WAUWATOSA (CNS) — A funeral Mass was scheduled for June 3 in Christ the King Church in Wauwatosa for Patrick Riley, who died May 30. He was 89.
Riley served 1962-74 as a correspondent for the Rome bureau of Catholic News Service – then known as National Catholic News Service – including coverage of the activities of the Second Vatican Council, and was its foreign editor 1974-76.
Patrick Riley (Submitted photo)
His extensive background in journalism included three years as editor of the National Catholic Register, from 1976 to 1979, as well as society page editor for The New York Times and work in London and Paris for Reuters and United Press International.
Riley also worked for CBS Radio and at the White House as a correspondent during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
He later served as the executive director and director of governmental affairs for the Washington chapter of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and in an executive and advisory capacity for the De Rance Foundation, a Milwaukee-based Catholic charitable agency that was dissolved and its assets distributed to other charities following the 1992 death of its founder, Harry G. John, who was heir to the Miller Brewing Co. fortune.
Born Patrick Gavan Duffy Riley on May 2, 1927, he was a veteran of the Korean War. He earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Paul’s College in Washington and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York City. He also acquired a doctoral degree in Rome at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.
He later taught at Marquette University in Milwaukee and at The Catholic University of America.
Riley is survived by his wife, Annamaria, one daughter, six sons, 14 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
