'None better.' Danielson community mourns death of beloved parish priest Rev. John O'Neill
It’s a fair chance that anyone attending a St. James Church or school event in Danielson anytime during the past few decades bumped into the Rev. John O’Neill, the beloved parish pastor who died earlier this month.
With his shock of white hair and perpetual grin, O’Neill looked like a priest right out of central casting, complete with glasses, a wry sense of humor and seemingly boundless energy.
“On the morning he fell, he was heading to the YMCA, then to preside over a funeral and then a wedding,” said longtime friend Jean Cyr, director of the Friends of Assisi Food Pantry. “And that was just his morning. Who knows what he had planned for the afternoon.”
O’Neill died on Oct. 11 at the UMass Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, after suffering a stroke and fall earlier in the month. He was 87.
The Bridgeport native was ordained in 1962 and was celebrating his 60th Jubilee year as a Catholic priest in the Missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette when he died.
For 31 years, O’Neill served as the pastor of St. James and was a familiar presence at the parish’s bazaar and food distribution events, as well as a frequent visitor to the nearby St. James School, whose upgraded gymnasium was dedicated to him in 2018.
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“Pre-COVID, he was visiting classrooms on a daily basis,” St. James School Principal Elyse McAteer said on Tuesday. “Since I started in July 2021, he was in my office most days of the week checking on students and teachers, as well as attending all our functions, from honor roll events to luncheons. And he’d be out at the soccer field, cheering the teams.”
McAteer said O’Neill was a font of enthusiasm for the church and used an inclusive approach to bring new members into the fold.
“He was a man who’d give anything to help anyone; he put everyone in front of himself,” she said. “He always had time for people and worked to bring everyone together.”
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Over the course of his life, O’Neill served in several dioceses in a variety of capacities, including as prefect, professor and sports director in Altamont, New York and first director of the National Center for Church Vocations in Chicago.
O’Neill would formally kick-off the food pantry's Thanksgiving food donation distribution event at the school every year with a prayer, Cyr said.
“Even during the pandemic, when he held the event outside, he made it there,” she said. “It’s going to be a hard Thanksgiving this year.”
Cyr said O’Neill played a pivotal role in the creation of the pantry decades ago, even before she came onboard.
“He had just been posted here at the church and some ladies approached him about the poverty in the area and the need for a food pantry,” Cyr said.
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When recalling that first pantry conversation at last year’s holiday distribution event, O’Neill said he only had one caveat.
“All I asked of them was to name it after St. Francis of Assisi, who spent his life helping the poor,” O’Neill said. “And then I got out of their way."
During those early days of operation, pantry volunteers worked out of a church basement. The facility is now located at a separate building just down the road from the church on Water Street.
“They’d tromp up the stairs and brush by the priests’ vestments bringing food up,” Cyr said. “Father O’Neill’s level of support for the pantry never stopped. In one of his last sermons, he talked about how helpful that pantry and its people were. I know he’d want us to carry on.”
Rene Barbeau, a long-serving deacon at St. James Church, met O’Neill shortly after the priest arrived at the parish. At the time, Barbeau and his wife had just taken over operations of the popular St. James Bazaar, a carnival-style event that raised money for the nearby school.
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“I introduced myself and said ‘I don’t want you to do any work (in running the bazaar), just show up,’” Barbeau said. “And from that day forward, he showed up and showed up big.”
And it just wasn’t parish events O’Neill attended, but local high school football games and just about any type of community gathering.
“He didn’t care what faith you were – or if you didn’t have a faith at all – he was always kind, caring and pastoral,” Barbeau said. “Number one, it’s been a blessing to have known him for so many years and second, it’s catastrophic to us personally to lose him. He was like a big brother, none better.”
John Penney can be reached at jpenney@norwichbulletin.com or at (860) 857-6965.
This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Danielson St. James Church Catholic priest Rev. John O'Neill mourned
