The Rev. James Prohens knew he wanted to be a priest when he was 9 years old.
By the time he died Nov. 21 at age 96, he had been a priest 71 years. He was still saying Mass as St. Cajetan Catholic Church, where he had been pastor for 37 years, a few weeks ago.
His funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. today at St. Cajetan, 299 S. Raleigh St.
When Prohens turned 70, he sent his resignation to then-Archbishop James V. Casey, as was expected of priests. “He never answered back,” Prohens said in a 2000 interview with the Denver Catholic Register. “So I just kept working.”
“He was a wonderful, smart man and a true priest,” said Helen Ortega, religious education coordinator at St. Cajetan. “He set an example for all other priests.”
“The most important thing was his zest for life,” said his nephew, Antoni Piza of New York City, Prohens’ only relative in the United States.
“He was nonjudgmental, and his philosophy was to live a simple life,” Piza said. “Many people gave him gifts, and he often gave them away.”
Piza said his uncle “was curious about everything,” and constantly read books, both Denver dailies and three news magazines. “He loved politics and kept up on politics in Madrid and local politics in his hometown,” Piza said.
Prohens, born in Felanitx on the island of Mallorca near Spain, visited Spain every year.
He loved poetry and wrote at least one book of poetry, in Spanish, that had religious themes. Prohens was fluent in Italian and his native Catalan as well as English and Spanish.
Prohens “always opened his ear to everyone, including divorced people and gay people,” Piza said, adding that his uncle sometimes said Masses for the local Dignity chapter, an organization for gay Catholics.
Prohens firmly believed in the church’s teachings, “but he was always willing to listen to the other side,” Piza said.
When Prohens became pastor of St. Cajetan, the church was downtown, at Ninth and Lawrence streets, on what is now the Auraria campus. When Auraria was formed, Prohens negotiated the sale of the church in order to relocate the congregation to southwest Denver.
James Prohens was born Jan. 8, 1911.
He studied theology at Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained in 1936. A member of the Theatine Order of priests, he was sent to Mexico and Argentina to open parishes. He served parishes in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs before moving to Denver in 1970.
At one time, he was provincial superior for his order.
He learned English when he came to Colorado and later earned a master’s degree in English literature at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.
In addition to Piza, Prohens is survived by a sister, Micaela Prohens, of Felanitx, Mallorca, and nieces and nephews.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
Other deaths
Elaine Lorillard, 93, the socialite who encouraged a Rhode Island club owner to start the Newport Jazz Festival, died Monday, nursing home officials said.
Lorillard is best remembered for inspiring jazz-club owner George Wein to create the Newport Jazz Festival, the first such gathering in the United States and the model for hundreds of similar celebrations worldwide.
While visiting Wein’s club in 1953, she told him jazz might liven up the “terribly boring” social scene in the summer resort for the rich. Her husband, Louis, a tobacco heir, gave Wein a $20,000 line of credit to start the festival.
The first event in July 1954 attracted 11,000 fans to hear jazz giants including Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and Billie Holiday.
But Lorillard, who later divorced her husband, clashed with Wein over who deserved the credit and profits from the festival, even filing a lawsuit against it in 1959. She and Wein publicly reconciled in 1992.
…
John Sells, 92, a former Marine member of the Navajo Code Talkers, died Friday in Shiprock, N.M.
The Code Talkers confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in a code based on their native language. There were 29 original Code Talkers, but several hundred Navajos eventually served.
According to the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C., Code Talkers took part in every Marine assault in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. After the war, they were told to keep their work secret. The information was declassified in 1968, but many were still reluctant to discuss or take credit for their deeds. Sells’ family didn’t learn about his role for nearly 60 years.
Sells enlisted in the Marines in 1944 and served for two years, but it wasn’t until he attended a Code Talkers memorial celebration in 2001 that he confided in his wife and children.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said his wife, Alice Sells. “He never told me. I was excited, I was surprised, and I was proud.”
The Code Talkers were honored with congressional medals in 2001 — gold for the original group; silver for the others. Sells received a silver medal.
“He was a really secret person,” said stepdaughter Sharon Tsosie. “He didn’t want to talk about anything. When we asked him, he said it wasn’t a pretty place.”
