Father Joseph William Bayne Jr., OFM Conv. 1957- 2023

Father Joseph William Bayne Jr., OFM Conv., 66, a Franciscan Friar Conventual of Our Lady of the Angels Province, died on Friday, June 23, 2023, in Chicago.

Born in Baltimore on March 15, 1957, he was a son of the late Joseph William Sr. and Jean (Gorman) Bayne. 

Father Bayne was a graduate of Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore, where he first encountered the Franciscan community, he would join after graduation in 1975. Completing his Novitiate in Ellicott City, Maryland, he professed simple vows on Aug. 15, 1976. He completed his undergraduate degree at St. Hyacinth College and Seminary in Granby, Massachusetts, earning a bachelor of arts degree in Philosophy in 1980. After professing solemn vows on Aug. 15, 1981, he studied at St. Anthony-on-Hudson in Rensselaer, where he earned his master’s in divinity degree before being ordained to the priesthood on March 25, 1985.

From 1985-1989, Father Bayne began his priestly ministry in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, where he served as parochial vicar of St. Stephen Parish and then St. Stanislaus Parish.

In 1989, Father Bayne moved to Buffalo, where he began a 29-year ministry at The Franciscan Center, a transitional housing program for runaway and homeless young men from Western New York. The center served more than 4,000 young men before closing its doors in 2018. For 13 of his years in Buffalo,Father Bayne served as chaplain of Erie County Emergency Services and the Buffalo Fire Department, often known by his call number, ES-11.

In 2018, Father Bayne was reassigned to Chicopee, Massachusetts, where he served briefly as pastor of St. Stanislaus Bishop & Martyr Parish and chaplain of the city fire department, before accepting the responsibility of becoming the associate director of Formation at the Conventual Franciscans’ Postulancy house in Chicago. This ministry to young men in their first year of formation as friars was very much a reprisal of his years at The Franciscan Center.

He is survived by his mother and younger brother, George.

Visitation hours will be held Sunday, July 2, from 4 to 8 p.m., at the Church of the Annunciation (5212 McCormick Avenue, Baltimore 21206), with a Franciscan Wake Service at 7 p.m. A funeral Mass will be celebrated Monday, July 3, at 11 a.m., in the Church of the Annunciation, followed by internment in St. Stanislaus Cemetery, Baltimore.

A Memorial Mass will be celebrated in Buffalo, on Saturday, July 15 at 10 a.m., in St. Joseph Cathedral (50 Franklin St., Buffalo 14202).