A funeral Mass for Father Thomas (Tom) Fransiscus, CSsR, was celebrated Feb. 24 at St. Theresa of Avila Catholic Community in Reno City, Nevada. Father Fransiscus died Feb. 13 after an unplanned but routine medical procedure. He was 85.
Thomas Joseph was born to Mathias and Opal Fransiscus on May 6, 1939, in Omaha, Nebraska. He grew up in Holy Name Parish, where his vocation was nurtured by the local Redemptorist community and the Servants of Mary. He enrolled at St. Joseph’s College in Kirkwood in 1957.
He completed the novitiate at Mount St. Clement’s in De Soto and professed temporary vows on Aug. 2, 1960. He proceeded to Immaculate Conception Seminary in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, where he professed perpetual vows on Sept. 2, 1963 and was ordained to the priesthood on June 29, 1965.
Newly ordained Father Fransiscus spent his intern pastoral year at St. Alphonsus Liguori (Rock) Church in St. Louis, where he gained experience preaching among the youth and the Spanish-speaking and helped organize the Black community. He spent the next year as associate pastor of St. Michael Church in Chicago. He earned a master’s degree in theology from Loyola University while fully involved in ministry.
Father Fransiscus was appointed associate pastor of St. Gerard Majella Church in Kirkwood in 1968. He was responsible for sacramental ministry and teaching religion classes to grade schoolers, but he also preached Spanish language missions and participated in the LAMP Program in Matamoros, Tams, Mexico. Father Fransiscus also served as an associate pastor at churches in Denver and Fresno, California.
After 14 years of ministry, Father Fransiscus enrolled at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He earned a bachelor’s degree in canon law and a licentiate degree in canon law by 1981, greatly impacting the scope of his ministry for the next 38 years, serving tribunals in the dioceses of Stockton and Fresno in California, and Reno, Nevada, and as a pastor of several parishes.
Serious health issues in 2019 necessitated his retirement and move to the St. Clement Redemptorist Mission Community in Barnhart. He had recovered sufficiently by 2023 to join the Redemptorist Renewal Center community in Tucson, Arizona, where he was assigned at the time of his death.
