The late Bishop “Iggy” Catanello was a very pastoral priest and bishop and people responded to his affection and many kindnesses. So it wasn’t surprising that a crowd turned out last weekend when Holy Family Council of the Knights of Columbus in Fresh Meadows officially changed its name to Holy Family – Bishop Ignatius Catanello Council.

While Grand Knight Peter Petrino and Father Casper Furnari, pastor and chaplain to the Knights, unveiled the new charter announcing the renaming, friends of the bishop took turns telling stories about what Bishop “Iggy” meant to them.

Bishop Catanello died three years ago after a lingering battle with brain cancer. This year would have been his 50th anniversary as a priest.

Appropriately, the altar boy at Father Catanello’s First Mass as a priest at St. Rita’s Church in Long Island City, was present for the unveiling. Frank Steele was only 10 years old at the time but he still remembers greeting the bishop when he arrived and helping carry his bags into the rectory. That was the start of a lifelong relationship.

“I was his long-distance driver,” said Steele, a retired NYC public school principal. “When he went up to Ogdensburg for Bishop Jerry’s installation, I drove him. I also drove him to Pittsburgh and other places for meetings with bishops.

“How blessed I was to get to know him.”

Grand Knight Petrino explained that the Council was formed in 2008 at the urging of Bishop Catanello who was pastor of Holy Family parish.

“We wanted to name the Council after him but he said no,” said Petrino. “He told us to wait until he got to the Kingdom. He was always talking about the Kingdom.”

Petrino recalled that he first met the bishop at a car show in the parish. “He asked me my name and he never forgot it.”

Petrino said that there was a time when he was feeling “down and out.” The bishop gave him a pep talk to get him back on track. “He told me ‘You have to get the negative people out of your life’ and I did.” He credits Bishop Catanello for giving him the confidence to run for president of his union. He was recently re-elected to a new three-year term.

“He was my inspiration,” said Petrino.

Others had similar reactions.

“He was my best friend.”

“The last time I cried at someone’s death was his.”

“He was a face guy. He didn’t want to talk on the phone. He wanted to speak to you face-to-face.”

“He became so enthused at the opportunity to help someone.”

Vincent Marzigliano travels from Suffolk County to Holy Family each week for Mass because of his friendship with the former pastor. He recalled how the bishop counseled him after a serious car accident. “He told me to say the rosary every day and then he pointed me to a Healing Mass. The minute I walked into that church, I began to feel better.”

Marzigliano was with the bishop the night before he died. And prayed the rosary with him before leaving around midnight.

“He would tell me that God would work in every way for me,” he said.

The name of Bishop Catanello lives on in a street named for him, a scholarship at Cathedral Prep and now in a Knights of Columbus Council in Queens. The memories live on in the stories that are told about a bishop who was a true shepherd and whose followers will not forget what he meant to them.