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Article_Father Patrick Slevin, 83: �a parishioners� pastor�

Parish News | Thursday, October 27, 2016

Father Patrick Slevin, 83: ‘a parishioners’ pastor’

Irish priest began serving here before diocese was created, most recently at St. Pius X

This article has been updated. 

Father Patrick Slevin, born Sept. 16, 1933; ordained June 16, 1957; died Oct. 27, 2016.

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Father Patrick Slevin, born Sept. 16, 1933; ordained June 16, 1957; died Oct. 27, 2016.

MIAMI | Years before there was a Diocese of Miami, Father Patrick Slevin began ministering in South Florida.

The Armagh-born priest was part of the 1957 class of Irish missionaries ordained for the Diocese of St. Augustine, which then covered the whole state. He became a priest of the Diocese of Miami when it was established a year later, and continued serving here for all of his 59 years of priesthood.

Father Slevin, 83, died Oct. 26, just a day after being placed under the care of Catholic Hospice.

A viewing with take place Friday, Oct. 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the last parish where he served, St. Pius X in Fort Lauderdale, followed by funeral Mass Saturday, Oct. 29, at 10 a.m., also at St. Pius. Cremation will follow and his ashes will be returned to Ireland.

Father Slevin had served at St. Pius from June 1990 until his retirement in February 2010.

Joe and Barbara Scerbo joined the parish around 1990 and soon became involved in the stewardship committee. Joe remembers Father Slevin as “a parishioners’ pastor,” whose whole life was the church.

“As far as I could remember he was always in the church and always in the rectory, and he visited the sick,” said Scerbo. “He was the shepherd.”

He described Father Slevin as person-friendly, charismatic and progressive, in that he got parishioners involved and relied on them to get things done.

“A lot gone done during his tenure,” Scerbo said, including the complete refurbishment of the church and the creation of a garden grotto, with a waterfall and brick pavers memorializing parishioners.

The Scerbos also managed to surprise their pastor by installing a replica of Michelangelo’s Pieta in the vestibule of the church.

“For years he told us he would like to have a Pieta,” Scerbo recalled. “Everybody looked at each other and we couldn’t figure out how we were going to do that.”

But they managed, just in time for the celebration of the parish’s 50th in 2009.

“I saw the trucks at the front entrance of the church and wondered what the heck was going on,” Father Slevin told the Florida Catholic at the time.

Scerbo added that Father Slevin never lost his Irish brogue — although his becoming a U.S. citizen on St. Patrick’s Day in 1963 merited a mention in the then-diocesan newspaper, The Voice (precursor to the Florida Catholic).

Scerbo also remembers Father Slevin concluding every Mass with the words, “God bless you and God bless America.”

Before being named to St. Pius X, Father Slevin was pastor of St. Jerome in Fort Lauderdale, from January 1976 to June 1990.

“He was a pure Irishman: Humble, respectful, funny,” said Sister Vivian Gomez, a Sister of St. Phillip Neri who taught at St. Jerome School throughout Father Slevin’s tenure, and became principal his last year there.

“He would visit the school constantly. If the parents did not have money to pay for the school, he would help them,” she said, adding that the members of her religious community who staffed the school considered him “part of our family.”

Father Slevin also served as pastor of St. Michael the Archangel in Miami, from 1966 to 1969; Holy Family in North Miami, from 1969 to 1971; St. Lucy in Highland Beach, now in the Diocese of Palm Beach, from 1971 to 1974; and as administrator of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Miami from 1961 to 1966.

Born Sept. 16, 1933, Father Slevin studied at St. Patrick’s College in Armagh and All Hallows College in Dublin, where he was ordained June 16, 1957. He arrived in Miami that fall, part of a class of four Irish priests that included Msgr. Noel Fogarty and Msgr. Patrick McDonnell, both also deceased.

Father Slevin’s first assignment was as parochial vicar at St. Anthony in Fort Lauderdale and teacher at Central Catholic High School there — now St. Thomas Aquinas High School. Almost immediately, he assumed the role of president at the school, where he served until September 1959.

Subsequent assignments included bishop’s representative to all archdiocesan Catholic hospitals, moderator of Catholic nurses and spiritual director of the Catholic Physicians’ Guild, and chaplain at Lourdes and Pennsylvania Residences in West Palm Beach.

In the early 1960s, he also worked as parochial vicar at St. Francis Xavier in Fort Myers and administrator of St. Margaret in Clewiston.

St. Pius X is located at 2511 N. Ocean Blvd. (A1A), Fort Lauderdale.

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