Father William J. Boldt

Father William J. Boldt, who served as pastor of two parishes and was a high school principal and teacher in the archdiocese, died Sept. 7 at the Community Hospital at Dobbs Ferry. He was 84.

Cardinal Egan offered the Funeral Mass Sept. 11 at St. Teresa of the Infant Jesus Church, Staten Island, where Father Boldt was pastor from 1990 until his retirement in 2000.

A Mass of the Holy Eucharist was offered the evening before at St. Teresa’s by Msgr. James Dorney, regional vicar of Staten Island and pastor of St. Peter’s parish. Father John J. O’Hara, pastor of St. Teresa’s, preached the homily.

Father Boldt was pastor of Infant Saviour parish, Pine Bush, from 1978 to 1990. He served as principal of John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers, 1972-1978. He taught for 18 years at Cardinal Hayes High School, the Bronx, beginning in 1954.

Msgr. Robert Ritchie, rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and homilist at the Funeral Mass, was a student in Father Boldt’s AP English class at Cardinal Hayes in 1962-1963.

“He had a great influence on us,” Msgr. Ritchie said.

Msgr. Ritchie was one of four members of his Cardinal Hayes class, including Father John Quinn, pastor of St. Patrick’s, Armonk, who went on to the priesthood. “He took me under his wing,” Msgr. Ritchie said of Father Boldt, with whom he remained close throughout the years.

“He watched over me and gave good advice,” he said. “He always kept in contact with me and the other priests.”

He remembered Father Boldt as “a man of great dignity,” and noted that the older priest “always got things done on time and in good order.”

Father O’Hara, in his homily, recalled Father Boldt, whom he succeeded as pastor and previously served under as a parochial vicar, as “a brilliant man who was blessed with great intellect and wit.” He particularly cited Father Boldt’s ministry to the sick and elderly.

Father Boldt, after his retirement in 2000, remained active in service to the Staten Island parish. In recent years he had resided at the John Cardinal O’Connor Clergy Residence in the Riverdale section of the Bronx before entering St. Cabrini Nursing Home in Dobbs Ferry earlier this year.

Born in the Bronx, he studied for the priesthood at Cathedral College and St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie. He was ordained in 1949. He held master’s degrees in English and business, both from Fordham University.

Early in his priesthood, he was assigned to St. Mary’s, the Bronx; Our Lady of the Rosary, Manhattan; and St. Peter’s, Liberty.

Burial was in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne.