Archdiocese of Newark death notices: August 2023

We remember and pray for our dearly departed clergy and men and women religious whose Masses of Christian Burial were held in August:

Father James F. Keenan, SJ

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023 at the Church of St. Francis Xavier, New York, N.Y. for Father James F. Keenan.

Father Keenan of the Society of Jesus passed away on Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023 after suffering a heart attack the night before. He was 86 years old, a Jesuit for 67 years and a priest for 54 years.

Father Keenan was born on Jan. 9, 1937, in the Jackson Heights area of Queens, N.Y. He attended Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn, N.Y, before transferring to the St. Philip Neri School in Haverhill, Mass., prior to entering the Society of Jesus at St. Andrew on Hudson, on Aug. 14, 1956. Following his studies in Philosophy at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, N.Y., he received a degree in Theology from Woodstock College in Woodstock, M.D., and was ordained a priest on June 12, 1969, at Fordham University.

Following his ordination, Father Keenan began serving at Xavier High School in New York City, where he taught History and English as a scholastic. He was first the assistant headmaster while earning a degree in education from Columbia University, and then headmaster. In 1977, he became president for four years.

In 1981, Father Keenan was named president of McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester, N.Y., where he remained for eight years. He was then missioned for a year as the director of the Jesuit Seminary and Mission Bureau at the St. Ignatius Loyola Jesuit Community in New York. In 1989, Father Keenan moved to Buffalo, N.Y., to become president of Canisius High School, serving for five years. It was then on to Jersey City where St. Peter’s Prep was the next Jesuit high school for Father Keenan to take the reins as president. He remained there for 12 years.

After a quick and much-deserved sabbatical, Father Keenan served for a year as assistant to the director of Nativity Mission Center for St. Ignatius School and Brooklyn Jesuit Prep.

The thousands of students, alumni, parents, and friends whom Father Keenan so selflessly served for decades in Jesuit secondary education, made his final mission one of his most successful and beloved — assistant for advancement for his Jesuit province and director of donor relations. For 15 years, Father Keenan helped raise millions of dollars for the Jesuits of the New York, Northeast, and USA East Provinces. Personally calling hundreds of benefactors on their birthdays each year, sending thousands of hand-written thank you notes, and hosting countless fundraising events, Father Keenan was the face of the Jesuits for so many on the East Coast.

On more weekends than not, he continued to celebrate weddings and baptize newborns, whether he was needed around the corner or across the country. Father Keenan continued to faithfully serve his province and the people of God until the day he passed on Aug. 13, 2023, at the age of 86.

Sister Ellen (Mary John) Fitzsimmons, SSND

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023 at St. Andrew Church, Anton Street, Bridgeport, Conn., for Sister Ellen (Mary John) Fitzsimmons.

Sister Fitzsimmons died on Aug. 6, 2023, at Ozanam Hall in Bayside, N.Y., at age 92. 

She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 20, 1931, to John Fitzsimmons and Agnes Roach, both native Bostonians. At Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Mission Church in Roxbury, she was baptized a few days later, and named after her grandmother.

She attended Catholic grammar school taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame. She was inspired in eighth grade to go to the Juniorate and become an SSND. She then attended high school at Holy Angels Academy in Fort Lee, N.J.

On Aug. 28, 1948, she was in Baltimore, a Candidate, having received the bonnet in the convent chapel in Roxbury. During these two years, Sister Fitzsimmons taught at three schools: half a school year each at St. Ann in Baltimore and St. Clement, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; and the entire second year at St. Leo, Irvington, N.J.

Sister Mary John was the name conferred on her at Reception into the Novitiate, July 17, 1950. Aug. 4, 1951 and 1957 were the dates of her first and final professions. She then spent 32 years as an elementary school teacher, plus 12 as a principal at these missions: St. Matthew, Baltimore; St. Mary, Meriden, Conn.; South Ozone Park, N.Y.; Our Lady of Fatima, Wilton, Conn.; St. Leo, Irvington, N.J.; Holy Family, Fairfield, Conn.; and Immaculate Conception, Malden, Mass.  

Toward the close of her teaching ministry in Summer of 1987, she volunteered to experience the life of migrants who were working near Warwick, N.Y. Later, she shared in an interview that “the contrast between the beautiful, fertile farmlands, and the hard labor and poor dwellings of the migrant workers and their families really bothered me. It was a summer of learning and sharing.”

On Sabbatical in 1995, Sister Fitzsimmons spent time at the renewal program at Sangre de Christo, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at St. Stephen’s Priory in Dover, Mass.  Her desire to work with migrants was now fulfilled at Caroline House, a sponsored ministry founded by the Wilton Province in Bridgeport. Here she taught ESL for 13 years, a ministry she loved.

On Sept. 28, 2019, Sister Fitzsimmons became a resident at Ozanam Hall in Bayside, N.Y., where she went home to God on the feast of the Transfiguration, Aug. 6, 2023.

Sister Gloria Doria, MPF

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Monday, Aug, 14, 2023, in St. Lucy Chapel, Villa Walsh, Morristown, N.J. for Sister Gloria Doria.

Sister Doria, 92, died Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023, at Ocean University Medical Center, Brick, N.J.

Born in New York City and raised in Bayonne, N.J., Sister Doria entered the Religious Teachers Filippini in 1948. She received the habit in 1949 and made her religious profession in 1952. 

Sister Doria earned her BS and MS in Secondary Education from St. John University, Jamaica, N.Y. 

In her 74 years of religious life, Sister Doria ministered as a classroom teacher, vice principal, and principal in the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Archdiocese of Newark.

In 1996, Sister Doria was appointed by the Archdiocese of Newark to serve a two-year term on the Archdiocese’s Parish Assistance Committee. The community appointed Sister Doria to serve as local Superior in the following convents: St. Peter the Apostle, River Edge; St. Anthony, Union City; Our Lady Queen of Peace, Maywood; Our Lady of the Assumption, Bayonne; St. Francis Xavier, Newark; and Holy Family, Nutley. At the time of her passing, Sister Doria ministered as a receptionist at St. Anthony Church, Belleville. 

Sister Doria is predeceased by her parents Joseph and Mary Doria. She is survived by her sister, Sister Beatrice Doria, MPF, her brother Joseph, her sister-in-law Maribeth, her niece Margaret, and a loving extended family. 

Sister Mary Henry Gadsby, SSND

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Monday, Aug, 24, 2023 at St. Andrew Church, in Bridgeport, Conn. for Sister Mary Henry Gadsby.

Sister Gadsby, a School Sister of Notre Dame, died on Aug. 11, 2023 at Ozanam Hall in Bayside, N.Y., at 91. She was born in Cambridge, Mass., on Jan. 13, 1931.

After pronouncing her vows as a School Sister of Notre Dame in 1955, she served as teacher and administrator at schools in New York and New Jersey, as well as in administration at Villa Notre Dame, in Wilton. Sister Gadsby was the principal at Immaculate Conception School in Secaucus. N.J., from 1980 to 2001.