Honoring Father Riley: Augustinian Fund to Be Named for Friar Who Is No Stranger to Avalon
The Augustinian Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova will rename its fund to provide proper health care for its elderly and infirmed friars in honor of Father George Riley, O.S.A. Lots of people associated with Villanova University and Seven Mile Beach understand why.
During some 60 years at his workplace and home base, Villanova University, Riley achieved much. On top of that, Riley faithfully commuted to Avalon year-round on weekends in service to its Catholic community at St. Brendan the Navigator Parish’s Maris Stella Church. He made that commute for close to 30 years. Before his days in Avalon, the friar served parishes in Pennsauken, Mays Landing, Vineland and Northfield on weekends.
At Villanova, Riley happily kept company with students as their teacher and, at one point, as a dorm counselor in his earliest years there. The friar organized Villanova’s Peace Corps in the 1960s and was instrumental in raising revenue for the capital campaigns that helped build the university’s Connelly Center and its Pavilion in the late 1970s.
In 1984, Riley co-founded Villanova Magazine with the late Eugene Ruane.
The friar served as archivist for his Augustinian order from the late 1960s through the early 1970s. Through the years, Riley also served as vocation director of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova and secretary of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova.
Over time, Riley was Villanova’s vice president of university relations, the alumni fund director, and special assistant to the president for alumni affairs before retiring in 2016.
At St. Brendan’s Parish in Avalon, Riley could be counted upon to shepherd the flock by celebrating speedy Masses, hearing confessions, conducting baptisms and marriages, counseling the faithful and more, as Seven Mile Times reported in 2012.
Indeed, the gifted friar’s masterfully worded, rapidly delivered, reverent homilies delighted people in the pews. For in his sermons, which always opened humorously with tales of characters like Casey or Flanagan, Riley seamlessly wove lessons in theology, history, literature, pop culture and keen cultural observations that were all linked to a central theme.
Today, Riley is “in delicate health” and lives full-time at the Saint Thomas of Villanova Monastery on Villanova’s campus, says Father Michael Di Gregorio, O.S.A., who leads the Augustinian Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova as its prior provincial. The Augustinian Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova includes communities and apostolates in Massachusetts, New York, New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and a mission in Japan.
Since 2021 marks Riley’s 65th year as a member of the Order of St. Augustine, and in recognition of his tireless weekday efforts on behalf of Villanova University, not to mention his weekend parish ministry in New Jersey, the time seemed right to honor the friar. Thus, renaming the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova’s Fund for the Care of the Elderly and Infirm friars to the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund for Augustinian HealthCare seemed suitable, say Father Michael Di Gregorio and Madonna Sutter, director of advancement for the province.
The Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund for Augustinian HealthCare is critical to ensuring that aging or ailing friars, like its namesake, receive necessary, quality health care at Saint Thomas of Villanova Monastery. The times have made the need for this fund even more critical because today there are fewer friars and fewer friars earning salaries.
“The working numbers of friars are greatly reduced,” Di Gregorio says. “When I entered [the O.S.A.] in 1965, there were 350 of us on the East Coast. Today, there are 130.” Many of those 130 friars are retired, elderly or infirmed. In the past, “we were able to care for ourselves” when it came to health care, he adds. “That’s no longer the case.”
The Augustinians are a Mendicant order dating back to the 13th century, Di Grigorio notes. Mendicant Movement members were mobile, available and in tune with the needs of people from all walks of life. They centered on both pastoral ministry and the field of education in their countries of origin and upon arrival in the United States 225 years ago.
Like his predecessors, Riley focused his service on education and pastoral ministry. The scholarly, self-dubbed “history buff” filled three volumes of his “Riley Remembers: South Jersey History” manuscripts with facts about his fore-friars’ travels from Old St. Augustine’s Church in Philadelphia to West Jersey in order to meet “the needs of Catholics scattered across the Pine Belt.” Riley modeled his late 20th and early 21st century weekend parish ministry after the mobile ministries of the U.S. Augustinian pioneers.
As with other Mendicant orders, like the Franciscans and the Carmelites, Augustinian ministries have long been kept up and running by generous donors.
“We rely on the generosity of our benefactors to make up for the difference in the decreased numbers of friars and friars’ salaries,” says Sutter, the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova’s director of advancement. The province, and not the institutions that are associated with Augustinian ministries, is financially responsible for the care of elderly and infirmed friars, the formation of new friars and the order’s social justice ministries.
“We look to the alums of our schools and the parishioners of our parishes for support,” Sutter adds.
In order to raise awareness of the need for support of the Augustinians, particularly the aging and ailing friars at Saint Thomas of Villanova Monastery, an in-person event to honor Riley and inaugurate the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund for Augustinian HealthCare will be held on Saturday, Oct. 23, 6-9:30pm, at Villanova University. All proceeds from the celebratory dinner will benefit the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund.
Riley’s longtime friend John F. Scarpa serves as the event’s honorary chair.
“When you have a friend like Father George Riley, you don’t need too many friends,” says Scarpa, the telecommunications pioneer and entrepreneur, philanthropist, Vineland native and Avalon and Palm Beach resident. The men first met on an Allegheny Airlines commuter flight from Washington to Philadelphia at least 35 years ago, Scarpa recalls. Riley was traveling to Northfield on weekends at that time. After pleasant in-flight conversation, they exchanged telephone numbers, kept in touch and grew to be close friends.
Scarpa so admired his friar friend’s dedication to his vocation that he endowed funds, via his John F. Scarpa Foundation, to assist the Augustinians or Villanova University “all because of Father Riley,” he says. These considerable gifts include: The Edith Favretto Scarpa Arts and Science Building, named in honor of Scarpa’s mother, at St. Augustine Preparatory School in Richland, N.J., as well as The John F. Scarpa Chair in Catholic Legal Studies and the John F. Scarpa Center for Law and Entrepreneurship, both in support of Villanova University.
Now, in serving as honorary chair of the event to launch the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund for Augustinian HealthCare, Scarpa backs a cause even closer to his heart.
For information on purchasing tickets to the Oct. 23 dinner in tribute to Father Riley, or to purchase sponsorship or program ads for the event, contact Madonna Sutter at madonna.sutter@augustinian.org or telephone 267-272-3048.
Donations to the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund for Augustinian HealthCare can be made online at augustinianfund.org/events-list/father-riley. Gifts by check can be made payable to “The Augustinian Fund – Fr. Riley Fund” and mailed to: Province of St. Thomas Villanova, Office of Advancement, 214 Ashwood Road, Villanova, Pa., 19085.
Heaven only knows how many souls this congenial friar, along with his fellow friars who are now in need of tender loving health care, touched in their ministries. A contribution to the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund for Augustinian HealthCare is one way to say “Thank you.”
Inauguration of the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A. Fund for Augustinian HealthCare
Saturday, October 23, 2021
6:00 PM - 9:30 PM
Villanova University, 800 East Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085
