The Crusaders of the Holy Spirit priest was 79 and served in Hispanic ministry in the diocese for 27 years
By Dan McWilliams
Father Joseph Mary Hammond, CHS, a native of Ghana who had served in Hispanic ministry in the Diocese of Knoxville since 1998, died Saturday evening, Aug. 9.
Father Hammond, who was 79, had been in residence for many years at St. John Neumann Church in Farragut. He was a priest of the Crusaders of the Holy Spirit community for 36 years, passing away just four days after his ordination anniversary.
He had been diagnosed with stage four liver cancer more than a month before his death. In an Aug. 3 e-mail, St. John Neumann Parish stated “We humbly ask for your prayers for our beloved Father Joseph Hammond during a difficult time… . As a community of faith, we find strength in coming together in prayer, especially for those who have served us so faithfully. Please join us in praying for Father Hammond’s peace, comfort, and the grace to feel God’s presence with him.”
Priests, deacons, religious, and the Catholic faithful of East Tennessee were informed of Father Hammond’s death on Sunday, Aug. 10, with Bishop Mark Beckman saying, “Father Joseph was a loving, humble, and good priest and will be deeply missed. I am grateful for his wonderful service in our diocese.”
The visitation for Father Hammond took place Aug. 15 at St. John Neumann, with a bilingual Scripture service following. Monsignor Patrick Garrity, who served with Father Hammond at both St. Patrick in Morristown and St. John Neumann, led the Scripture service and spoke about his late friend.
Bishop Beckman and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz celebrated the funeral Mass on Aug. 16 at the Farragut church, with interment following at the new diocesan Holy Cross Cemetery in Lenoir City. Father Michael Maples, who served at St. John Neumann alongside Father Hammond from 2014 until accepting a position at Conception Seminary College in Missouri this summer, delivered the homily at the funeral Mass, and Deacon Jim Fage of St. Patrick Parish gave a eulogy after Communion.
Monsignor Garrity served as pastor of St. Patrick from 1997 to 2010 and then of St. John Neumann until his retirement from full-time priestly ministry in 2018.
He fondly remembered serving at both parishes with Father Hammond.
“I’ve had the privilege of knowing Father Hammond since 1998 when he first came to the Five Rivers Deanery to do Hispanic ministry across upper East Tennessee,” Monsignor Garrity said. “At that time, he lived at Notre Dame Church in Greeneville and traveled to several parishes including St. Patrick in Morristown to celebrate the Spanish Mass. It is there that we first became friends.
“In 2001, he moved to St. Patrick in Morristown with me, and he continued his ministry to the Hispanic communities. He was very fluent in Spanish and had ministered for a number of years in Venezuela before coming to the United States.”
Father Hammond knew Monsignor Garrity’s parents, the late Galen and Sylvia Garrity.
“In the years that followed, my parents would come visit often. They also became very close with Father Joseph,” Monsignor Garrity said. “In fact, after my father died, and my mother was seriously ill, she moved in with us so that I could care for her. I think she adopted him, and he adopted her and that’s how he and I became brothers.”
That brotherhood continued a couple of counties away when both priests came to the Farragut parish.
“After my mother died, I was moved to St. John Neumann in Farragut, and Father Joseph took over as pastor at St. Patrick,” Monsignor Garrity recalled. “Three years later in 2013, he joined me in residence at St. John Neumann and continued Hispanic ministry, celebrating sacraments at Holy Ghost, Our Lady of Fatima, and St. Alphonsus churches.”
Father Hammond and Monsignor Garrity celebrated a special jubilee on a special trip.
“In 2014, he took his first trip home in many years to Ghana, where he would celebrate his 25th ordination anniversary. For a week we toured the city of Accra and much of the surrounding area, including a couple of leper colonies that Father Joseph helped support over many years,” Monsignor Garrity said. “While there I stayed at the rectory of Father Andy Campbell at his parish, Christ the King.
“On Saturday, we celebrated Father Joseph’s 25th ordination anniversary with a big Mass. Lots of family and friends attended, and a great choir was present that sang and sang. I was privileged to preach his ordination anniversary Mass. At the reception dinner and party, I met much of his family, and we celebrated.”
That happy occasion did not stop there.
“The next day on Sunday, I joined Father Joseph at Sacred Heart Church in downtown Accra. I was privileged to preach their main Mass on Sunday morning, and I remember the outstanding choir sang and sang again,” Monsignor Garrity said. “The party continued after Mass. It was a regular Sunday Mass, but people stayed to eat and socialize for the whole afternoon. All in all, I was blessed because it was the best way to ever see Ghana!”
Serving Five Rivers Deanery
Father Hammond served for many years as the Five Rivers Deanery coordinator of Hispanic ministry after being appointed to the role by then-Bishop Kurtz, Knoxville’s second bishop, in June 2001.
“I will be getting more involved with the people, getting to know them and saying Mass more often,” Father Hammond told The East Tennessee Catholic for its June 24, 2001, issue.
He served as part-time associate pastor at both Notre Dame and St. Patrick and celebrated Masses in Spanish for those two parishes as well as for Good Shepherd in Newport and for Hispanic farm workers at the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the town of Unicoi. At that time, Unicoi County did not have a Catholic parish but was part of the territory of St. Mary in Johnson City.
Father Hammond became the full-time associate at St. Patrick in April 2005 and continued in his deanery Hispanic ministry role until Bishop Richard F. Stika named him pastor of the Morristown parish in 2010.
He lived in retirement at St. John Neumann but assisted with Hispanic ministry and confessions. He also served the Hispanic communities at Holy Ghost in Knoxville, Our Lady of Fatima in Alcoa, and St. Alphonsus in Crossville.
Knoxville’s founding Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell invited Father Hammond to serve in the diocese in late winter 1998. Father Hammond visited East Tennessee at that time and first served as a volunteer at Notre Dame and at St. Patrick until he could obtain a resident visa in the United States.
Father Joseph Hammond, CHS, on his first visit to the diocese in 1998, points to his native Ghana on a world map on the wall in the former office of The East Tennessee Catholic. (Photo ETC Archive)
From Ghana to Tennessee
Father Hammond was born July 21, 1946, and grew up in Accra, Gold Coast (now Ghana), as one of three sons of Joseph Nii Quita Hammond and Rebecca Dedei Quarshie. The Hammonds had two other sons, Joshua Nii Ayi Hammond and Emmanuel Nii Armah Hammond. Raised a Methodist, the future priest was baptized as a Catholic when he was 9.
He became a Brother in the St. John of God order in Koforidua, Ghana. The Spanish order does hospital ministry. In 1972, the young Brother traveled to Spain to study nursing.
“(The order) had a hospital, and I had been thinking about becoming a Brother before,” Father Hammond told The East Tennessee Catholic in 2012. “One of the priests there recommended me, so I went with them.”
Serving as a nurse “was great,” Father Hammond said. “I was taking care of the people when they were sick and giving comfort, especially to those who were dying. Sometimes they were left alone, and I tried to give them consolation and help them to die in peace.”
In 1979, he went to Liberia, where he worked in St. John’s Hospital in the capital of Monrovia.
He joined the Crusaders of the Holy Spirit in Salamanca, Spain, and his theological formation continued in England at the Mill Hill Missionary Institute.
“I had a confessor, Father Byrne, who was an SMA (Society of African Missions) father. He suggested I become a priest,” Father Hammond recalled in 2012. “I said yes, so he gave me the address of the CHS order, and I wrote to them, and they accepted me.”
CHS priests also serve in England, Ireland, Venezuela, Colombia, and Argentina.
Father Hammond was ordained a priest on Aug. 5, 1989, at St. Patrick Church in Walsall, near Birmingham, England, by Bishop Joseph Francis Cleary.
A Father Baffoe influenced his priestly vocation, Father Hammond said.
“I think the way he celebrated Mass is what caught my attention,” he said. “I liked the reverence in the way he said Mass and his personal holiness.”
Father Hammond noted that he became a Catholic through the school he was attending as a youth.
From England, he went to Venezuela and served the faithful of Our Lady of Peace Parish (Nuestra Señora de la Paz) in the town of Guanarito, Portuguesa State, for six years.
Father Joseph Hammond, CHS, stands on the altar steps at St. John Neumann Church in Farragut last Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with children from the parish Hispanic community dressed in the costumes of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady. (Photo courtesy St. John Neumann Parish)
“I served in the towns and villages around Guanarito. I was in a parish where the previous pastor was a Franciscan priest who came there once a week,” Father Hammond said. “I was the first resident priest there for some time, and then also I had 15 substations, and I tried to visit those stations—more towns, more villages—where there was no priest at all. I tried to visit all of them.
“On Saturdays and Sundays, I said four Masses (daily). I did baptisms, first Communions, and weddings whenever I was there. Right after I had gotten there, I had four weddings that year. The next year, the number shot up to 12, and it kept increasing. The presence of a priest also helps the people to come, and they can get their catechesis and so on.”
Father Hammond returned to his home parish in Accra for two years, serving there until his superior asked him to come to the United States, where at the time the CHS order had only one other priest, who was serving in New York state.
After arriving in America, Father Hammond contacted Father Tom Powers, whom he met when he was studying for the priesthood in London. Father Powers served in the Diocese of Knoxville in the early 1990s before retiring to Greer, S.C. Father Powers introduced Father Hammond to Bishop O’Connell, who issued his invitation with a view to Father Hammond serving in the diocese.
Father Hammond spent time with Jack Kramer, then the diocesan director of Hispanic Ministry, and met with future Monsignor Bill Gahagan, who was serving as pastor of St. Mary in Johnson City. Father Hammond said at that time that he was appreciative of the hospitality shown to him during his stay in the diocese, especially thanking now-Monsignor Al Humbrecht and Father David Boettner of Sacred Heart Cathedral. The monsignor at that time was pastor of Sacred Heart, and Father Boettner, now rector of the cathedral, was associate pastor there, and they invited Father Hammond to live at the cathedral rectory during his first visit to East Tennessee.
Becoming a citizen
In early 2011, Father Hammond became a U.S. citizen, and his parish family at St. Patrick in Morristown helped him celebrate the occasion. He was among more than 165 people from 59 countries who took part in naturalization ceremonies Feb. 18 at the City-County Building in Knoxville. U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan presided and led the new citizens in the Oath of Allegiance.
“It was great,” said Father Hammond. “It was very moving and emotional, especially when the judge came and read the orders and rights and all the things you are supposed to do.”
The St. Patrick pastor said he had no trouble with the citizenship exam.
“The questions and answers were very straightforward and very easy,” he said.
About 15 St. Patrick parishioners attended the naturalization ceremony in Knoxville, and more than 200 turned out for a “Citizenship Celebration” for their pastor Feb. 26 at the parish center. At that event, Father Hammond received a new Marian chasuble, stole, and alb purchased by several parishioners.
The Cabrera family of St. Patrick joined their pastor in becoming U.S. citizens. José, wife Ana, and sons Eddie and Fermin Cabrera took part in the ceremony in Knoxville.
After Father Hammond’s death, the Cabrera family spoke about him, saying, “Father José was a true instrument of God, celebrating Masses and administering the sacraments in Spanish in the Five Rivers area. His hard work, dedication, spirituality, kindness, and good sense of humor were qualities that drew many individuals and families, including ours, closer to the Catholic Church. He personally invited my family and me to become active members of St. Patrick Parish, and over time, he became our spiritual guide. He also encouraged us to receive the sacraments regularly.
“Father José will always remain in our hearts and in our prayers.”
Father Hammond told The East Tennessee Catholic that “I prefer the pastoral work” when asked what gave him the most joy as a priest. “I go to the hospital and visit the sick and visit them in their homes. I find comfort doing that rather than sitting in the parish office.”
Father Hammond offered advice in the 2012 article to young men considering a vocation to the priesthood.
“I would say let the grace of God work through you,” he said. “Listen to Him and do what He tells you in your heart. Pray during your discernment and give God the control.”