Michael McCloy, Deacon In Formation, Dies

By GRETCHEN KEISER, Staff Writer

Published: December 4, 2003

CUMMING—Michael R. McCloy, a retired U.S. Army captain who was studying for the permanent diaconate in the archdiocese, died Nov. 26 in Cozumel, Mexico. He was 57.

Mr. McCloy, a member of St. Brendan the Navigator Church, was the recipient of two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot.

A member of the diaconate class of 2007, he had completed a year of aspirancy and was just about to complete his first year of formation. His wife of 33 years, Cathy, had attended all the classes with him.

Deacon Loris Sinanian, director of diaconate formation, said the dramatic experiences of Mr. McCloy’s life culminated in a profound conversion experience.

“He was in the military and served in Vietnam in the thick of the fighting,” Deacon Sinanian said. Then in 1970 he was in a serious helicopter crash in Washington, D.C., which left him partially disabled.

While hospitalized and in intensive care, “he died and went through an out-of-life experience. He came back to life,” Deacon Sinanian said. “He went through a very serious conversion. In that conversion he felt he needed to give more of his life to the church. In the 1990s, he came into the formation program.”

“He was really a fine person. It was absolutely a pleasure to have him in formation. Because of his experiences, he had an awful lot to offer, which he shared with his classmates. He helped them spiritually with his presence,” he continued.

A native of Washington, D.C., Mr. McCloy was security coordinator and trainer for SunTrust Bank and a trainer for and member of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Reserves.

Ken Bishop, a fellow St. Brendan parishioner, said his friend had also been hit by lightning at one time in his life but that he didn’t speak much of what he’d been through. Rather, Bishop said, “he always looked like he was just there, in the background, but when he was around, things happened. He was both a leader and a doer. He would make things happen and you wouldn’t realize it. He was never really in the limelight.”

For example, Bishop said, when Father Willie Hickey spoke at Good Shepherd Church and announced that he had been asked to start a new church in Cumming, “Mike was one of the first to raise his hand and say, ‘I’ll come along and help you build it.’”

He became prominent in building the new community that has become St. Brendan Church. Before entering the diaconate program, he coordinated the eucharistic ministers at the parish.

At the same time, his zest for life was expressed in his collection of T-shirts and ties “some of us wouldn’t wear,” Bishop said. “He was the type of person that always had a joke . . . He couldn’t walk by a kid without playing with them.”

“He always had a T-shirt that would tell you what he was thinking,” Bishop said. On the day he died, “the shirt he was wearing said, ‘My other body is in the shop.’”

He loved basset hounds and bought fast-food biscuits for his, named Abby. “He was just a good friend.”

Members of his formation class served at the funeral Mass, which was celebrated Dec. 2 at St. Brendan Church by Father Hickey, pastor, and concelebrated by Father Greg Kenny, CMF, pastor of Corpus Christi Church, Stone Mountain, where Mr. McCloy had previously been a parishioner.

He received military honors at the funeral including an honor guard, the playing of taps and a 21-gun salute. Members of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Reserves served as honorary pallbearers.

A family man, he had planned this Thanksgiving trip to Mexico for the family, Bishop said, where he suffered a heart attack after a day in which they had been diving.

He was the second member of his class to die. Deacon William MacDonald Jr., who was ordained early because of his illness, died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2003.

“What a pair we have praying for us here on earth, especially the men in formation,” Deacon Sinanian said.

He added, “We have to thank God for the 33 years since Mike’s first death in 1970, for allowing us to know him, to love him, and to have been enriched by his presence.”

Mr. McCloy is survived by his wife, Catherine Wise McCloy of Cumming; his daughter, Heather McCloy, of Asheville, N.C.; and his son and daughter-in-law, Scott and Anna McCloy, of Warner Robbins.

Contributions in his memory may be made to the diaconate formation program in care of St. Brendan Church, 4633 Shiloh Road, Cumming, GA 30040, or to the Basset Hound Rescue of Georgia, Inc., P.O. Box 680322, Marietta, GA 30068-0006.