis College Band.
Father Priestley’s years as a Marianist took him to assignments in Switzerland, San Francisco, Wailuku, Yokohama, Santa Cruz and Cupertino, among other places. He was an itinerant preacher from 1970 to 1981, speaking across the country.
He served as pastor of St. Anne Church in Waihee, Maui, from 1986 to 1995 and has lived in Marianist Hall since 1996.
Marianist Brother Thomas Payne, Chaminade University’s environmental safety officer, is celebrating his 50th anniversary of religious life this year.
Brother Payne hails from Cleveland, Ohio, where he came to know the Marianists while attending St. Joseph High School on the banks of Lake Erie.
He joined the Marianists in 1964 and earned a bachelors of mechanical engineering technology from the University of Dayton and a master of arts in religion/lay ministry from Athenaeum of Ohio.
Over the years Brother Payne served in a variety of jobs, from plant and property management to chaplain for several juvenile detention facilities and for the Cincinnati police department. In the 1980s he was director of prison ministry for the Diocese of Memphis.
For 15 years the Marianist brother was facilities director for Mount St. John and service manager for the Bergamo Retreat Center in Dayton, Ohio. He also spent four years in East Africa as treasurer for the Marianist missions in Kenya.
Brother Payne was recently assigned to the provincial administration of the Marianist Province of the U.S. where he managed the property capital renewal and replacement budgets, and coordinated the property and vehicle liability insurance.
