Sister M. Irene Fugazy, S.C.

Sister M. Irene Fugazy, S.C., a teacher in the archdiocese for 29 years who also served as director of the archdiocese’s Instructional Television (ITV) in Yonkers for 19 years, died May 18 at St. Patrick Home in the Bronx. She was 99.

Sister Irene was director of ITV, which provides programming for Catholic schools in the archdiocese, 1972-1991, and also served as its director of public relations, 1967-1972. Her 19 years teaching French, also 1972-1991, were spent at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, and Cathedral College, Douglaston.

She also taught at Cardinal Spellman High School, the Bronx, 1967-1972; Elizabeth Seton College, Yonkers, where she also was director of public relations and development, 1963-1967; Cathedral High School, Manhattan, 1957-1962; St. Lawrence Academy, Manhattan, 1956-1957; Seton Academy, Yonkers, 1943-1956; Blessed Sacrament, Manhattan, 1939-1943; The Pines at Mount St. Vincent, the Bronx, 1939; and Visitation, the Bronx, 1938-1939.

Sister Irene was the director of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Museum, 2007, and director of special projects for the Sisters of Charity, 1991-2007. Much of her time and energy was devoted to making St. Elizabeth Ann Seton better known. “I talk about a flesh-and-blood person who has something to say to everyone,” Sister Irene said in a 1993 feature in Catholic New York.

In 1997, she authored a book, “St. Elizabeth Ann Seton,” about the founder of the Sisters of Charity and the first U.S.-born citizen to be canonized.

She was on the board of trustees for Don Bosco Multi-Media, Fordham Prep, Boston Catholic Television, St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School, St. Vincent Medical Center and the College of Mount St. Vincent.

Sister Irene became the first woman to receive the Daniel J. Kane Religious Communications Award from the University of Dayton in 1988, and she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1999 celebrating her Italian and Irish heritage.

Born in Manhattan, Sister Irene entered the Sisters of Charity of New York in 1936 and professed final vows in 1942.

She received a bachelor’s degree in French from the College of Mount St. Vincent, and a master’s and doctorate in French, both from Fordham University. She earned a diploma from L’Institut Catholique de Paris, and also studied speech, drama and film at Fordham and the Museum of Modern Art.

A Funeral Mass was to be offered May 23 in Immaculate Conception Chapel at the College of Mount St. Vincent in the Bronx. Burial was at St. Joseph Cemetery in Yonkers.