It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Rev Fr Michael Gallon who died on Tuesday 1 March 2022.
Please pray for the repose of Fr Michael’s soul and remember his family and friends in your prayers at this time.
Funeral Arrangements
Fr Michael’s body will be received into St Clare’s Church, Moorside Road, Fagley, Bradford BD2 3JE on Tuesday 22 March at 7pm and followed by Mass.
The Requiem Mass for Fr Michael will then take place in St Clare’s Church the following day 23 March at 11.00am followed by interment at Undercliffe Cemetery (BD3 0QD).
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.
Fr Michael Gallon RIP
Fr Michael Laurence Gallon was born on 4 January 1931. He was educated at St Bede’s Grammar School in Bradford before entering the seminary at Ushaw College in County Durham to study for the priesthood. He was ordained by Bishop John Carmel Heenan at St Mary’s Church, East Parade, Bradford on 15 July 1956.
From 1956 to 1960 Fr Gallon served as Assistant Priest in the parish of St Malachy, Halifax. Following this appointment he was to spend the next decade and a half working outside the diocese. From 1960-68 he was on the staff of the Catholic Missionary Society, based in London, where he worked on the Society’s journal, the ‘Catholic Gazette’. Throughout this time the Superior of the Society was another Leeds priest, Mgr Kevin O’Brien, who would later become Vicar General of the diocese and from 1981-98, the Auxiliary Bishop of Middlesbrough.
In 1968 Fr Gallon went to St Edmund’s House at Cambridge University to undertake further studies in theology. The following year he joined the teaching staff of the Beda College in Rome. He returned to Yorkshire in 1974 when Bishop Wheeler appointed him as Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart, Goldthorpe, near Barnsley (now a parish of the Diocese of Hallam). In 1975 he joined the newly-established Upholland Northern Institute, near Wigan, which had been set up by the Bishops of the Northern Province as a centre for adult Christian education and in-service training for clergy.
Fr Gallon became Parish Priest of St Paul’s, Cleckheaton in 1976 where he remained for the next three years before moving to St Wilfrid’s, Ripon. In 1989 Bishop Konstant appointed him to St Clare’s, Bradford and then in 2000, to St Joseph’s Parish, Tadcaster. He retired from St Joseph’s in the summer of 2006. At the same time he stood down as a Diocesan Trustee, a position he had held since 1998.
Fr Michael was retired from active ministry for more than fifteen years but, sadly, much of this time was marked by ill-health. He initially retired to Hinsley Court in Headingley but was later cared for by the Little Sisters of the Poor at Mount St Joseph’s Home. In recent years he had resided at Crossley House, Fairweather Green in Bradford, to be near to members of his close family. It was here that he died on the morning of Tuesday 1 March 2022, aged ninety-one.
At the time of his death Fr Michael was one of only twelve priests remaining in the diocese who were ordained before the start of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. As such he was part of that generation of priests who experienced unparalleled changes in the life of the Church in the decades after they embarked on their ministry and who, despite the many challenges of these times, remained loyal to their priesthood and to the Bishops and people they served. Today, sixty years later, it is apparent the extent to which we owe the likes of Fr Michael Gallon, a great debt of gratitude.
May he rest in peace.
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