Father Charles E. Cunniff, CSP, entered eternal life on May 2.
Father Cunniff died at the Paulist Center in Boston after struggling for several years with prostate cancer. He was 72.
Father Cunniff, who had been a member of the Paulist community for 46 years and a priest for nearly 41 years, was a Catholic campus minister, parish priest, and Catholic Information Center staff member.
He was born Oct. 22, 1951, in Boston, the eldest of seven children of Charles E. Cunniff Jr. and Constance Jewett Cunniff. He grew up in Meriden, Conn. He earned an undergraduate degree in 1973 from the University of Connecticut, where he met the Paulist Fathers through the university’s Catholic campus ministry.
He entered the Paulist novitiate in 1977, made his first promises on Aug. 12, 1978, and made his final promises on Aug. 22, 1981. Father Cunniff earned a master’s degree from the Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., and was ordained a priest on May 21, 1983.
In his first priestly assignment, Father Cunniff served on staff of the Catholic Information Center in Toronto through August 1984. From 1984 to 1989, he was a campus minister at St. John XXIII University Parish at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He then moved to Austin, Texas, where he was an associate pastor of St. Austin Church for five years.
He returned to campus ministry in 1994 as director of the Catholic Center at Boston University through 1999. In 2000, he became the associate director of the Catholic Information Center in Grand Rapids, Mich. That was followed by 13 years back in campus ministry at the St. Thomas More Newman Center at The Ohio State University in Columbus from 2004 to 2014 and at St. Luke University Parish at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., from 2014 to 2017.
He then served for one year as an associate pastor at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Grand Rapids, Mich., before returning to Boston in 2018 to become associate director of the Paulist Center.
From 2019 to 2022, he also served as superior of the Paulist Fathers based in Boston.
Father Cunniff was preceded in death by his parents. In addition to his brother Paulists, he is survived by his sister, Pat Tencza, and her husband, Jim; his brother, Jack Cuniff, and his wife, Maureen; his brother, Paul Cunniff, and his wife, Julie; his sister, Mary Rogalski, and her husband, Dave; his sister, Meg Price, and her husband, James; his sister, Kate Jonkman, and her husband, Hank; 13 nieces and nephews; and 13 great-nieces and great-nephews.
A funeral Mass for Father Cunniff was celebrated on May 11 at the Paulist Center in Boston. Father René Constanza, president of the Paulist Fathers, was the principal celebrant, with Father Rick Walsh, CSP, serving as the homilist.
