John (Juan) McKniff was an Augustinian missionary who evangelized the Philippines, Cuba and Peru; Where he was a friend of Robert Prevost, the now Pope Leo XIV. After being buried in the United States, where he died in 1994, the remembered priest, in the process of beatification, already rests in Chulucanas, northern Peru, where “he left his heart and his spirit.”
The mortal remains of McKNIFF arrived at Peru on Saturday, June 21, to be buried in the San José Obrero parish in the Diocese of Chulucanas (Peru) where the Augustinian worked between 1972 and 1993.
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On Sunday, June 22, at the Corpus Christi party, the bishop of Chulucanas, Mons. Cristóbal Mejía, presided over the mass prior to burialconcelebrated by Mons. Miguel Cabrejos, Archbishop Emeritus of Trujillo; and by different authorities of the Order of San Agustín such as Fr. Robert Hagan, Superior Provincial de Villanova in the United States.
Juan McKniff: Missionary Example, Love of the Virgin and Vocations Promoter
The homily of Mass was in charge of Fr. John Lydon, Agustino with more than 40 years in Peru, who recalled that he arrived in Peru in 1983, when Fr. McKniff already had about 10 years in the San José Obrero parish, where Mass was held yesterday.
Lydon stressed that McKniff was about three years in the Philippines and then served the poorest in Cuba for decades. “With the arrival of Fidel Castro and communism was persecuted but remained there working, rejecting all attempts to help him leave the country,” said the Augustinian.
“Every time he received a pass to leave the country, he gave them away and many people could leave Cuba with this gesture,” said Fr. Lydon.
After a long time and after having expelled dozens of Agustinos, “the Cuban government expelled him and with almost 65 years, when many think about retirement, his missionary spirit brought him here to Peru and delivered here and in Trujillo until his death at 89 years of age.”
The Augustinian priest also highlighted the great love of the servant of God Augustine for the Virgin Mary, which caused him to walk many hamlets and places “to found the Legion of Mary, of which she was a tireless promoter”, so “this group occupied a place in their heart.”
Lydon also stressed that McKniff was able to see Christ in the poor, and that when he had the opportunity to return to the United States, he asked his Augustinian brothers there to not forget them, to focus on them to help them.
On the promotion of vocations, Fr. Lydon stressed that McKNIFF “always insisted on opening a training house to form Augustine in northern Peru. In 1988, with Robert Prevost (Leo XIV), they founded the Training House in Trujillo.”
McKniff, concluded Lydon, has now returned to Chulucanas, “where he left his heart and his spirit.”
Holiness fame of McKniff
Fr. Josef Sciberras, a general postulator of the order of San Agustín, told the newspaper Pear21 That “what we have lived here is important because it is necessary to try, always more, that there is a reputation for holiness and reputation for intercession.”
“Having the remains here where he has lived and worked, and where he is loved and loved, it is important for the process and thus reach beatification,” added the postulator.
“In the cause of the saints the only judge is the Pope, and he will decide the best for the path of the Church,” said the Augustinian priest.
Who was Fr. John (Juan) McKniff?
John McKniff was born in Middle future Augustinian saints.
Most of her life dedicated her to serve as a missionary: she spent three years in the Philippines. In 1939, he was transferred to Cuba and appointed pastor of The Christ of the Good Journey in the Old Town of Havana.
He suffered the expulsion of 37 Augustinian brothers. In 1968 he took vacations after eight years without rest and the Cuban authorities forbade him to return to the island. He then served for three years in New York, but finally decided to go to Peru, a country he reached in 1972.
After almost 20 years of delivery in Peruvian lands, he got sick of typhoid at the end of 1993 and had to leave for the United States to receive medical treatment. He died, after being hospitalized, on March 24, 1994.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.