The video of the Wake Service held for our brother Allan
on Sunday evening, February 2, 2025, appears here.
The Funeral Mass celebrated on Monday, February 3, 2025, appears here.
Our brother, Allan Wasiecko, OFM Cap., passed to the Lord’s eternal life on January 30, 2025 at a residential rehabilitation center in Pittsburgh, PA. He was 82. Allan was at the Center following a successful surgery to repair a broken femur he suffered from a fall at our St. Augustine Motherhouse on January 17th. His passing was not entirely expected, though health issues and increased memory loss weighed him down in his final years among us.
Born on October 19, 1942, to Stephen and Helen (Pack) Wasiecko in Pittsburgh, PA’s Mt. Oliver district, Allan entered St. Fidelis High School Seminary in Herman, PA, in 1955 and was invested as a novice in 1962, making his first profession of vows to our way of life on July 14, 1963. He was given the name Br. Donan, but he returned to his baptismal name when permitted to do so in 1968. Donan was part of the largest class of young men ever to join the community in one year, the height of the vocations boom in the 20th century. 25 young men joined him in professing vows that year, and 18 of the them went on to priesthood ordination following theology studies at Capuchin College in Washington, DC, on October 19, 1968 (which just happened to be Allan’s 26th Birthday!). Classmates included our confreres John Bednarik and Gene Emrisek. Other brothers would precede him to the “eternity fraternity:” Gary Powell (+1994), Ed Judy (+2003), future bishop Bill Fey (+2021) and Jerome Dunn (+2022).
Allan requested and received an assignment to the missions in Papua New Guinea, arriving in Mendi of the Southern Highlands in 1969. He spent an astounding 48 years of his life as a friar in the island country, a vital part of the mission’s adaptation to the global call of the Second Vatican Council.
Shortly after his orientation time in PNG, our brother was appointed assistant parish priest of Pangia’s St. Felix Parish serving in the Wiru Area and Wiliame. He was named Wiliame’s pastor in 1975 before moving on to Ialibu's St. Clare Parish where he remained for 13 years.
It was during his time in Ialibu that he was chosen to be part of the Capuchin Custody’s Council (1981) and would be chosen as First Councilor and Vice Custos for 5 consecutive terms, the subsequent 15 years. He was elected to lead the friars there as Custos for two terms (1995-2001). Those twenty-one years in leadership were not accidental. Allan, without a doubt, was known as a “quiet” man, but he was respected and appreciated as a friar who was observant and possessive of a quiet wisdom. To his Capuchin brothers, he was an attentive listener and guide. As one friar put it, “He was the kind of guy that, when he spoke at a meeting, you listened. You knew it was going to be good.”
Perhaps Allen was so often chosen to lead because he was able to listen to all sides. With that quiet wisdom, he chose great people and personnel: he noticed the strengths of people, and he was able to collaborate with friars of differing opinions, with the Religious women he befriended and encouraged and with the Village leadership he respected.
He was a great mechanic, a much-appreciated skill in the Highland missions. He would study something if there was a problem. First, he would listen to all of people who were having problems with a car or truck, as one friar pointed out. After listening, he would study the truck or the car – methodically surveying all of its parts as though in quiet contemplation – before finding the location of the problem. He worked with generators, with electrical outages , with water backups in the stove. “He would just make things work.”
In his pastoral life, Allan showed that same patience and compassion. People loved his gentle spirit. He was a gifted and favored preacher. Allan had a way of conveying the Gospel message in ways that were simple and impactful for both newcomers to the faith and theologically astute life-long Catholics.
On receiving the news of Allan’s death, a fellow missionary, Sr. Maureen Dawn, RNDM, now living in Melbourne, Australia, wrote: “I loved Allan. He was such a good friend to me. A great man, wonderful homilist, kind, funny and gentle . . . Allan often came up on the midday schedule from Ialibu and was able to arrange a helicopter to fly to Wiliame for a medical emergency, he saved many lives.”
It just so happens that an article in the Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper (11/8/2002), recounting the work of our friars in Papua New Guinea, chose a picture of Allan in a then-recently acquired ambulance purchased through funds given by our Seraphic Mass Association. Though obscured in the dated print, it’s Allan in the driver seat thanking the Association for its gift which enabled Allan and his fellow caregivers to keep on caring and being of help. Besides, as noted above and given the difficult roads the vehicle had to traverse, he probably had to fix it every so often (!).
While serving as pastor, Allan also worked throughout his PNG years in the formation of young men who aspired to live as Capuchins; he was Director of Formation from 2006 to 2010. He loved St. Francis of Assisi and followed in his footsteps – in his poverty and humility, his gentleness with people and fondness for animals of every sort.
Allen returned to the United States for his periodic leave in 2015, but to his great disappointment, he would never return. He wrote a short account of the event entitled, How I Became a Criminal. That communique with its provocative title was written (and at one time posted on a friary bulletin board!) on November 14, 2015, and reads, in part:
How I became a criminal! This all begins five years ago. I returned to Pangia after a leave in the USA. I spent the next three years as the parish priest in Pangia. I was also supporting our brothers in the formation program. My main job was looking after the Main Station St. Felix Parish, and helping out in the novitiate program.
After 3 good years I could have gone on leave to the States, but there was no one to replace me as the parish priest in Pangia . . . I felt good in the parish ministry and loved the people whom I was serving. I decided to stay another two years and make it 5 years— then I would go on leave.
I never checked my documents or their expiry dates because they were down in Moresby— I just kept on ministering to the people and looking after the parish and the out-stations. Usually our official papers are kept down at our house in Pt. Moresby, and we get them when we are going on leave . . . I figured the papers – visa, work permit, passport – were in good hands. When I needed them, my papers were not coming through. I think we had to pay a fine of one thousand kina – still no papers. Then I was told that my entry permit and work permit had expired three years ago . . . They were not going to renew my entry permit nor my work permit.
Back in the United States, Allan accepted an assignment to our friary in Washington, DC, but within a year, he joined former PNG colleagues, Roger White, Ben Regotti and Ben Madden (+2023) at St. John the Evangelist Friary in Center City Philadelphia, PA, for Sacramental ministry. It became increasingly clear that remaining with friars in the USA was the best thing for our brother. Signs of the onset of dementia became more and more apparent. Through it all, Allan would always remain gentle and never argumentative. Still, the man who was once an attentive listener and insightful leader was forced to yield to weakness. He couldn’t fix this.
It seemed best that Allan move to our St. Augustine Friary Motherhouse in May of 2020. The Province had just opened its new extension in March which provided monitoring and care for the friars while being at home among them. The care of the friars and support staff allowed Allen to be in a safe environment and, though not always at his best, he’d help in household tasks or in friary preparations for meals and holidays. He was never ever not a brother.
But, as his obituary noted: “He always hoped to return to the missions, and his heart remained in Papua New Guinea for the rest of his life.”
His parents, his sister Gloria O'Neal and brother-in-law Thomas O'Neal preceeded him in death. His nieces Karen Hull and Debra Brane, nephews Thomas O’Neal, James O’Neal and Stephen O’Neal, and eight great nephews and nieces mourn his passing, as do his Capuchin brothers here, in Papua New Guinea and across the globe.
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Funeral Arrangements
St. Margaret of Cortona Chapel
St. Augustine Friary
221 36th Street, Pittsburgh PA
Sunday, February 2, 2025
4:30 p.m. Reception of the body (friars only)
5:15 p.m. Evening Prayer (friars only)
7:00 p.m. Visitation & Viewing
7:30 p.m. Wake Service
Monday, February 3, 2025
9:30 a.m. Visitation
10:00 a.m. Mass of Christian Burial
Interment at St. Augustine Cemetery
Lunch in friary dining room
Arrangements by D'Allesandro Funeral Home (Pittsburgh)