Obituaries

Brother Lawrence
Brother Lawrence

[hr] Brother Lawrence Seward (Xavier), S.C., who was in his 52nd year of religious life as a Brother of the Sacred Heart, died on Nov. 21, at Maria Regina Residence, Brentwood, L.I.
A native of Council Bluffs, Iowa, he entered the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in 1957, and pronounced his perpetual vows in 1965 in Metuchen, N.J.
In the Brooklyn Diocese, he taught and served as a guidance counselor, track coach, and director of campus ministry at Msgr. McClancy M.H.S., East Elmhurst. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was president of the Diocesan Brothers’ Senate.
In the Archdiocese of New York, he taught at St. Luke’s School, the Bronx, and later worked for Catholic Charities in the South Bronx.  Prior to entering the Brothers, he served in the U.S. Air Force.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Nov. 25 at Our Lady of Fatima Church, Jackson Heights, with interment in the Brothers’ Cemetery in Metuchen, N.J.

Sister Louise
Sister Louise

[hr] Sister Louise Dantzig, R.S.M., 91, a member of the Sisters of Mercy for 72 years, died Dec. 11 at Maria Regina Residence, Brentwood, L.I.
Born and raised in St. Thomas Aquinas parish, Brooklyn, she attended the parish grammar school and the Mercy Juniorate H.S. She entered the novitiate in Syosset in 1939 and made final vows in 1945.
She attended Manhattan College and Rivier College where she earned a master’s degree in French.
She taught at Holy Rosary, Bedford-Stuyvesant, 1942-445; St. Mary’s Syosset, 1945-49; St. Brigid, Bushwick, 1949-55; Catherine McAuley H.S., Flatbush, 1955-61; Our Lady of Mercy Academy, Syosset, 1961-67; Mercy H.S., Riverhead, 1967-69; and Nazareth R.H.S., Flatbush, 1976-78.
She also worked at the Diocesan TV Studio as a producer, 1969-72; and taught in Paris, France, 1972-75.
Returning to the U.S. in 1975, she spent another year with Diocesan TV and then chaired the language department at St. Francis Prep, Fresh Meadows, 1978-80.
From 1980 to 1982, she was involved with fund-raising for St. Mary’s Home, Syosset, and then spent a year writing the constitution for the Brooklyn Sisters of Mercy.
She went to the missions in Chile and served there from 1983 to 1996.
She retired in 1996 to the Convent of Mercy and relocated to Maria Regina in 2002.
Immediate survivors include her sister, Celine Duffy.
Burial was in St. Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale, L.I.[hr]
Brother Charles Roggemann, S.M., a member of the Marianists for 68 years, died Nov. 10. He was 88.
Born in Manhattan, he attended Chaminade H.S., Mineola, L.I, where he first met the Marianist Brothers.
He entered the novitiate in 1942, and professed first vows a year later. After attending the University of Dayton, he began teaching at North Catholic H.S., Pittsburgh. After professing perpetual vows in 1946, he spent two years at the Marianist seminary in Switzerland but decided to remain a brother.
From 1952 until 1972, he taught English at Most Holy Trinity H.S., Williamsburg.
In 1972, he transferred to Chaminade College Preparatory, now Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory, in Hollywood, Fla., serving there until 2002.
He retired from teaching in 1995 but worked in the school’s library until 2002, when he moved to the Mercy Siena Marianist Community in Dayton, Ohio.
He was voted into the Catholic Education Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 2003.[hr]

Brother Alfred
Brother Alfred

Brother Alfred Bonanza, O.S.F., 76, a native of Oyster Bay and a member of the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn for 58 years, died Dec. 12 after a brief hospitalization.
He was a teacher at St. Leonard’s H.S., Bushwick, from 1956 until 1965 when he became the Prefect of Discipline at Bishop Ford H.S., Park Slope.
From 1969 until 1972, he was director of financial aid at St. Francis College before returning to Bishop Ford, where he remained for 27 years.
In 1999, Brother Alfred moved to St. Anthony’s H.S., South Huntington, where he served the faculty and students in the bookstore until his retirement.[hr]

Archbishop Kelly
Archbishop Kelly

Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly, 80, who led the Archdiocese of Louisville from 1982 until his retirement in 2007, died in his sleep on the morning of Dec. 14 at his home on the campus of Holy Trinity Church.
A member of the Dominican Order, he also served as a diplomat and administrator at the nunciature and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The retired archbishop was born in 1931 in Rochester, N.Y., and entered the Dominicans in 1951 after studying for two years at Providence College. He was ordained a priest in 1958 and received a licentiate in theology degree from the Dominican House of Studies in Washington.
He also received a doctorate in canon law from the University of St. Thomas in Rome in 1962 and studied at the University of Vienna in Austria and at Cambridge University.