Father Dennis Logue's vocation began amid the ruins of post-war Germany
Father Dennis Logue, 1927-2026
Father Dennis Logue SVD, 99, an Army veteran and hospital chaplain, passed away at Techny, Ill., on July 21.
“He was a superb man, a prayerful and holy man,” said Father Dennis Callan SVD, rector of Divine Word Residence at Techny. “He really cared about people. That’s what motivated him. He wanted to make the world a better place.”
Making the world a better place was a constant thread through Father Logue’s life. As a young man, he served with the U.S. Army occupation forces in post-World War II Germany.
Surrounded by bombed-out buildings and the devastation of war, he discovered his vocation.
Father Logue once said, “I had this deep hunger for God. I would go to Mass with the German people and I would go into the church after duty to pray. I would just pour my heart out to our dear Lord and say, ‘I want my life to be better than the life I have been living.’”
That prayer led to almost eight decades of religious life with the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), serving in vineyards, seminaries, hospitals, prisons, parishes and convents throughout the United States.
The son of a Pennsylvania coalminer, Joseph Ray Logue was born in Argentine, Penn., on February 26, 1927. He was the fifth of Edward and Martha (nee Riding) Logue’s eight children.
Like other youths in coalmining country in 1941, the young Joseph Logue went to work after completing grade school. From ages 14 to 17, he worked in farming, strip mining and sawmilling.
After turning 18, he was drafted and sent to train for warfare in the South Pacific. However, with the war’s end, his unit was redirected to Europe to join the Occupation Forces.
Shortly after his discharge from military service in 1946, Father Logue began exploring religious life. A visit to a religious goods store confirmed his vocation. He heard a customer remark that rosaries had been made by religious brothers, and he immediately recognized where God was calling him.
He entered the Society of the Divine Word in 1947 and professed vows as Brother Dennis in 1950. As a brother, he worked at O-Neh-Da Vineyards in upstate New York.
There, he cultivated grapes and bottled and shipped sacramental wines used in Catholic churches throughout the country. He also served as a cook for fellow missionaries in Bordentown, N.J.
In the mid-1950s, then-Brother Dennis trained as a certified nursing assistant and served as infirmarian for Divine Word communities in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
His gifts for healthcare eventually led him to become director of Health Services at Divine Word Seminary in Girard, Penn., where he cared for seminarians and members of the religious community.
Grass never grew under Father Logue’s feet. In 1974, Father Logue tended to souls at the Bordentown Youth Correctional Institution, ministering to incarcerated young men.
The following year, he became the first permanent deacon ordained for the Diocese of Trenton, N.J., a milestone in the history of the diocese.
In 1979, after nearly three decades as a brother, Father Logue entered a program that recognized life experience toward priestly formation. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1983.
Father Logue’s first priestly assignment took him to Presbyterian University Hospitals in Pittsburgh, now part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), where he became the first Catholic priest in the hospital’s 100-year history to serve as a chaplain.
For ten years, he ministered to patients, families and medical professionals, accompanying them through illness, healing and loss.
A decade later, Father Logue accepted an assignment to serve rural Appalachian parishes in West Virginia. During that time, he received an invitation to minister in the Byzantine Catholic Church.
His appreciation for the Eastern Catholic tradition began in childhood in western Pennsylvania, where members of his extended Hungarian family worshipped in the Byzantine Rite.
While serving in Girard, he regularly attended Saints Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Church, where his interest in Eastern spirituality continued to grow.
After extensive preparation, Father Logue petitioned Rome for permission to celebrate the Byzantine Rite. He was granted dual rite faculties, allowing him to celebrate the sacraments in both the Roman and Byzantine Catholic traditions.
He served as pastor of Saints Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Church and St. Michael Byzantine Catholic Church in Pleasant City, Ohio.
In 2003, Father Logue returned to Roman Catholic parish ministry and the people of West Virginia until he was appointed chaplain for Mount Grace Convent in St. Louis, home of the contemplative Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters (SSpSAP).
In 2011, Father Logue returned to Techny, Ill., where he served as sacristan for the Divine Word community while volunteering with hospice patients and their families.
His funeral Mass will take place on July 30 at 10 a.m. in the Divine Word Residence chapel at Techny. Following the funeral, he will be buried at St. Mary Cemetery at Techny.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in the name of Father Logue can be made for the care of elderly and infirm missionaries and sent to The Rector, Divine Word Residence, 1901 Waukegan Road, P.O. Box 6000, Techny, IL 60082-6000.
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