Services update -- Fr. Hallissey dies at age 93

Monsignor James T. Hallissey, 93, died Friday, April 16, 2010, at a local care center.

A service will be held at 10 a.m. at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Mountain Home on Tuesday. Later that evening, at 6:30 p.m., a rosary will be held at Sacred Heart Church in Boise. Wednesday, beginning at 10 a.m., a funeral mass will be held at Sacred Heart Church, followed by burial at Morris Hill Cemetery in Boise.

Hallissey came to Mountain Home as a parish priest in 1976, bringing with him a quick smile, a twinkle in his eye and a thick Irish brogue.

He was known for his commitment to the poor and downtrodden and his impassioned efforts to reach out to area youth.

Born Sept. 5, 1916, in Cloundreen, Cork County, Ireland, he was the son of John and Mary (Desmond) Hallissey. He once told the Mountain Home News that "it's an old Irish custom that one member of the family becomes a priest.... Strange to say, I was the one chosen."

He took most of his seminary training in Ireland, but concluded the work at St. Edwards in Seattle. "There were just too many priests in Ireland," he said during his 50-year jubilee celebration as a priest in 1996.

He attended school in Ireland and was ordained by Bishop Thomas Keogh of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin in the chapel of St. Patrick Seminary in Carlow on Sept. 22, 1940. He celebrated his first mass the next day at St. Patrick Church, Cork.

About that time, Boise Bishop Edward Kelly was recruiting priests from Ireland to serve in The Boise diocese. On Nov. 3, 1940, Father Hallissey and several other priests boarded a ship and arrived in New York 12 days later. After traveling west and arriving in Boise, they were brought to the bishop's residence and welcomed to Idaho before being sent to St. Edward Seminary in Seattle for an additional year of study.

"The priests and the seminarians were wonderful to us," Hallissey wrote, "and many became close friends for the rest of their lives."

He served a number of assignments in his early years as a priest, including in Wallace, St. Anthony and Rupert. One of his initial assignments was to the Blackfoot area, where he helped build a log cabin church on the Fort Hall reservation, something he said had been one of the greatest joys in his life. The Catholic Native Americans had been largely ignored to that point, "and they were so happy, they made me chief for a day."

In 1952 he was asked to create the Sacred Heart Parish in Boise, where he helped lead efforts to build both a church and two Catholic Schools.

Always interested in youth, he created a state-wide Catholic basketball tournament for eighth-grade students that bears his name. The gym at Sacred Heart Catholic grade school in Boise also is named after him.

In 1976 he came to Mountain Home to lead the parishioners of Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church.

"The greatest privilege I have as a priest," he said in a 1996 interview with the Mountain Home News "is the chance to say mass every morning and to offer the sacraments."

He believed the church should be a leader in creating moral standards for youths. "The church and the home must teach Christian moral standards," he said, and he asked his parishioners to "give their lives to God," but not just by attending church.

"The typical life of a human being is not in church. You have to get involved in other things. You have to fight for social justice," he said.

Hallissey always had a strong commitment to the poor and the local Hispanic community, especially the migrants. He conducted masses in Spanish and maintained a small workshop set aside for food and clothing that he handed out to anyone in need, regardless of race or religion.

"To be a pastor, which means shepherd, means to be responsible for the flock, not only for the spiritual, but the temporal as well," he said.

He never took credit for his many accomplishments, but always said whatever successes he'd had were the result of the hard work of committed parishioners. "Years ago, the priests and the sisters did the work alone. Now, everyone is involved." But that was only appropriate, he felt. "It's their church. The church is the people, not a building."

Officially, he retired many years ago, but he continued to be a shepherd to the local Catholic flock and helped with services in Glenns Ferry and Bruneau for many years before declining health finally put him in a local assisted care facility.

But he never lost the twinkle in his eye and the thick Irish brogue of his homeland. Although he returned to Ireland to visit many times over the years, in the 1996 interview he said he hoped to "continue here (in Mountain Home) for the rest of my life."

Services are pending. Arrangements are under the direction of Rost Funeral Home, McMurtrey Chapel, In Mountain Home.