Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap. has announced that effective June 28, 2010, Father William T. Kremmell will be granted senior priest/retirement status and will end his assignment as pastor of St. Athanasius Parish in Reading.

Father Kremmell completed his theological studies in preparation for ordination at St. John’s Seminary, Brighton; Richard Cardinal Cushing ordained him to the priesthood at Holy Cross Cathedral on May 26, 1966.

Father Kremmell’s priestly ministry has been in archdiocesan parishes, except for a brief two-year stint (2001-2003) as a campus minister when he divided his time between the diverse campuses of Regis College, Weston and Framingham State College, Framingham.

Following ordination he was assigned as an assistant at St. Joseph the Worker, Hanson. October 1969 found him as an assistant at Our Lady of Lourdes, Jamaica Plain, and in June of 1972 as assistant at St. Jerome Parish, Arlington.

Five years later he moved further out Route Two West and was briefly an associate at St. Bernard Parish, Concord. Always ready for a challenge and tackling new ideas, he was named to a Team Ministry at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Revere in December 1977; during that time he also had the opportunity to pursue a semester of graduate work at Yale University while residing there with the Catholic Chaplain of the New Haven Ivy League school.

Humberto Cardinal Medeiros named him associate pastor at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hopkinton on June 30, 1981. He served the largely suburban parish until March 1985. Following a period of personal discernment, he was named parochial vicar at St. Charles Borromeo in downtown Woburn and in June 1993 Bernard Cardinal Law named him as pastor of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Plymouth succeeding the founding pastor, Father John Schatzel. His eight years at Plymouth would be the longest of any of his assignments ending with his move to campus ministry in 2001.

From 2003 to 2005 he was a member of the Archdiocesan Emergency Response Team, a group of priests who were available to cover parishes for varying periods of time when pastors, or parochial vicars, were sick, on sabbatical or priestly renewal programs or otherwise necessarily away from the parish.

On Sept. 23, 2003, Archbishop O’Malley named him pastor of St. Athanasius Parish in Reading. He has served there since then.

According to a new archdiocesan policy for priests, Father Kremmell is being granted senior priest/retirement status “early” and with the early grant comes the expectation that he will be available to serve on the Emergency Response Team as he is able and as archdiocesan demands require.

As noted above Father Kremmell’s senior priest status is effective on June 28, 2010 by which time the archdiocese expects to have appointed a successor for him.