Father Joe Haggar Remembered for His Service to Melkite Catholic Church in Rhode Island

Father Joseph S. Haggar, pastor emeritus of St. Basil the Great Greek Melkite Catholic Church in Lincoln, Rhode Island, was laid to rest in a funeral Divine Liturgy on April 5. The service, held at the church he helped build, was attended by parishioners, family, and friends, with an honor guard from the Knights of Columbus accompanying his casket.

Father Haggar served as pastor of St. Basil’s from 1973 to 2020. During his tenure, the congregation moved from its original, smaller location in Central Falls to a new site that included a church, baptistery, religious school, and cultural center, constructed between 1997 and 1998.

Known affectionately as “Uncle Joe” to his family, Father Haggar was described by his nephew Mark Colabella as a man whose smile “always lit up the room” and who was “wise and compassionate.” Colabella highlighted both the “brilliant and serious side” of his uncle, evident in his work on the 1970 Byzantine Melkite Sacramentary, and the “fun side,” which included driving a car with vanity plates reading “FrJoe.”

Colabella noted that it was “appropriate, and perhaps divinely intervened,” that Father Haggar passed away on the Third Sunday of Lent, observed as the Veneration of the Holy Cross in the Melkite rite. “That strong and often frail man was so strong in carrying his cross, mostly effortlessly,” Colabella said. “He always was there for us regardless of how he was feeling, in service to us. He always put us first. It was never about him.”

Father Haggar’s personal holiness was acknowledged in letters from Bishop Nicholas J. Samra, Bishop Emeritus of the Melkite Catholic Diocese of Newton, and Bishop Milad Jawish of the Melkite Catholic Diocese of St. Sauveur in Montreal, Canada. Bishop Samra recalled Father Haggar as a “true friend and brother” who warmly welcomed him upon entering St. Basil Seminary in Methuen, Massachusetts.

Boston Archbishop Richard G. Henning, former Bishop of Providence, gave a brief address that concluded with a prayer for God to “heal (the) souls” of those in mourning. Bishop François Beyrouti of the Melkite Catholic Diocese of Newton delivered the homily, in which he measured Father Haggar’s success not by common standards but by four “biblical” criteria.

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