Two Maryknoll priests with ties to the Brooklyn Diocese are celebrating significant anniversaries of ordination. Father James M. Gilligan, M.M., a native of Brooklyn, will celebrate his 60th anniversary of ordination as a Maryknoll priest and Father Donald P. McQuade, M.M., a native of Astoria, will celebrate his 50th anniversary of ordination as a Maryknoll priest on Sunday, June 28, along with 42 other Maryknollers.

Father Gilligan, 87, attended P.S. 193, Brooklyn, and graduated from St. John’s Prep, Bedford-Stuyvesant. He attended Maryknoll School of Theology, Ossining, N.Y., and he earned a degree in canon law from St. Thomas University, Rome. He is a member of the Canon Law School of America.

He was ordained June 11, 1955. In 1956, he was assigned to the Cheong-ju Vicariate, a part of the Seoul Archdiocese.

In 1962, Father Gilligan went to Rome, Italy, for advanced studies in canon law. After obtaining a Licentiate of Canon Law, he returned to the Cheong-ju Diocese to serve as chancellor and pastor of Sacred Heart Mission and vice-officialis of the Tae Gu Regional Tribunal.

In 1974, he was assigned to the Diocese of Pusan to establish a new parish in So-Dong, a refugee area of 120,000 people.

Father Gilligan continued to serve on the Tae-Gu Regional Tribunal, as Pusan Diocesan consultor, and, in 1978 he became a member of the Maryknoll Regional Council. From 1985 to 1990, Father Gilligan served as pastor of the Ku Bong Parish in central Pusan. In 1990, Father Gilligan left the Ku Bong Parish to become chaplain and director of pastoral care at St. Benedict’s Hospital in central Pusan.

Father Gilligan retired in 1999, with residence in the Maryknoll Seoul Center House. In 2007, Father Gilligan was assigned to the retirement community in Ossining.

Father McQuade, 84, is a native of Astoria, where he attended St. Joseph’s School. He continued his education at Bishop Loughlin M.H.S., Fort Greene, and Fordham University, Bronx. After college, he joined the United States Army. He served as a first lieutenant in Japan and was honorably discharged in 1955. He worked for a shipping company in New York and in Europe before entering Maryknoll in 1960.

After ordination on June 12, 1965, he was assigned to the Prelature of Tagum, Mindanao in the Philippines.

He was reassigned to the Philippines in 1971. Except for a brief assignment in Kalimantan (Borneo), Indonesia, in 1977, his entire mission career has been in the Philippines, where his ministries have included clinical pastoral education, counseling alcoholics and drug addicts, retreat work, parish apostolate and writing.

Although Father McQuade retired in 1998, he remained in the Philippines to counsel drug addicts and alcoholics, and to organize retreats.

In 2005, he joined Maryknoll’s retirement community in Los Altos, California. He moved to Maryknoll’s

Mission St. Teresa’s Residence, in Ossining, N.Y., in August, 2010.

Father McQuade feels the high point of his mission career has been his apostolate with alcoholics and drug addicts.

“It is inspiring to see people who have lost their faith due to their addiction come back and often become deeply spiritual in recovery.”