Featured Stories | September 22, 2025
“I thank God for our religious community and my experiences with it; I have been blessed by them all.”
-Fr. Chuck Wonch, SCJ
On Monday, September 22, Fr. Chuck Wonch, SCJ, died. He was 78, and a member of the Sacred Heart Community at Sacred Heart at Monastery Lake in Franklin, WI.
Originally from Coleville, WA, he was 50 years old when he made his first profession in 1997. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2002.
Fr. Chuck had served in the US Air Force and earned degrees in Industrial Management from Jackson State University (Mississippi) and Theological Studies from Spring Hill College (Mobile, AL) before pursing his religious vocation. Initially, he planned to serve the Church as a lay minister.
Concelebrating Mass with Fr. Leonard Elder in 2017
“After earning a master’s in Theological Studies I worked with many parish priests and churches around central Mississippi,” he said. At the same time, he held a full-time job for 15 years as a purchasing supervisor at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.
But increasingly, he said “God seemed to be calling me to come and follow Him and be of service to His people.”
He was ordained to the priesthood in 2002 and soon after, joined the pastoral team that serves the Lower Brule and Crow Creek Reservations in South Dakota. In 2009, he moved to Hales Corners where he assisted at the vocation office.
“When looking for a religious community to join and enjoy a future with, I came across a small ad in the back pages of the Sunday Visitor paper at my parish church and I asked my pastor if he knew anything about the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” said Fr. Chuck, talking about how he came to learn of the SCJs. “He said that of course he knew something of them since they served across the northern part of Mississippi, serving the poor and operating schools and many parishes for the Diocese of Jackson. He encouraged me to contact the vocation office. I did and Fr. Jack Kurps answered back immediately and set up a meeting in Nesbit.”
As they say in the movies, the “rest is history.”
Reflecting on his years of ministry as a Dehonian priest, Fr. Chuck said in an interview that “I will always treasure my time living and working with the people of Ft. Thompson and Lower Brule, South Dakota, and working with all the great priests in both the dioceses of Sioux Falls and Rapid City. I thank God for our religious community and my experiences with it; I have been blessed by them all.”
Besides his Dehonian family, Fr. Chuck is also survived by a daughter, Katie Emory, and son Tony Wonch, and grandchildren Alyssa, Aaron, Adam, Abby, and Hannah.
Funeral arrangements for Fr. Chuck Wonch, SCJ, are as follows:
Tuesday, September 30
Wake: 9:30 a.m.
Funeral Mass: 10:30 a.m.
Good Shepherd Chapel at Sacred Heart at Monastery Lake
Saturday, October 4
Burial (family burial site)
Washington State (near Spokane)