Less than a year after being granted senior priest/retirement status with residence at Regina Cleri, Boston, Father James T. Kelly died on May 16, 2024, at Regina Cleri.

Born in Brighton Dec. 21, 1947, he was one of the 10 children, seven sons and three daughters, of the late Robert and Alice (McKenna) Kelly. His family were members of Blessed Sacrament Parish, Cambridge, where he attended elementary school before traversing Cambridge to complete high school at North Cambridge Catholic High School.

An alumnus of the archdiocesan seminaries: Cardinal O'Connell, Jamaica Plain; St. Clement, Brighton; and St. John, also in Brighton. Humberto Cardinal Medeiros ordained him and his classmates at Holy Cross Cathedral on May 19, 1973. The newly minted cardinal -- named by Pope St. Paul VI on March 5, 1973 -- had ordained the classes of 1971 and 1972, so this was the first class ordained by him as cardinal.

During the next 50 years of his active priestly ministry, Father Kelly would serve in archdiocese parishes, 11 in all; the parishes spanned from Boston northward.

Those parishes, where he served either as an associate, parochial vicar, administrator, or pastor, were St. John Chrysostom, West Roxbury, associate (1973-1975); St. Anne, Littleton, associate (1975- 1982); St. Thomas Aquinas, Jamaica Plain, associate (1982 -1991); St. Catherine of Genoa, Somerville, parochial vicar (1991-1994); Our Lady Star of the Sea, Marblehead, parochial vicar (1994-1996); Sacred Hearts, Haverhill, parochial vicar (1996-2004); Immaculate Conception, Newburyport, parochial vicar (2004-2010) and administrator (2010-2011); St. Andrew, Billerica, pastor (2011-2013); Sacred Hearts, Malden, administrator (2013); and, for almost a full decade, as administrator of both St. John the Evangelist, Swampscott, and St. Thomas Aquinas, Nahant.

The list of parishes includes some of the busiest, both then and now, in the archdiocese. During Father Kelly's assignments, they were likely even busier.

As previously mentioned, Father Kelly had nine siblings: Charles, Gerald, Kevin, Richard, Robert, Stephen, Alice, Elaine, and Beverly.

Father Kelly's family will announce a Memorial Mass for him this fall.