Funeral Mass for Father Eugene Francis Lawlor is Tuesday, May 29 at St. Robert Church in Sacramento

Bishop Jaime Soto will preside at a funeral Mass for Father Eugene Francis Lawlor, a retired priest of the Diocese of Sacramento, on Tuesday, May 29 at 11 a.m. in St. Robert Church, located at 2243 Irvin Way in Sacramento. Father John Healy will be the homilist.

Father Lawlor, who served as a priest of the diocese for nearly 49 years, died on May 17. He was 73. He retired from active ministry on Sept. 4, 2009. Father Lawlor served in various parishes of the diocese during his priestly ministry.

A vigil for Father Lawlor will be held Monday, May 28, in St. Rose Church, located at 5961 Franklin Blvd. in Sacramento. Viewing will be from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. A rosary will be prayed at 6:30 p.m., followed by the 7 p.m. vigil service. The celebrant will be Father Liam McSweeney.

Father Lawlor was ordained to the priesthood on June 8, 1969 following his studies at St. Kieran’s Seminary in Kilkenny, Ireland.

A native of County Kerry, Father Lawlor started his ministry in 1969 at Holy Spirit Parish in Fairfield, where he was assistant pastor until 1972. Two years as assistant pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Carmichael followed.

Father Lawlor was among the first diocesan priests to celebrate Mass in Spanish, beginning in 1974, just five years after he arrived in the diocese. When he was assigned that year to St. Joseph Parish in Sacramento, where he served as assistant pastor until 1979, Father Lawlor realized he’d have to speak Spanish if he were going to minister to all of his parishioners. So he enrolled in the Berlitz School in San Francisco, rooming with a priest from Colombia, with whom he could practice his new language skills, he recalled to The Catholic Herald in a story upon his retirement in 2009. He continued his Spanish studies over the years, taking courses at California State University, Sacramento, as well as studying the language in Mexico.

At St. Joseph Parish, he noted, a parishioner helped him bring in a mariachi band from Stockton for Masses on the first Sunday of the month. During this time, Father Lawlor also celebrated Masses in Spanish at Immaculate Conception Parish in Sacramento.

He was appointed to the board of Stanford Settlement (neighborhood center) in 1977 and wrote a $260,000 Catholic Campaign for Human Development grant that year to be used for Hispanic ministry in the diocese.

When Father Lawlor was assistant pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Lincoln from 1979 to 1980, he noticed that after Sunday Mass, “everybody gathered outside the church to talk, and no one was talking in English — everything was in Spanish and Portuguese,” he recalled.

So when he arrived at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in Vallejo the following year as assistant pastor and heard parishioners speaking in Portuguese, he went back to school again. This time he attended the University of San Francisco in order to be able to offer Masses in Portuguese as well as in Spanish during his service in Vallejo from 1980 to 1986 and later as parochial administrator of St. Anthony Parish in Walnut Grove from 1987 to 1994.

Along with his language studies, Father Lawlor also earned master’s degrees in religious education and marriage and family counseling, both from the University of San Francisco. While earning these degrees, he became interested in pursuing a doctorate in education, exploring the topic of the separation of church and state. He took an educational leave from 1986 to 1987 to begin doctoral studies, also at USF.

It took Father Lawlor more than 20 years to complete his doctoral studies, largely because he tended to put his dissertation aside when his attention was required elsewhere, telling The Herald that a parish priest’s first duty is to his parishioners.

In the same week that he officially retired from active ministry, Father Lawlor submitted his dissertation, titled “Prayer, Religion, and Education in the Gearon v. Loudoun Case (1993),” to the Graduate Theological Foundation in Mishawaka, Ind., where his work was officially accepted, earning for him his long-awaited doctorate.

The late Msgr. Edward Kavanaugh, pastor emeritus of St. Rose Parish and Father Lawlor’s housemate for 15 years, told The Herald in 2009 that the priest is a studious, quiet man who loves to research the U.S. Constitution. He’s also very hard working, Msgr. Kavanaugh said, noting that Father Lawlor was always available to celebrate Mass.

When Father Lawlor arrived at St. Rose Parish, the Latin Mass had been celebrated there for several years by the late Msgr. Gerard Schons, whose retirement threatened to discontinue the practice. Parishioners asked Father Lawlor to continue the tradition, so he celebrated a weekly Mass in Latin for the 15 years he served at St. Rose as parochial vicar, in addition to his regular Masses in Spanish and in English.

“You never know what people are going to ask you to do when you enter a new parish,” he said upon his retirement. “That’s the nature of the work.” Until last year, Father Lawlor continued to assist with Masses at St. Rose Parish.

Three siblings preceded Father Lawlor in death: brothers Richard and John Lawlor, and sister, Noreen Lawlor, all of Ardfert, County Kerry, Ireland. He is survived by a brother, Brendan (Barbara), of Sacramento; sisters Christina O’Dea of Birmingham, England and Philomena Nolan of Dublin, Ireland; and many nieces and nephews.