To say that Father Lawrence Lucas was a man of strong convictions is like saying a tsunami is agitated waves. A priest who was a veritable force of nature joined the ancestors last week, according to a notice from the December 12th Movement of which he was one of its founders.
Father Lucas, widely known for his relentless advocacy for justice and not one to cower or bite his tongue when enduring controversy, was last in the news six years ago––with less fanfare––when he was named a temporary administrator of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Harlem.
For all his accomplishments in the Catholic diocese, Father Lucas was more prominently recognized in the activist community where his presence was often as loud as it was fervent. His support for a Black educator at a rally outside the Board of Education headquarters in Brooklyn in 1988 is an example of how he could stir up things. “Those who are killing us in the classroom, falsely arresting us in the subway, murdering us in the streets, come primarily from the Catholic persuasion,” he said. After the reference to the police, he added: “Those who are killing us in the classroom, I do not have to tell you what persuasion they come from. You just have to look at the Board of Education, and it looks like the Knesset in Israel.”
Lucas, then 54, said his comments were taken out of context, but that meant little to Cardinal O’Connor who in a statement said that either in or out of context, he could not condone rhetoric that “could be construed by reasonable personal as racist, anti-Semitic and, ironically, even anti-Catholic, regardless of the intention of the speaker.” Mayor Ed Koch was even more outraged, citing the comments as “outrageous.”
Not a year has gone by since his ordination in 1959 that Father Lucas was not at the center of a social or political issue, particularly as it pertained with his fight against racism or in contention with Mayor Koch.
Before his appointment at Lourdes, he had been a retired priest in residence at the parish since 2010, where he was senior priest, 2009-2010.
According to Archdiocese records, he served as chaplain at North General Hospital and New York City Department of Corrections, 2008-2009; at Rikers Island, 1994-2008; and at North General Hospital, Manhattan, 1992-1994. He was pastor of Resurrection parish, Manhattan, 1969-1992, and was parochial vicar there, 1961-1964. He was a communications consultant for the archdiocese, 1968-1969, after post-graduate studies at the University of Indianapolis, 1966-1968. He was also parochial vicar at St. Charles Borremeo, Harlem, 1964-1966; St. Peter’s, Manhattan, 1959-1961 and St. Joseph’s, Croton Falls, 1959. After studying for the priesthood at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, he was ordained in 1959.”
In a Facebook entry, attorney and activist Joan Gibbs, posted that while she didn’t always agree with Lucas, she was grateful that he had added her mother’s name to a prayer list after she suffered a massive stroke.
There is an extensive interview with Father Lucas on YouTube conducted by Paul McIntosh.