OBITUARY: The Rev. Vital Wasyl Pidskalny, former vice-general and Canadian provincial superior of Basilian Fathers (01/20/02)

OBITUARY: The Rev. Vital Wasyl Pidskalny,
former vice-general and Canadian provincial superior of Basilian Fathers

by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA - The Rev. Vital Wasyl Pidskalny, OSBM, who held senior positions with the Ukrainian Catholic Basilian Fathers in Canada and Rome, and was one of six members of his family who entered religious life, died in Saskatoon on December 10, 2001, after a yearlong battle with prostate cancer. He was 80 years old.

Funeral services were held in Edmonton on December 14-15, 2001, and in Winnipeg on the following two days before the Rev. Pidskalny's remains were laid to rest at Holy Family Cemetery, located just north of St. Nicholas Church in Winnipeg, where he served for more than a decade.

Widely regarded as a deeply pious man who conducted himself through life with quiet dignity and humility, the Rev. Pidskalny approached death in a similar manner, according to his nephew, the Rev. Peter Pidskalny, 56, a Ukrainian Catholic Redemptorist priest and pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Wynyard, Sask.

"I had the chance to be with him several times before he passed on and was strengthened by seeing a person of such strong faith who was so well-prepared to die," the Rev. Pidskalny said.

He explained that during his uncle's final days at St. Joseph's Nursing Home in Saskatoon, Father Vital barely moved or spoke. However, just hours before he passed away, the Sisters of St. Joseph at the nursing home brought the 14-foot-tall World Youth Day Cross - currently traveling across Canada in preparation of Pope John Paul II's visit to Toronto in July for World Youth Day celebrations - into Father Vital's room.

"He half-propped himself up, looked at the cross and made a gentle sign of the cross on it before kissing it. That was the last thing he did before dying a few hours later," the Rev. Pidskalny said. "It was a very holy death."

Those who knew the Rev. Pidskalny remembered a priest who lived a very holy life.

Born in Ethelbert, Manitoba, on January 28, 1921, to Joseph and Melania Pidskalny, who arrived in Canada as part of the first wave of Ukrainian settlers during the 1890s, Wasyl (one of 11 children) followed his older brother, Stefan (later Father Soter), into the Basilian community.

At the age of 15, Wasyl entered the Order of St. Basil the Great, St. Josaphat Novitiate in Mundare, Alberta, and chose the religious name Vital.

In 1942 he professed his solemn vows with the Basilians and on August 2, 1947, was ordained to the priesthood in Grimsby, Ontario, by the late Archbishop Wasyl Ladyka of Winnipeg.

Though he served as pastor of parishes in Vegreville, Mundare and Edmonton (the latter two also as superior of the Basilian communities) in Alberta, as well as in Vancouver and Winnipeg, the Rev. Pidskalny became best known in Ukrainian Catholic circles as a leader.

While in Winnipeg he served as provincial superior of the Basilians in Canada and the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1982, afterward holding the vice-general's position at the order's headquarters in Rome until 1992, when he returned to Canada.

A reserved man by nature, the six-foot-tall, white-haired priest nonetheless struck an imposing regal presence with his handsome features and perfect posture. "You could put a book on his head and it wouldn't fall off," surmised Father Peter, whose father, John, 85, of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, is the last surviving sibling.

Actually, many had expected that the Rev. Pidskalny's head would have balanced a mitre, but the episcopacy was a career path that appeared to hold little interest for the Basilian monk. Encouraging vocations to the priesthood, if not entrants to the Basilian order, captured most of his attention.

Perhaps part of his motivation was genetic. In addition to his brother, who predeceased him, the Rev. Pidskalny had a sister, the late Donna, who joined the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate and was later joined in that religious community by a niece, Anne, now in Winnipeg. Another nephew, Joseph Pidskalny, Father Peter's younger brother, is a Basilian priest in Vancouver.

As the last surviving religious member of his generation in the Pidskalny family, Father Vital became a spiritual mentor to his two nephews and one niece who pursued their own vocations within the Church, explained Father Peter, former principal of St. Vladimir's High School and Minor Seminary in Roblin, Manitoba.

"He was very knowledgeable and always level-headed, and would always give good advice. But the way he gave advice was that it was not like it was coming from the top but felt almost as if you were coming up with the ideas yourself," he recalled

Always ready to serve as wise counsel, the Rev. Pidskalny was also known to loosen his clerical collar with family and friends with whom he would display his dry sense of humor. He loved smoking a pipe, was skillful at playing shuffleboard and had an artist's eye when it came to snapping photographs or taking home movies.

Mainly though, Father Peter remembers a man who held great affection and loyalty for both his blood relatives and religious family.

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