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Msgr. Francis X. Duffy, pastor emeritus of St. Thomas of Canterbury parish, Cornwall-on-Hudson, died March 23 at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. He was 89.
Cardinal Dolan celebrated the Funeral Mass March 27 at St. Margaret of Cortona Church in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Father Bernard Heter, current pastor of St. Thomas of Canterbury, delivered the homily.
Msgr. Duffy served as pastor at St. Thomas from 1987 until 1994, when he retired. He was also pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in West Harrison, 1975-1987, and of St. Rose of Lima in Manhattan, 1970-1975. Previously he served as parochial vicar and director of St. Patrick Cathedral’s Information Center from 1950 until 1970.
Born in Manhattan, he was ordained by Cardinal Spellman in 1949 and named a monsignor in 1962. He held a licentiate in sacred theology from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and studied at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome.
Father Christopher Monturo, current pastor of St. Anthony of Padua parish, was a friend of Msgr. Duffy’s from his days as a seminarian.
“I first met Monsignor Duffy in the late 1990s when I was a seminarian for the summer months at Sacred Heart Church in Newburgh. He used to come to celebrate the Italian Mass each Sunday morning and I would serve the Mass for him,” Father Monturo recalled. “He spoke Italian perfectly. From time to time he would tell me that ‘for the next couple of weeks’ he would not be here. When I inquired as to where he would be, he would always tell me he would be doing ‘research.’ Later I came to find out that he and a close friend, Father John Fleming, were on a cruise or some other holiday.”
“He had a great sense of humor, a very dry sense of humor,” Father Monturo said. “He was a very pastoral priest, always present. He is still very much remembered here (at St. Anthony’s).”
A Month’s Mind Mass will be offered at St. Anthony’s for Msgr. Duffy on Monday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m.
Burial was at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne.
