Father Herbert T. Gappa, MM

Born: January 4, 1942
Ordained: June 8, 1968
Died: December 22, 2023

Father Herbert T. Gappa died on December 22, 2023 in the Assisted Living Unit at Maryknoll, New York. He was 81 years old and a Maryknoll priest for 55 years.

Herbert Theodore Gappa was born at home in Urbank, MN, during the blizzard of January 4, 1942. He was the youngest of five children of Joseph P. and Mary Dorn Gappa. Both parents are deceased as well as his brother Richard, and his sisters Mary, Dorothy and Bernadine. He began his education as one of three first-graders in a one-room country school; the teacher was his mother. Benedictine Sisters were his teachers at Sacred Heart School in Urbank. One day a Maryknoll priest came by to talk, showed the movie “The Miracle of Blue Cloud Country” and Herbert “signed up”. At age 13, he entered Maryknoll Junior Seminary (Venard), Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, for first year high school in September 1955. He secured his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy at Maryknoll College, Glen Ellyn, Illinois in June 1963. Herb’s was a transitional class, the last to enter the Novitiate at Bedford, MA and the first to enter the Novitiate at Hingham, MA. While in school, several names given to him were:  on the football field, “Number 81” (Carl Eller), on the road in his red VW beetle, “The Red Baron” and at party time “The Indestructible Deutschman.”

Important influences in Herb’s mission formation were Yves Congar’s Lay People in the Church and the Documents of Vatican II. He received his Master of Arts degree in Theology at Maryknoll Seminary, New York and the 33 members of his class were ordained as priests on June 8, 1968.

Following ordination Father Gappa was assigned to the Maryknoll Mission Region in Tanzania, East Africa. After language and cultural studies of the Sukuma people, he was sent to Shinyanga Diocese where he served as assistant pastor at Sayusayu and Ndoleleji along with mentor Fr. Dan Ohmann and then as pastor of Mipa Parish. He returned home in the fall of 1972 to help care for his hospitalized mother. In May 1973, he began a three-year assignment to the Maryknoll Development House in Minneapolis. Besides his extensive development work, Father Gappa did a great deal of networking with existing organizations involved in social justice and assisted in workshops, lectures, awareness-raising programs and college classroom lectures.

Father Gappa was reassigned to the Tanzania Mission Region on July 1, 1976. He studied the Kiswahili language and took up pastoral work in the Old Maswa Parish. He began work on starting a parish in the new district center in Bariadi. Pastoral organization, staff training and the building of infrastructure followed. He was a pioneer in integrating ecology into parish life and connecting the planting of trees with the sacraments of Christian Initiation and salvation. He continued with efforts in agro-silvi-pastoral research. Father Gappa viewed the starting of the new parish in Bariadi as the major undertaking of his missionary career. All of his studies, experiences, homework and thinking came together to make the parish work.

Father Gappa served the Africa Region in various ways, including work on the Regional Council (1986) and as Assistant Regional Superior (October 1989 to September 1992). In June 2002 he was assigned to the Mission Promotion Department in Chicago, and in September 2006 he was assigned to the Retirement Community (now Senior Missioner Community).

Father Gappa reflected that what kept him going through the years were lively liturgies, poetry and music, bringing dead land back to life, time on the John Deere tractor, and his favorite prayer “Come Holy Spirit.” He thanked God for his vocation and fondly remembered the thousands of people all over the world who graced his life and partnered in mission.

A concelebrated Memorial Mass was held on January 8. 2024 at 10 a.m. in the Queen of Apostles Chapel. Father Michael Snyder was Principal Celebrant and homilist. Father Edward Davis read the biography and Father John McAuley read the Final Oath.