Divine Word Father Xavier (Patrick Joseph) Cooney, 79, died Feb. 11 from complications of COVID-19 at Glenbrook Hospital in Glenview. He was a missionary who served in Papua New Guinea and Appalachia.

Born in Pittsburgh, he entered the Society of the Divine Word in 1959 and professed religious vows in 1962. When he professed perpetual vows as a brother in 1968, he took the name Xavier.

For his first assignment, Brother Xavier was sent to Papua New Guinea to work in the Alexishafen carpentry shop. Three years later, he traveled up the coast to begin training as a pilot. Over the decades, Divine Word Missionaries had developed Wirui Air Service to transport supplies and people to missions that were difficult to reach by land.

By the end of the 1970s, Brother Xavier began to hear the call to the missionary priesthood. He was assigned to the Papua New Guinea Highlands for pastoral experience before beginning studies at St. Paul’s Seminary in Kensington, Australia.

He was ordained in 1983 and was assigned to Kundiawa town parish in Papua New Guinea’s central, mountainous region, where he provided pastoral care until he was transferred to the Chicago Province in 1989.

In the United States, Father Cooney provided pastoral care in West Virginia.

Because of health issues, Father Cooney moved to Techny in 2020.

He is survived by two brothers, Martin and John Cooney.