Father Steven Neel Wilson, C.Ss.R., 61, of Seattle died May 17, 2023, in hospice in Kirkland, Wash. Father Wilson, a pastor who mentored many Redemptorist students, was a CPA, serving in the financial offices of the Denver Provinces as well as the general government during his 22 years of Redemptorist ministry. He graduated from Seattle University in Washington with an accounting degree in 1975 and opened his own CPA firm in the Fremont District. He converted to Catholicism in his 30s and was soon serving as a Eucharistic Minister at St. Alphonsus Parish in Seattle, later choosing the Icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help as his home parish. He entered the formation program in 1994 and studied at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, ministering to marginalized communities and the homeless of inner-city Chicago and Blessed Sacrament Parish in Chicago.
He was ordained to the priesthood on July 27, 2001, and continued working with the poor as a Son of Alphonsus until 2005 when he was assigned as pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows Parish in Biloxi, Miss., two days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. He was responsible for two smaller parishes, St. John and St. Louis, which he coordinated into Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos Parish. While he was in Biloxi, he worked to aid in hurricane relief efforts and Biloxi mayor A.J. Hollaway declared June 29, 2014, Father Steve Wilson Day. He also began serving as an internal auditor for the general government, traveling the world and making regular visits to the Father Ray Foundation in Thailand. He established Redemptorist Apostolic Works to provide financial support to organizations serving the less fortunate in Thailand, Laos and Africa. Father Wilson was appointed co-director of the Pre-Novitiate Formation House in the Bronx, N.Y., in 2014, and a year later he was assigned treasurer/secretary of the Denver Province. He managed the finance office until 2018 when he was appointed Vice Econome of the General Government in Rome. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he returned to Seattle for treatment and was serving as an administrator of Sacred Heart Parish until a few weeks before his death.
Funeral Masses were held May 22 at Sacred Heart Parish in Seattle and May 25 at St. Clement Redemptorist Chapel in Liguori. Burial was in the Redemptorist Cemetery in Liguori. Arrangements were under the direction of Vinyard Funeral Home in Festus.