By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

UPDATE: Archbishop Thomas Wenski will celebrate a funeral Mass with Father Honold's cremains on Thursday, Jan. 19, at 10:30 a.m. in the main chapel of Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery, 11411 N.W. 25 St., Doral.

MIAMI | Father Thomas Honold, who led Catholic Charities in Broward for a decade as a layperson and served another decade as pastor at St. Mary Magdalen in Sunny Isles Beach, died on Christmas day at the age of 78.

He had been a priest of the Archdiocese of Miami for 35 years.

Father Honold died at a hospital in Utica, upstate New York, where he had moved a few years ago, after retiring from active ministry in July 2010.

His sister, Patricia Putnam, who lives in Whitesboro, New York, called two of his priest friends in Miami with the news.

“She took tremendous care of Tom,” said Father Bob Tywoniak, pastor of Blessed Sacrament in Oakland Park. “He resided in his parents' house. These last few weeks, he was in a nursing home, and he was taken to the hospital where he died. He kept the faith through great challenges.”

“This has taken me by shock. Because he was in a nursing home, but I didn’t expect him to go so quickly,” said Father Luis Rivera, pastor of St. Maurice at Resurrection Church in Dania Beach, whose friendship with Father Honold dated to their time in neighboring parishes in southern Miami-Dade County.

Father Honold served as administrator of Sacred Heart in Homestead and Father Rivera as founding pastor of nearby St. Martin de Porres when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992.

“Father [Christopher] Marino [then a seminarian] and [Father Honold] spent the hurricane in the crawlspace underneath the staircase of the rectory, saying the rosary together,” recalled Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who knew Father Honold before he became a priest, when he was a lay leader at Catholic Charities.

Father Marino is currently rector of St. Mary Cathedral in Miami.

Father Rivera and Father Honold helped each other as their parishes and neighborhoods recovered from Andrew, and remained friends afterward, traveling together to various countries including Spain and Italy, as well as U.S. states such as Alaska.

“He was wonderful company,” Father Rivera said, adding that “Tom was very independent. He liked to go where he wanted to go, and he enjoyed it. He and I and Bob [Tywoniak] got along very well.”

Father Tywoniak served for 10 years as director of Catholic Charities' child welfare division and also lived through Andrew, sheltering at St. Anne’s Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in South Dade.

Even after retiring, and before moving back to New York to be with his family, Father Honold “was open to help wherever anyone really needed him,” Father Rivera said.

Until he lost his sight and declining health forced him to stop traveling, he continued to visit South Florida. “Even when he was ill, he came down. Because he loved Miami,” Father Rivera said.

Born June 8, 1944 in Columbus, Ohio, Father Honold attended schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, until his family moved to Whitesboro, New York, where he completed high school. He then attended St. Bernard’s Seminary in Rochester, New York, for eight years with the intention of becoming a priest for the Diocese of Syracuse.

But he left before his last year, telling the Florida Catholic in 1996, “I felt I needed to discern further my vocation. I took what I thought would be a short leave of absence.”

It lasted 16 years, during which time he earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland, then went to work for the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in social advocacy and the Campaign for Human Development.

While there, he got a call from Catholic Charities in Miami – then known as the Catholic Service Bureau. He was hired in 1975 to run the Broward office of the bureau, growing it “from a small agency that specialized primarily in adoption and foster care to a multipurpose, multi-funding facility with 130 employees,” according to a 1987 article in The Voice, the precursor to the Florida Catholic’s Miami edition.

Under his 10-year administration, the Broward agency founded three senior day care centers and began a parish community services program that offered consulting and training to help individual churches address social needs.

“He was always proud of the work done there,” said Father Tywoniak, who also has a master’s degree in social work.

While serving in Broward, Father Honold earned his doctorate in public administration from Nova University in Fort Lauderdale.

In 1985, he left South Florida to become the director of Catholic Social Services for the Columbus diocese in Ohio. But a year later, he enrolled at the Catholic University of America to complete his theological training, with an eye toward serving as a priest in South Florida.

“My role in the social service work of the church, in charity and social justice, deepened my faith commitment and caused me to consider once again how I could best serve the Church,” he told The Voice in that 1987 article, published on the occasion of his ordination to the priesthood, May 16, 1987.

His assignments included parochial vicar at St. Mary Cathedral (1987-89); temporary administrator of Holy Redeemer in Liberty City (March-June 1988); temporary administrator of St. Hugh, Coconut Grove (January-June 1996); temporary administrator of St. Coleman, Pompano Beach (February-March 1997); administrator of Sacred Heart in Homestead (1991-93); and finally pastor of St. Mary Magdalen in Sunny Isles Beach (1999-2010).

In between those assignments, he served as director of the archdiocese’s Respect Life Ministry (1989-92) while residing at Nativity Parish in Hollywood and St. Lawrence in North Miami Beach; archdiocesan director of the Campaign for Human Development (1988-93); associate director of the archdiocese’s Ministry of Christian Service (1995); and director of Catholic Health Services, an umbrella organization that provides nursing care, rehabilitation, assisted living, home health care, low-cost housing for seniors and also oversees the Catholic cemeteries and Catholic Hospice (1996-2000).

After retiring in 2010, Father Honold pursued another passion.

“He wanted to do some traveling,” Father Rivera said. “Of course, we don’t make that kind of money. So he got certified to go on cruises. He went all over,” including one cruise that lasted 60 days.

Funeral services are pending, with the Mass expected to take place in Utica, New York, so that his family can attend. In keeping with his wish, his remains will rest at one of the Catholic cemeteries in  the Archdiocese of Miami.

“Always loyal to the ADOM,” Father Tywoniak said.