Vincentian Father Oscar Huber was a hard-working, dedicated pastor who made many friends throughout his years of faithful ministry.

He is still remembered for all that… And for one other thing.

A Dallas pastor at the time, he administered last rites to President John F. Kennedy, after an assassin’s bullet Nov. 22, 1963, brought down the nation’s 35th president and he lay mortally wounded at Parkland Hospital.

So writes Jay Nies in an article reproduced in the Brooklyn Tablet.

Father Huber also prayed with and comforted First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, but the priest never said much about that time in the years that followed, according to his nephew Father Oscar Lukefahr, also a Vincentian, who was inspired by his uncle’s priesthood to join the same order.

“He was not the kind of person who enjoyed being in the limelight,” Father Lukefahr once told The Catholic Missourian, newspaper of the Jefferson City Diocese.

“If people asked questions about it, he answered cautiously. He didn’t go around saying, ‘I was the one who anointed the president.’ He was simply a priest who did his job, and that was that,” said Father Lukefahr.

How it happened

As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, Father Huber’s name may not be as familiar as many others who have become part of the public memory of those dark days, but a January, 2007 issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly recounted how Father Huber, then pastor of Holy Trinity Parish, walked several blocks from his church to see the president’s motorcade.

Believing that the nation’s first Catholic president, who was traveling in an open-topped limousine, had spotted his Roman collar and waved to him, Father Huber returned to his rectory to tell his friends what had happened.

“It was a thrilling moment for me,” he was quoted as saying.

A while later, Vincentian Father James N. Thompson, associate pastor, told Father Huber that the president had been shot. Both immediately left for the hospital, which was three miles away and located within the parish boundaries.

According to an article in the Dec. 1, 1963, issue of The Catholic Missourian, Father Huber was admitted to the emergency room to administer last rites to the president.

Father Huber was quoted by the National Catholic Welfare Conference News Service, predecessor of Catholic News Service, as saying he administered the rites of absolution and extreme unction (now known as anointing of the sick) conditionally, “except Communion, which the president could not receive.”

The priest said the rites were “conditional” because he didn’t know for sure whether the president was alive at the time but that he did not appear to be breathing.

News stories from 1963 said others in the emergency room, including Mrs. Kennedy, joined the priest as he prayed the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

“She graciously thanked me and asked me to pray for the president. She appeared shocked,” Father Huber told the news service.

Father Lukefahr told The Catholic Missourian that his uncle later told him how impressed he was with the first lady’s strength and courage.

A seminarian in 1963, Father Lukehfahr said that “whenever it came up in conversation – and I respected his desire for privacy by never interrogating him about it – he mostly talked about how he prayed with Jackie, and what a wonderful person she was – very dignified and strong.”

Father Huber died in 1975, leaving to his nephew the chalice he had taken to Parkland Hospital.

Jay Nies is editor of The Catholic Missourian, newspaper of the Diocese of Jefferson City, Mo.