Father Richard C. Kasznel, retired pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in St. Mary, died November 19 at age 82. Memorial Masses were celebrated on Tuesday, December 1, at Seven Holy Founders Church and on Sunday, December 13, at St. Mary Immaculate Conception Church.

 

Father Kasznel was ordained in 1965 by Cardinal Joseph E. Ritter. Born in St. Louis, he attended Bishop DuBourg High School, Cardinal Glennon College and Kenrick Seminary.

 

Following ordination, he served as assistant pastor of Resurrection Parish in St. Louis. He was named associate pastor of St. Bartholomew Parish in Hazelwood in 1971, St. Justin Martyr Parish in Sunset Hills in 1980 and Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in St. Louis in 1985. He was appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Ste. Genevieve County in 1987 and retired in 2018.

 

In 2015, celebrating his 50th anniversary of ordination, Father Kasznel described the blessing of spending nearly three decades as pastor at Immaculate Conception Parish in St. Mary, a small community about 75 miles south of St. Louis and just west of the old Mississippi River channel and Illinois’ Kaskaskia Island. Father Kasznel called it “a marvelous thing to be a pastor in a place almost 30 years and see children that I’ve baptized become adults and get married. I’ve seen them from the beginning of life and along as they’ve matured. It’s been a privilege to be here in a great, wonderful community.”