Fr. Healey poses with Altar Servers at the OLM Feast Day Mass, September 24, 2024.
Father Healey was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and raised in the Edgewood section of Cranston, where he attended public schools and Mass at St. Paul's Church. He is the youngest of nine children of the late R.I. Family Court Associate Justice Edward V. Healey, Jr, and the late Lillian E. (Devlin) Healey.
A 1987 graduate of The Catholic University of America with a Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Fr. Healey completed his seminary and theological studies at the American College, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, where he earned a Bachelor's Degree and Master of Arts in Religious Studies. After ordination to the priesthood, he continued his theological and canonical studies, earning both a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) specializing in the area of Moral Theology and a Licentiate in Canon Law (J.C.L.) specializing in the area of church-state relations from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
Fr. Healey was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, by the Sixth Bishop of Providence, the late Most Reverend Louis E. Gelineau, on June 24, 1995. He has served as the Associate Pastor at St. Mary, Star of the Sea, Narragansett, and St. Augustine Church in Providence. In 2003, the Seventh Bishop of Providence, the late Most Reverend Robert E. Mulvee, appointed Father Healey as the fourteenth Pastor of St. Ambrose Church in Albion, where he served nine years.
In June 2012, the Eighth Bishop of Providence, the Most Reverend Thomas J. Tobin, now Bishop Emeritus, appointed Father Healey the seventeenth pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church in East Greenwich. Father Healey also serves as Chaplain of the Rhode Island Capitol Police and the East Greenwich Police Department.
Father Healey also served as the Theological Consultant and Editorial Writer for Rhode Island Catholic (formerly known as the Providence Visitor), the weekly diocesan newspaper, from 1998 until June 2013. Since 1999, he has served as the Chief Lobbyist to the Rhode Island General Assembly and the Director of the Rhode Island Catholic Conference. He presently serves on the Diocesan Board of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the domestic anti-poverty program of the U.S. Catholic Bishops.
Fr. Healey poses with Archbishop Richard Henning of Boston at the Rhode Island Statehouse. The then Bishop of Providence, led the R.I. House of Representatives in prayer in April 2023.
The RI Catholic Conference serves as the chief source of advocacy and education for the Catholic Church's public policy positions before the Rhode Island General Assembly and other federal and local civic officials and bodies. It advocates on behalf the hundreds of thousands of Catholics who call Rhode Island home.
Fr. Healey is a former member of the Advisory Board of the Rhode Island Catholic School Parents Federation, the advocacy group for Catholic School Families for the Diocese of Providence. He has served on the Boards of the Diocese of Providence's Bishop Hendricken High School and the Prout School.
He is a founding board member of the Rhode Island Scholarship Alliance, an organization of scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) that promotes school choice and educational opportunities for economically disadvantaged students through the Rhode Island Scholarship tax credit program. Fr. Healey also serves as the President of the Rhode Island Scholarship Advocates, the public policy and advocacy division of the RI Scholarship Alliance.
Fr. Healey is a member and former officer of the National Association of State Catholic Conference Directors, an association of the Executive Directors of State Catholic Conferences and affiliate Diocesan Agencies from across the country. He is also a member of the Canon Law Society of America and the Past President of the American College of Louvain Alumni Association.
Father Healey, the Most Reverend Seamus Horgan, Apostolic Nuncio to South Sudan, and Fr. Daniel Mahoney, former Associate Pastor of OLM, pose following the Annual St. Patrick’s Day Mass and Reception on March 17, 2024. Archbishop Horgan was the celebrant and homilist.
Father Healey is a former board member of the St. Thomas More Legal Society of Rhode Island and a former member of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick of Providence. He is presently a member of the Sons of Irish Kings and the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Newport. He is a fourth-degree member of the Knights of Columbus.
In 2007, he was invested as a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, the only Pontifical lay institution of the Vatican State charged with the task of providing for the needs of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and of all the activities and initiatives to support the Christian presence in the Holy Land.
Father Healey is the recipient of the Thomas Aquinas Award for Distinguished Service and Advocacy on behalf of Catholic School Children from the RI Catholic School Parents' Federation, the St. George Emblem for his service and support on behalf of Catholic Scouting in the Diocese of Providence and the Defender of Life Award by the RI Right to Life Committee.
His favorite Saints are St. Patrick, St. Oliver Plunkett, St. Thomas More, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Mother Cabrini, St. Charles Borromeo, Saint Damien of Molokai, and St. Francis of Assisi. He enjoys reading the spiritual and theological writings of G. K. Chesterton, Monsignor Ronald Knox, Servant of God Father Romano Guardini, Thomas Merton, Blessed Dom Columba Marmion, Saint Oscar Romero, Saint Jose Maria Escriva, Saint Augustine, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Saint John Henry Newman, Saint Pope John XXIII, Saint Pope John Paul the Great and Pope Benedict XV.
In his spare time, Father Healey enjoys smoking fine cigars while watching the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Team, playing Hi-Lo Jack, or when sitting on one of Rhode Island's beautiful beaches.
Fr. Healey distributes diplomas at the Our Lady of Mercy School Graduation, June 2024
He is an avid reader of theology, political history, biographies, and historical fiction, and also, for fun, likes to read detective and spy novels, particularly the Bruno the Detective Series by Martin Walker and the spy novels of Alan Furst and John le Carré.
He is also a movie buff and enjoys classic movies, especially the Westerns of John Wayne, the comedies of the Marx Brothers, Film Noir, and World War Two Films, as well as independent and foreign films. His favorite movie directors include John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, David Lean, John Huston, Martin Scorsese, and Clint Eastwood. A dedicated Law and Order fan, he's seen every episode numerous times and Ben Stone is his favorite prosecutor!
Musically, he is a fan of a wide variety of music including Jazz, Rock, Irish Folk, and Classical. Particularly he enjoys the music of of Mozart, Bach, Dieterich Buxtehude, Anonymous 4, Dave Brubeck, Art Pepper, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Edith Piaf, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Eagles, the Gipsy Kings, the Texas Tornados, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, and The Doors.
He also enjoys studying and celebrating his Irish ancestry in the arts, literature, and music. A lifelong fan of Traditional Irish Music and he listens regularly to the Chieftains, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, the Wolfetones, the Dubliners, the Fenians, the Dropkick Murphys, and Gaelic Storm. He enjoys reading Irish literature including the works of James Joyce, W.B Yeats, Flann O'Brien, Edna O'Brien, Brendan Behan, Seamus Heaney, Patrick Kavanagh, and Roddy Doyle.
A lifelong student of politics and a certified political independent, he follows national and local politics passionately and zealously advocates for the legal protection of all human life from conception until natural death, the respect for the human dignity of every human being, and the common good of all. He loves to travel to visit priest friends, particularly those who live in Miami and Southern California in the winter, his sister and her family in Saratoga Springs, NY during horse racing season, and any place in Europe at any time! The youngest child in his large family, he also spends time with his many brothers and sisters, thirteen nieces and nephews, and ten grand-nieces and nephews.
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The Pastors of Our Lady of Mercy
| 1. | Rev. Patrick J. Lenihan | 1853-1857* |
| 2. | Rev. William Hart | 1867-1868 |
| 3. | Rev. Thomas Kane | 1868-1872 |
| 4. | Rev. William Halligan | 1872-1879 |
| 5. | Rev. William Hines | 1879-1888 |
| 6. | Rev. Owen F. Clarke | 1888-1899 |
| 7. | Rev. Thomas J. Fitzpatrick | 1899-1904 |
| 8. | Rev. Peter J. Malone | 1904-1918 |
| 9. | Rev. William R. Houghton | 1918-1924 |
| 10. | Rev. James Kelly | 1924-1926 |
| 11. | Rev. James J. Trainor, D.C.L. | 1926-1943 |
| 12. | Rev. Joseph A. Devanney | 1943-1947 |
| 13. | Rev. Francis P. Brady | 1947-1970 |
| 14. | Rev. Msgr. Arthur A. Sullivan | 1970-1986 |
| 15. | Rev. Richard D. Sheahan | 1986-1992 |
| 16. | Rev. Msgr. John W. Lolio | 1992-2012 |
| 17. | Rev. Bernard A. Healey | 2012- |
*After Fr. Lenihan’s death, Bishop McFarland appointed two administrators who cared for the parish of East Greenwich, but resided and continued as Pastors of Sts. Peter & Paul in Phenix respectively: Rev. Michael Wallace (1857-1864) and Rev. John Couch (1864-1867)