byFather Robert M. O'Grady Pilot Staff
Msgr. John A. Abruzzese Courtesy photo
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Synod is very current in our Roman Catholic vocabulary. However, for Msgr. John A. Abruzzese, it was almost his entire priestly life.
He was born in Boston on Aug. 1, 1948, one of the two sons and one daughter of the late Lorenzo and Catherine (Cammarota) Abruzzese. His sister Nancy Desilets lives in Westwood; his brother Lawrence is deceased.
The family were parishioners of Holy Name in West Roxbury, where he attended the parish school and then to Boston' South End for high school at Cathedral High. He entered Cardinal O'Connell Seminary in Jamaica Plain, and then completed his philosophy studies at St. John Seminary, Brighton, campus.
He was sent to the Pontifical North American College at Rome for his theological studies, which he undertook at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in the Eternal City.
The college's rector, then Bishop James A. Hickey, ordained him to the diaconate at the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the North American College on May 10, 1973, and on June 27, 1974, Bishop Hickey ordained him to the priesthood at St. Peter's Basilica.
On his return to the United States, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros named him as an associate at St. Joseph Parish, Hyde Park, not too far from the family in West Roxbury. In 1979, the cardinal appointed him as an associate at St. Anthony of Padua (Italian) Parish in Revere.
He returned to Rome to complete graduate studies in Sacred Theology also at the Angelicum, from which he received a doctorate in Sacred Theology in 1983. He also taught for a semester at the Angelicum. He returned to the United States again, remaining an associate at the Revere parish until the fall of 1986.
For the next 37 years, he was on lend-lease from the archdiocese for service to the Holy See.
The longer part of that service was to the General Synod of Bishops in the English language communications sections. There, he participated in the composition of the synodal documents, both those before and following the many synods of bishops celebrated in Rome.
During his tenure at the General Secretariat, eight ordinary synods, one extraordinary, and nine special synods were celebrated. All required Msgr. Abruzzese's competence in assisting with the preparation and translation of preparatory documents, documents during the synod, and any documents coming from the Synod Office following the various celebrations.
While his daily work took him to an office on the via della Conciliazione, he was always in the shadow of St. Peter's. He lived with other American priests at the Villa Stritch, about a 20-minute drive south of Vatican City.
The ordinary synods dealt with various topics in the life of the Church, from formation of priests, to the Eucharist; the special synods were usually about a particular nation or group of nations.
Following a restructuring of the general synod in recent years and the arrival of new personnel, Msgr. Abruzzese moved from the service at the Synod of Bishops to his being named a Canon of the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
His fluency in Italian and English helped greatly in his duties as celebrant of Masses and the hearing of confessions of pilgrimages and local Romans in a very busy area of the Eternal City.
He was named, as often happens with priests in the service of the Holy See, a member of the papal household. Pope St. John Paul II named him a papal chamberlain in 1993; while Pope Benedict XVI named him a prelate of honor in 2007. In both cases, he has the title of Reverend Monsignor.
Msgr. Abruzzese returned to the archdiocese this past spring, having spent 37 of his 49 years of priestly ministry in unseen service in the "shadow of Peter."