Father James F. Wiesner, CSP, dies
St. Austin Church pastor Father James F. Wiesner, CSP, died Nov. 18. A funeral Mass will be offered at St. Austin Nov. 23 at 6 p.m. Father John F. Duffy, president of the Paulist Fathers, will preside; Father John Behnke, CSP, will deliver the homily. Internment will take place Nov. 24 at 10 a.m. at Assumption Cemetery in Austin.
Father Wiesner was a member of the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle for 30 years. He was 64 years old at the time of his death.
Father Wiesner was born in San Francisco on June 23, 1945 to Charles and Irene Wiesner. The family moved east, and Father Wiesner grew up in St. Rita Parish in Dundalk, Md. He graduated in 1963 from Calvert Hall College High School in Towson, Md. The future priest then earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1968 from the University of Baltimore and received a master’s degree in education from Coppin State University in Baltimore in 1972.
Father Wiesner entered the novitiate of the Paulist Fathers in 1978 and completed his seminary studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He was ordained a priest at the mother church of the Paulist Fathers, St. Paul the Apostle in New York City, on May 21, 1983.
Father Wiesner began his priestly ministry at the Paulist Center in Boston, Massachusetts, 1983-1986. He then served at Holy Spirit Parish-Newman Center at the University of California at Berkeley, 1986-89.
Father Wiesner served as pastor of St. Paul the Apostle in Greensboro, NC, 1989-1991 and returned to campus ministry as pastor of St. Lawrence Parish-Newman Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, 1991-98. He then served as pastor at St. Patrick in Memphis from 1998-2005.
In August of 2005 he was made pastor of St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, Tex., where he served until his sudden death.
