Obituaries

Maryknoll Missionary, First Bishop of Incheon, S.K.

February 19, 2020

Bishop William J. McNaughton, a Maryknoll missionary for 66 years and the first bishop of Incheon, South Korea, from 1962 until his retirement 2002, died Feb. 3 at Cedar View Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Methuen. He was 93.

A wake service for him was held Feb. 10 at Our Lady of Good Counsel-St. Theresa’s Church. His funeral Mass was celebrated at the church Feb. 11, followed by burial followed in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts.

William John McNaughton was born Dec. 7, 1926, in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

He graduated from St. Augustine’s Grammar School in Lawrence in June 1940 and from Central Catholic High School, also in Lawrence, in June 1944. He entered Maryknoll Apostolic College, known as the Venard, in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, Sept. 2, 1944.

At Maryknoll Seminary in Ossining, he received his bachelor of arts degree in philosophy in 1948, bachelor of theology degree in 1953, and a master’s degree in religious education in 1953.

One month before his June 13, 1953, ordination as a Maryknoll priest, he was assigned to the Maryknoll Mission Region in Korea. After ordination, Father McNaughton studied the Korean language for one year at the Far Eastern Language Institute at Yale University. He arrived in South Korea July 22, 1954.

After serving 13 months as a curate, he served as a pastor in Cheongju from 1955 to 1957. In August 1957, he opened a new parish in the same city and was pastor there until July 1960.

On June 6, 1961, St. John XXIII raised the status of the Incheon area, where Maryknoll priests had been working since 1958, to that of an apostolic vicariate. The same day, Father McNaughton was named a bishop and appointed apostolic vicar of Incheon. He was ordained a bishop by Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston in St. Mary’s Church in Lawrence Aug. 24, 1961.

On March 10, 1962, St. John XXIII established the hierarchy in South Korea, raising all the apostolic vicariates to the status of dioceses, and Bishop McNaughton became the first bishop of the new Diocese of Incheon and served for 41 years. (CNS)