PITTSBURGH (PA)
Baltimore Sun [Baltimore MD]
August 31, 2024
Father Frank D. Almade had just a smidge of the maverick about him.
A thought leader and pastor in the Catholic Church, he was focused less on giving sermons and more on taking up the mantle for the vulnerable, the hungry and for the alleged victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy.
Since his ordination in 1978, Father Almade was best known for his social ministering, as a co-founder of the Jubilee Soup Kitchen in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, author of “Just Wages for Church Employees,” a book borne of his Ph.D. thesis, and as a board member at Catholic Charities for more than 35 years.
He had, as Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik put it, “a unique ability to see things as they truly were.”
Before his retirement last summer, Father Almade served in many parishes over the years, overseeing mergers in places like St. John Fisher in Churchill, which became part of the St. Joseph the Worker Parish in 2020.
It was at the St. John Fisher rectory that Father Almade, 70, died on Aug. 21 of complications from multiple myeloma.
He grew up in Baldwin Borough, where his father, a steelworker, supported his son’s calling to the vocation as an adolescent.
He enrolled at the Bishop’s Latin School in the South Side, graduating in 1971, and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in classics from Duquesne University, followed by a second bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in sacred theology from St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore.
In 1978, Father Almade was among a handful of co-founders who opened the Jubilee Soup Kitchen.
When the state Attorney General’s office released a grand jury report in 2018, accusing 301 priests of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children, Father Almade was devastated. He didn’t hold back in his views at the time, telling the New Castle News just days after the release of the scathing 884-page report that “the church is full of sinners on both sides of the altar.”
A huge Pittsburgh sports fan and voracious reader with a belly-laugh and love of grilling, Father Almade was also a devotee of “The Boss,” having never missed a Bruce Springsteen concert anywhere in the Pittsburgh vicinity, Ms. Saunders said.
In 2017, Father Almade was asked by the diocese and agreed to pen a blog entry about changes in his life and the church since his ordination nearly 40 years earlier.
Ever the renegade, he didn’t hold back, sharing some very personal — and even a little shocking — reflections:
“The scene is St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. I’m a first year theologian. The year is 1974, less than ten years after the end of the Second Vatican Council. It’s the annual alumni day. A visiting bishop-alumnus has just celebrated a Solemn High Mass at 10:30 a.m., and now the alumni, faculty and guests have made their way to the hall for appetizers and drinks, prior to the festive midday meal.
“These are the guys who went through the seminary when it was tough as nails, with all the prayers and lectures in Latin. …Now they are doing what priests always do when they gather in social settings — bitch about their bishop and the church. I overheard this comment: ‘I haven’t read a book in 40 years, and I’m damn proud of it!’
“At that moment, I decide then and there, that’s not going to be me.”
Father Almade is survived by his brothers Fred A., Leonard, and Martin Almade.
Janice Crompton: jcrompton@post-gazette.com.