Salesian Father James B. Curran dies

By Florida Catholic staff - Florida Catholic

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. | Father James B. Curran, a Salesian who served as pastor of St. Kieran Church in Miami from 1996 to 1998, died Sept. 3, at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 91 and was still recovering from major surgery he had on Aug. 16. 

During the last years of his life, he was a member of the Salesian community at St. Petersburg Catholic High School. Father Curran began his service at St. Kieran in 1995 as assistant pastor, attending especially the English-speaking parishioners. He began learning Spanish so as to serve everyone.

James Brendan Curran was born at Annascaul (County Kerry), Ireland, on May 27, 1921, to James and Helen Kennedy Curran, and baptized the following day at the parish church of the Sacred Heart in Annascaul.
   
Desiring to become a Salesian priest, in 1935 he entered the Salesian high school seminary at Shrigley (Cheshire), England. Brother Curran made his first profession of vows at Beckford on Aug. 31, 1941 and was ordained on July 15, 1951, by Bishop Joseph Rudderham of Clifton.

Following his ordination, Father Curran was assigned to Chertsey (Surrey), England, where the Salesians had a small boarding and day school. He taught there from 1951 to 1963, the last four years as headmaster.

Following a visit to Chicago, in 1963 Father Curran transferred from the Anglo-Irish Province to the New Rochelle Province. Father Curran's first posting was as a teacher at Don Bosco Tech in Boston (1963-1966). He later held other posts in Indiana and in 1970, he became an American citizen.

In 1983, he began a new "career" as a parish priest. He was named pastor of St. Rosalie Church in Harvey, La., and served there for 12 years. He then served as pastor of St. Kieran and on leaving Miami in 1998, became pastor of St. Anthony Church in Paterson, N.J. 

In 2001, at the age of 80, Father Curran stepped down as a pastor but not as an active and zealous priest. He moved back to Florida, to the Salesian community affiliated with St. Petersburg Catholic High School, where he was vice director of the community and a minister of the sacraments in the school.

That assignment lasted but a year, however, as he was called to be assistant pastor of Corpus Christi Church in Port Chester, N.Y., and then relocated yet again in 2003, back to St. Rosalie Church in Harvey.

In the summer of 2011, Father Curran returned to Ireland for several weeks to celebrate 60 years of priesthood with family and friends. In August 2011, now 90 years of age, Father Curran went once more to St. Petersburg, where he remained until his death.

Salesian Father James McKenna, who was Father Curran's director during the latter part of his second stint in Louisiana, said he always found Father Curran to be "peaceful, kind and helpful ... always a people's man ...always considerate of others, and I will miss him as an older priest friend."

Funeral Masses and wakes took place in New York and St. Petersburg Sept. 6-8.