It was with the utmost sadness that I and the rest of the people of the Susquehanna Valley last week learned of the death of Father John Manno. Father John was one of the most beloved people in this area who earned that love and respect naturally. Perhaps no one in the faith community in this area has contributed more to the spirit of ecumenism and sense of community in this area than Father John K. Manno. He was ordained as a priest more than 50 years ago and has left a lasting imprint on all of the parishes and communities that he has served.

It is tough to measure the impact that this towering figure of Faith has had on others. He was a voice of decency, tolerance, compassion, and understanding during a time in which these qualities in these polarizing times are in seeming short supply.

Manno said he “loves to bring people together” and that has been something his entire life and that he did through his whole faith journey.

During his youth and early adulthood, he never envisioned himself becoming a priest, even though he was always an activist, from his days as a member of the student government at Williamsport High School.

After graduation, he attended West Chester State Teachers College (now West Chester University). It was there while serving as student government president that he felt the strong call to become a priest.

“I went to West Chester State College (now West Chester University) at the time, and in my freshman year, I realized my faith meant a lot to me,” Manno told Webb Weekly in a June 2016 article. “I also realized that I wanted to be of service to others and that the priesthood offered that opportunity.”

At the time, Latin was required of priests, so Manno was sent to Chicago, to Loyola College, to study the language.

“I took courses in participatory seminary studies on the regular campus and had five years of Latin in one semester,” he recalled.

He then attended St. Pius X Seminary in Dalton, Pennsylvania, where he was the oldest member of the class. It was also where he would get to know and interact with three other priests that he would end up serving with in the Williamsport area — Monsignor Stephen McGough, Father Charles Cummings, and Father Michael Zipay. Manno said they all have fond memories of their time at St. Pius, and each learned a great deal that they carried with them into their clerical lives.

From there, Manno went to St. John’s Church in Pittston, where he taught at the high school and served as assistant pastor for two years.

He then took a short leave of absence to make sure he was doing what he was truly called to do. During that time, he served as program director for the YMCA’s Seaman’s House in New York City, ministering to people of all nationalities on the waterfront in Brooklyn. He said that experience significantly broadened his perspective and gave him a greater appreciation of the diversity of life and the diversity of needs that people had.

“That was a wonderful two years, but I felt I wanted to come back. It was a great way for me to recharge my spiritual batteries,” he said.

He came to Annunciation parish in 1974 and served there four years. It is during this period that Manno believes he really started to come into his own as a pastor.

“I learned a great deal about how to be a pastor and to minister to people’s needs from Father McGary and Monsignor Fleming there at Annunciation,” Manno said. “They were great mentors for me.”

In 1977 he was named director of religious education of Pocono Central Catholic School by Bishop J. Carroll McCormick. He served there until 1984 when he was named pastor of St. John Bosco Church in Conyngham, where he served until 1998.

“I think one of my most special memories and accomplishments during my time as a priest was overseeing and being involved in the building and dedication of the new church building and Catechetical Center at St. John Bosco’s.”

A measure of how well Father Manno was thought of by his parishioners at St. John Bosco came in 1995 when his father Don died, and a busload of parishioners came over from there to attend Don’s Visitation. I saw this personally when I went to the Visitation.

Finally, in 1998, Manno came back to Annunciation, and it is during the period he returned there that the most enduring image of him would take place.

He loved his little dog, Toby and took great pleasure in taking him out for walks in the neighborhood near the Rectory on West Fourth Street. Unfortunately, during this period, the neighborhood had a less than savory reputation and was looked upon as being unsafe.

“I grew up in the 700 block of West Fourth Street, in the area near the Rectory and this neighborhood always meant a lot to me,” Manno said. “I loved that neighborhood, and I love my hometown of Williamsport. I felt that by walking around this so-called “dangerous neighborhood,” I was making a stand in showing that it is still a great place with a lot of very nice people. I got to know the people of that area very well during my walks, and it was a privilege for me to do so, and I very much enjoyed and felt a great sense of fulfillment from it.”

Manno later learned that the Mayor had ordered the police department to keep an extra sharp eye on him to make sure nothing happened to him on his walks with Toby. Nothing did happen to him but he doesn’t believe it was just because of the extra police interest in his safety but because the people of all walks of life in the area genuinely liked and respected him and saw that he was trying to make their neighborhood a better place.

He always sought to improve his mind and expand his learning to enable him to help better minister to people. As part of this, Manno earned his Master of Arts in Counseling from Marywood University and also became a member of the National Board of Certified Counselors in 1984.

In 2009, Manno was named Pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Montoursville. It is a parish that he enjoyed serving very much.

“The people here at Our Lady of Lourdes are wonderful, and they have treated me so well,” Manno said. “I always told people proudly that I am from Williamsport, now I am going to have to hyphenate it and say Williamsport-Montoursville.”

Father Manno was an activist all of his life, and that is reflected in all of the groups and organizations that he is involved that are too numerous to list here. He was always looking to the future and trying to do his best to solve the problems and challenges of that future.

At one point, he was involved in trying to develop a non-denominational, Sunday School curriculum that would educate youth to the danger of opioids and that there are alternatives spiritually to using them.

One of the activities that Manno was involved in that he was very proud of was his involvement in the annual 9-11 Memorial Motorcycle Run. He has been involved in it almost from the beginning and is the official chaplain of the ride. It is an event in which he has become inextricably linked. He also served as the chaplain for the Williamsport Fire Department.

“I have been influenced and touched by some very special people in my life, these include my parents, two of my high school teachers, Isabelle McGraw, and Jean Heller, Father Alphonse Manley and Father Joe Streit and most recently, Rev. Andy France, from Trinity Episcopal Church and Bishop Sid Wheatley of the Unity Christian Fellowship.”

Father John Manno has been a force for good in the areas he has lived and served and is leaving each of them a better place.

His favorite piece of Scripture is John 1 4:16, which says in part.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

If God is love, then Father John Manno was a great example of that love. He shared that love right until the end and now his Heavenly Father has summoned him to his Heavenly Home, having left his earthly home a much better place for his having lived there and all of us who knew and loved Father John will never forget how he touched our lives and served as a positive example to all of us.