A funeral Mass for Franciscan Father Bernardine L. Hahn was celebrated Feb. 13 at St. Anthony of Padua Church in south St. Louis.
Father Hahn died Feb. 8 at age 101.
Born in Omaha, Neb., Father Hahn entered the Franciscans in 1936 and was ordained a priest in 1943 in Teutopolis, Ill. He was assigned to parishes in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and Ohio. He served in Hispanic ministry in San Antonio and with African-American communities in Monroe, La. He began working with the Newman Club at the University of Nebraska during his first assignment and discovered a fondness for evangelization work. At other assignments, he supervised a number of parish construction projects.
He moved to St. Anthony Friary in 1999 and served as chaplain to the Poor Clare monastery until 2012, when he became confessor for priests. While serving as Poor Clares chaplain, Father Hahn also celebrated Mass at the Bethesda Nursing Home in Oakville and at Father Dempsey’s in St. Louis.
Father Hahn was a strong respect life advocate. He prayed the Rosary every Saturday at an abortion clinic in Nebraska that eventually closed. While in St. Louis, he traveled by bus to the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., every year until age 95.
In an article in the St. Louis Review in 2015, he said “most of all I enjoy the Mass. I have had over 25,000 Masses in my life.”
A former baseball player, he followed the Cardinals and Kansas City Royals.
Survivors include a brother, Lawrence Hahn of Omaha.
