Retired Archbishop Joseph T. Dimino

Retired Archbishop Joseph T. Dimino, a New York native who headed the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services for six years, died Nov. 25 in Washington, D.C. He was 91.

Ordained for the Archdiocese of New York in 1949 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, he served in the military chaplaincy for most of his priesthood before retiring in 1997.

He died in a retirement home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, where he had lived for several years.

A Funeral Mass was offered Dec. 2 at the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. The principal celebrant was Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services. The homilist was Retired Auxiliary Bishop Francis X. Roque of the U.S. military archdiocese.

He served as parochial vicar of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in lower Manhattan, 1952-1953; St. Teresa’s, Sleepy Hollow, 1952; and St. Joseph’s, Spring Valley, 1949-1952.

He was commissioned a Navy chaplain in 1953. At the time, military chaplains fell under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of New York, within the Military Ordinariate.

After 25 years as a Navy chaplain, he retired from the service with the rank of captain and was assigned as chancellor of the ordinariate in 1977.

By the time the ordinariate became an archdiocese in 1985, he helped through the transition as an auxiliary bishop, having been appointed a bishop in 1983 by St. John Paul II and ordained to the episcopacy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

When Archbishop John T. Ryan retired in 1991, Bishop Dimino became the second archbishop for the Military Services. He retired at age 74 in 1997, after health problems the previous year.

Born in Manhattan, he attended Holy Rosary School in the Bronx, Cathedral College in Manhattan and St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie.

In a 1983 Catholic New York article he traced his vocation back to 1929, when as a first-grader at Holy Rosary School he resolutely marched up to the nun who taught his class and told her he planned to be a priest. “First grade—that’s true. There was never any question,” he recalled at that time.

He earned a master’s degree in religious education at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and a bachelor’s at St. Joseph’s Seminary.

In remarks at his 1991 installation Mass as archbishop of the Military Archdiocese at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Archbishop Dimino said, “To the Catholic mothers and fathers of the United States, we pledge that while their sons and daughters serve in the armed forces of this country, every effort will be made to ensure that their faith is protected, nourished and supported.”

He added, “In peace and in war, on land and on sea, our priests in uniform will stand beside them strengthening them with the sacraments, sharing with them the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ and bringing them the message of Christ and the Word of God.”

In a 1995 interview with Catholic News Service, the archbishop described visiting troops in Italy and Croatia amid preparations to go into the war in Bosnia as part of the NATO peacekeeping force.

He told of flying into Zagreb, Croatia, through a circuitous route because civilian commercial aircraft traffic was barred over the Adriatic at the time. Despite the ongoing war, the archbishop said he saw no destruction and was not worried about his personal safety.

The highlight of his visit was celebrating Mass and a Thanksgiving Day ecumenical service for Americans stationed in Croatia, he told CNS. In the interview, he marveled at the conditions under which chaplains operated in the war zone, including the metal boxes— measuring 12-by-10-by-7-foot-high— that individual officers or two enlisted personnel called home.

Despite the “freezing cold” and unusual living spaces, the archbishop said, “morale was fantastic.... There was no griping or grumbling.”

His sister Mary Stephens survives him.

Burial was at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Silver Spring, Md.

Catholic New York staff and Catholic News Service contributed to this story.