McGarry

Msgr. Thomas M. McGarry

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Msgr. Thomas M. McGarry, who served for many years as a chaplain at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, died March 23 at Jeanne Jugan Residence in the Bronx. He was 84.

Archbishop Dolan celebrated the Funeral Mass March 26 at St. Lawrence O’Toole Church, Brewster. The homilist was Father Thomas F. McDonald, a seminary classmate of Father McGarry’s and senior priest hospital chaplain at New York-Presbyterian, Manhattan.

Auxiliary Bishop Gerald T. Walsh celebrated the Mass of the Holy Eucharist March 25 in the chapel at Jeanne Jugan Residence. The homilist was Father Robert M. Dunn, chaplain at Jeanne Jugan.

Msgr. McGarry had been chaplain at St. Barnabas Hospital from 1974 until last December. He had been in residence for about 20 years at St. Martin of Tours parish in the Bronx, and served there as a senior priest. He moved to Jeanne Jugan Residence this year.

Father McDonald described Msgr. McGarry as a man who lived only to serve the Lord. “He was very Christlike in his demeanor and his life,” he said in an interview. “He didn’t possess anything…His great joy was to take care of the poor.

Father Dunn said in his homily that when he was a student at St. John Neumann Residence, about to begin a hospital assignment under then-Father McGarry, he asked other priests what Father McGarry was like.

“The answers came in a rapid-fire barrage of compliments: wonderful, caring, hardworking, dedicated, a saint,” Father Dunn said. He expected to find in Msgr. McGarry “some mystical being with a secret to priestly ministry.” Instead, “after a pleasant introduction and a brief orientation, he handed me the pyx holding the Eucharist and basically advised us to see Christ in the people to whom we are bringing Christ.”

After watching Msgr. McGarry’s ministry of bringing Christ to the sick, he said, “I have no trouble joining my admiration to that of so many others.”

Msgr. McGarry was born in Tarrytown and grew up in Brewster. He entered Cathedral College in 1944 to prepare for priesthood and completed his studies at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie. He was ordained May 14, 1952.

Before his assignment to St. Barnabas Hospital, he was a parochial vicar at St. Augustine’s, Highland, 1964-1974; St. Agnes, Manhattan, 1959-1964; St. Athanasius, the Bronx, 1955-1959; St. Peter’s, Liberty, 1953-1955; and St. John the Evangelist, Beacon, 1952-1953.

He was named a monsignor in 1999. He and the pastoral care team at St. Barnabas Hospital received the Cardinal Cooke Award as chaplains of the year in 1987.

He is survived by a sister, Mary Crew, and a brother, Robert.

Burial was at St. Lawrence O’Toole parish cemetery in Brewster.

Msgr. Thomas M. McGarry