Maryknoll priest Matheis dead at 74
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Rev. Joseph Matheis, a Roman Catholic priest who served in Hawai'i and later in life served a substance-abuse counselor, died on Easter Sunday in New York. He was 74.
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Matheis was born on Feb. 24, 1928, in Louisville, Ky., and was raised in Cicero, Ill. After serving in the Air Force, he earned degrees in English literature, education and philosophy at St. Ambrose College in Iowa.
The Rev. Joseph Matheis was a substance abuse counselor.
In 1956, Matheis was ordained a Maryknoll priest at the Maryknoll Major Seminary in Ossining, N.Y. His first appointment was as associate pastor at Sacred Heart Punahou, where he served from 1956 to 1959.
For the next four years, Matheis was first assistant at St. Benedict, better known as the Painted Church, in Honaunau on the Big Island. In 1963, he was named assistant pastor at St. John the Baptist Parish in Honolulu.
When the church established an independent parish in Waimea on the Big Island in 1965, Matheis was named to head it. His first duty was to build a church near the developing resort area of South Kohala.
While the church was under construction, tourists joined local residents at Sunday Mass under a coconut grove. Matheis had a hand in the construction of the church and he became known as the "builder priest."
But Matheis' work was not limited to the church. He also served on the Hawai'i County Board of Ethics and was chairman of the Waimea Youth Center's board.
Matheis also was an admitted alcoholic, but he stopped drinking in 1981 when his superiors asked him to enter a treatment center for alcoholic priests. He spent six months in a private East Coast treatment center before returning to Hawai'i, determined to help others fight substance abuse.
He enrolled in a substance abuse counseling program at Rutgers University and two institutes in Minnesota. In 1986 he was certified by the state of Hawai'i as a counselor.
Matheis bought a 37-foot motor home and parked it on the grounds of St. Pius X Church in Manoa. For nearly seven years, the mobile home served as his home and private counseling office.
Matheis retired in 1993 and lived his final years in a nursing home at the Maryknoll headquarters in Ossining.
A memorial service will be held April 23 at 7 p.m. at Sacred Heart Church, 1701 Wilder Ave.
