Former Mount St. Mary's president, grotto chaplain dies at age 97

Published: 2004-07-14

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Msgr. Hugh J. Phillips, who transformed the old grotto next to Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg into a national Marian shrine that attracted hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year, died of heart failure July 11 at Providence Hospital in Washington, the city in which he was born. He was 97 and, until his retirement in 2001, he was believed to be the oldest active priest in the nation. His funeral Mass was scheduled for July 16 at the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception at Mount St. Mary's, with burial to follow at St. Anthony Cemetery. Orphaned at a young age, he spent most of his life -- beginning at age 11 -- at Mount St. Mary's, from elementary school through prep school, into college and then the seminary. He was ordained in 1935 for the Baltimore Archdiocese. He taught at the college before becoming its 19th president, from 1967 to 1971. His heart and soul, though, was the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, of which he was chaplain and administrator for 43 years.

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