Rev. Joseph Michael Peek, a beloved priest, passed away Monday, according to All Saints Catholic Church in Dunwoody.
In 2002, just months shy of his ordination, Peek was diagnosed with leukemia. He received a bone marrow transplant from his sister Kathleen, and while doctors believe the transplant effectively cured Peek of the cancer, the procedure created a new series of health woes. Suffering from what is known as “graft-versus-host-disease,” the new immune system attacked Peek’s body.
But Peek never stopped ministering to the sick. Well-known at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute and within Atlanta’s Catholic community, Peek was a go-to spiritual adviser for the sickest of the sick. He lifted the spirits of newly diagnosed. He regularly visited patients in hospitals even though such visits threatened his own health; his body, covered with open cuts, was susceptible to infections.
Peek believed his experience as a patient put him in a special category of priests, and he felt responsible to others in need.
“You want to reach out for moments like this, they are moments worth expending energy for,” he said in a 2011 interview. “In my early days of seminary, I didn’t like going to hospitals because I had nothing to say … except for some things about faith, and prayer. I was uncomfortable because I had no experience and no crossover. Now, I am very comfortable in hospitals, and I have a lot to say.”
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