Dear Editor: In November of 1956, I was one of a number of Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception Prep Seminary students to serve at the funeral Mass for Archbishop Thomas E. Molloy at St. Joseph’s Church on Pacific Street. I was one of the torch bearers. The back of my head was among those pictured in the Daily News and Daily Mirror newspaper accounts of the funeral.

The next time I had the privilege of visiting St. Joseph’s was Nov. 8, 2014 – 58 years later. The occasion? A Mass celebrating the 100th anniversary of Cathedral Preparatory School and Seminary. I attended with my Cathedral classmate and lifelong friend, John Casey.

Now St. Joseph’s is a magnificently refurbished co-cathedral! A dream come true! I had been told in 1956 by one of my parish priests that Archbishop Molloy had left instructions that his funeral Mass was to be held at St. Joseph’s in part, at least, to show his esteem for its famous pastor, Father Edward Lodge Curran. And now in 2014, a beautiful dream come true indeed!

Cathedral Prep in 1956 was a truly special school with a faculty second to none. Great and unforgettable priests with names like Mulrooney, Denning, Bevilacqua, Deas, Fitzpatrick, Gradilone, Kelly, Fogarty, Wolf, Molloy, Keane, Kirrane, Askin, Carow, Rogers, etc. How blessed and lucky we all were to have such dedicated, talented, selfless, outstanding professors to teach and guide us! They were all giants, and it was our good fortune to have been formed academically and spiritually by their teaching – but even more by their sterling personal example.

Thanks be to God, the dream – and the reality – continues in Queens under the leadership of Father Joseph Fonti, rector-president, and his associates. May God continue to bless Cathedral Prep, St. Joseph’s Co-Cathedral and the great Diocese of Brooklyn – in our hearts, always home base. As we used to say in the old days: “Ad Multos Annos; Ad Multos Gloriosque Annos!” Salve Regina!

VITO DESANTIS
Stuyvesant Town
Manhattan