Father John Michael Hamrogue, C.Ss.R., 78, a member of the Redemptorist community for 60 years, died on Jan. 9 at his Immaculate Conception rectory in the Bronx.

Born in Brooklyn, he entered the Redemptorists in 1958 from Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish, Sunset Park, and was ordained to the priesthood on June 23, 1963.

He studied at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Fordham University in the Bronx, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1974.

He taught for 10 years in the Redemptorist seminary in Connecticut. In the 1980s, he began a full-time ministry of preaching parish missions and retreats. He lived first at St. Peter’s Church, Philadelphia, Pa., and then Mount St. Alphonsus Retreat Center in the Catskills.

In 1990, he moved to the Caribbean, where he served eight years as a parish priest and missionary. He served first on the island of Dominica and then in St. Lucia. In 1998, he returned to Brooklyn where he served at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sunset Park.

In 2004, he returned to St. Peter’s in Philadelphia for one year, and then was assigned to St. Mary’s, Annapolis, Md., to work with the Hispanic community.

He was assigned again to Brooklyn in 2008. In 2010, he returned to St. Peter’s as an associate pastor until August of 2015.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Jan. 13 in the lower church at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica.