William Graham, OFM Cap. (1946-2026)

  Our Capuchin brother, William (Bill) Graham, OFM Cap., passed to his eternal life in the Lord on Sunday, July 5, 2026, at our motherhouse, St. Augustine Friary in Pittsburgh, PA. It seems only fitting that he returned home to that friary on Friday, July 3, 2026. Sandwiched between those days was the celebration of American Independence Day on the 4^th of July. He had often joked that he was born on Halloween, October 31, 1946, and we were gifted with another holiday to remember the bookends of his life. Anyone who knew Bill well would know that no other day could have been more appropriate for him. At heart, he was always a political junkie and dying soon after our national holiday was icing on the cake.

  Bill was one-of-kind in so many ways. We know of no other friar who was an elected delegate to a party's political convention. In February 1976, he asked for and gained permission to run for the position as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. The permission was given, and during that convention in August he was interviewed on national television about his support for then candidate-to-be Jimmy Carter as a Catholic priest. It was a controversial choice (Bill seemed to thrive on controversy), but Bill was convinced Carter was the right candidate for the time, although the party’s stance on abortion was not ideal. Few friars knew that the following year, in August 1977, he was so energized by his political experience of making a difference that at the advise of friends, he asked the Provincial Minister for permission to run for office as a Pennsylvania congressman in the 1978 congressional elections. While the request was not granted, he remained the junkie. In the end, politics is all about relationships, isn’t it: People dealing with people?

  The son of Charles and Kathryn (Duke) Graham, Bill grew up in nearby Saxonburg and attended St. Paul Elementary School in Butler, PA. He entered St. Fidelis Seminary for high school in Herman, PA, in 1960. Ironically, he was even chosen as class leader and doled out demerits to classmates for less than ideal obedience to school policies. As was the custom, he entered our Capuchin life as a novice following his second year of college at St. Fidelis along with novitiate classmates Jim Menkhus, John Harvey, Tom Weinandy, John Daya, John Cousins and Regis Scanlon (+2021). They professed their first vows as a Capuchin on August 25, 1967.  Completing his college years in Herman, he moved on to theology studies at the then Washington Theological Coalition, making his solemn prodession on August 23, 1970. He was ordained as a Capuchin priest on August 26, 1972.

  Bill's first assignment was to work as Vocation Director, recruiting for the community and for St. Fidelis High School Seminary. Bill always loved working and being with young people. Unfortunately, he was not quite as enthusiastic about the need for high school seminaries. Six years later, his move to parish ministry in Charleston, WV’s Sacred Heart parish (now a co-cathedral) included work as chaplain to Morris Harvey College.

  Bill always seemed to dream and seek out bigger options to have an effect in people’s lives. Even as a student friar, he had asked for time to supplement his education with summer courses at Slippery Rock College in psychology and sociology, and now found himself wanting to study urban psychology at the University of Chicago. He asked to do graduate studies in psychology in 1980 and was finally allowed to do so in May 1981. The council was not comfortable with all his requests and preferred that he steady his dreams in the practice of parish ministry. He was assigned as Pastoral Associate to Our Lady of Peace in Conway, PA, where he served as assistant (1982) before being asked to pastor the parish in 1986.

  Bill was happy in the job. He brought his pastoral skills and his ideals of building community, helping families in crises and encouraging young people to develop their talents. He carried with him the ideals of his vision for a parish as a community outreach to effect change. In implementing his vision, he received a fairly strong reaction from some members of the congregation – either for his seeming indifference to their disagreements or for his disregard of their advice or suggestions. He found himself in the midst of controversy with the Diocese of Pittsburgh over funding for Catholic schools.

  With Catholic parishes required to pay an annual subsidy for any student member enrolled in Catholic school, Bill was not reticent in expressing his discomfort.He felt their CCD program (and its costs), which trained the majority of the congregation's young people, outweighed the need to subsidize the minority of students whose parents sent them to Catholic schools. He wrote a letter, published in the Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper, which questioned the “tax” being levied on the parishes. The complaints of parishioners to the Diocese’s Ordinary, future-cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, provoked the Bishop to pen a personal letter telling Bill that, as a pastor in the Diocese, he is called “to support Diocesan policy and not to undermine it.” Bill defended himself with the Ordinary: “I wrote the letter to the Catholic at the suggestion of our Parish Council because they want to know if others had an experience similar to ours. They have wrestled responsibly with our parish budgets and are committed to the essential role of Catholic education.”

  The summer of 1992 brought a change of leadership to the Province in the election of our brother Bill Wiethorn (+2014) as Provincial Minister. The Council asked that Bill Graham, completing six years as pastor, serve as Treasurer for the Province and added the titles of Executive Secretary and Director of Development in 1993. Each of those titles created opportunities for changes in our finance and development offices which energized Bill all the more; he enjoyed new possibilities for changing “the way things have always been.” But they were not easy years, and it was not a typical Provincial term. Provincial Bill Wiethorn was elected to our General Definitory in Rome, and Vicar Provincial Phil Fink (+2015) would serve as Provincial, completing that term and being elected to the term that followed. Two prominent friars on his Council would choose to leave our community during that time. Bill expressed to some his relief in completing those terms and gladly accepted a new assignment to St. Francis Friary (Capuchin College)  in Washgington, DC, as Treasurer and member of the Formation Staff. But formation work was not a big enough dream. There was one more possibility that appeared to him in that friary so near to DC’s Catholic University: the study of Canon Law.

  It may appear to be quite a leap, but Bill had always been interested in human interaction and societal relationships. He wrote the Provincial in this request that his studies in Canon Law would help him to “heal the wounds of division in marriages and families, enabling him to minister on that level.” Of course, in subsequent years, there appeared his usual requests for his ongoing formation: to learn Spanish “for research and pastoral needs” or to study Italian for communications with the Church in Rome, but in his longest tenure in one ministry, he affected many lives in his new  work.

  With his License in Canon Law (JCL) from Catholic University in 2001, he assisted the Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston. Deciding not to continue an initial pursuit of a doctorate in Canon law, he found work in the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 2009. Bill was transferred to St. Ambrose Friary in the city to work for the Archdiocese as Interim Vicar for the Tribunal of the Judicial Province of Baltimore and served as the Archbishop's Delegate for Marriage dispensations and Marriage delegation.

  Early signs of Parkinson’s disease are difficult to recognize or identify, but with increasing weakness and difficulties in walking, he would be diagnosed with the affliction that would signal the need for retirement and attentive care. In January 2022, he moved to St. Augustine Friary, our motherhouse in Pittsburgh, PA, and received the care he needed from our Health Unit’s kind and professional staff. In the fall of that year, he even appeared as one of the “promotional faces” for the United States annual Retirement Fund for Religious campaign.

  The last birthday the brothers were able to celebrate with him was on October 31, 2025, his 79th. In late March 2026, Bill required hospitalization for treatment of a COVID infection coupled with pneumonia. After that treatment in Shadyside Hospital, he was moved on to Highland Hills Rehabilitation facility in attempts to regain muscle strength. There was some improvement in his walking, but Parkinson’s progression mitigated that recovery. He returned to the friary on Friday afternoon, July 3^rd. On Sunday, July 5^th, about a dozen brothers gathered to celebrate the Anointing of the Sick with him. He passed to the Lord’s eternal life before midnight.

  Halloween, his perpetual marking of birth, was the day of mocking death in the old English tradition, and Bill was able to have his very own Independence Day and All Saints’ Day combined. Freed from  Brother Body’s limitations, his spirit now flies free.

_________________________________________

 William Graham, OFM Cap.
St. Margaret of Cortona Chapel
St. Augustine Friary • 221 36th Street, Pittsburgh PA

Vigil & Wake Service
Friday, July 24, 2026

Mass of Christian Burial
Saturday, July 25, 2026

Interment in the friars' plot of
St. Augustine Cemetery, Shaler Township, PA,
follows the Liturgy.