Shepherding the Faithful While Fighting an Uphill Battle

The Reverend Monsignor Patrick J. Boyle, pastor of Rye's Church of the Resurrection and Vicar for Central Westchester, is better known as Paddy Boyle to the priests who were in the seminary with him at Dunwoodie in Yonkers more than 50 years ago.

But to his parishioners at Resurrection, the 70-something Boyle is something else again, emerging as a living profile in courage as he fights cancer on a very public stage.

While recovering from various surgeries and chemotherapy and still undergoing radiation treatment, he continues to run one of Westchester's largest and most affluent parishes with a steady hand—and an Irish sense of humor.

"I understand your hair comes back after chemotherapy, which would be a pretty good trick for me because I've been bald for as long as I can remember," Boyle said from the pulpit not long ago as he filled his parishioners in on his ongoing travails during an 11:15 a.m. Sunday Mass.

He's been receiving regular radiation treatments at Sloan-Kettering on the Tarrytown campus of Phelps Memorial Hospital, he said. And he's feeling much better, exactly how much better will be determined when he concludes the treatments right around St. Patrick's Day  on March 17.

"I think I'm going to be all right, but for a while it didn't look too good—I've got lung cancer and with lung cancer you never know because it can spread anywhere," he recently told Patch.

An Unexpected Illness

It began innocently enough with what seemed like a tickle in his throat around a year ago, only that tickle made it difficult to talk so he had his throat checked out and Sloan-Kettering and his surgeon found cancer on the polyps. They thought they got it all out with surgery.

But the surgeons also thought they saw something on his lung at the time, although they weren't sure what it was, or at least they didn't mention it to him.

So, he went ahead with his plans for a vacation pilgrimage to Europe instead of his usual fishing trip back to his roots to visit family in Donegal. And there he was, in a chapel in England about to say Mass this summer when he suddenly couldn't breathe, and it just kept getting worse to the point that he had to fly home for a check up. And that's when they found the cancer had spread to his lungs and that he needed more surgery.

So he temporarily turned the pastorship of  Resurrection over to one  of his senior priests,  Reverend Monsignor Edward O'Donnelll, a veteran of many Archdiocesan posts, aided by another senior priest, Reverend Monsignor John Mescall. Several other religious leaders also pitched in, including Reverend Robert Verrigni, parochial vicar and a former pastor at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Scarsdale; Reverend Zacharias Nadackal, another parochial vicar, albeit one who came from India, and Reverend Thomas Collins, a weekend associate from Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains.

In effect, five clerics had to do what Msgr. Boyle made look deceptively easy. Resurrection is more than a century old, and the sprawling Gothic cathedral-like gray stone building was badly in need of repair when "Paddy" came to Resurrection as its new pastor in July of 2002.

"It's really been a two-way street with Monsignor Boyle," said Monsignor O'Donnell. "He's done a wonderful job on keeping his priests and parish informed on his recovery progress. And he's stayed right on top of the parish situation all the way in keeping himself informed about everything that's been going on in the parish as well and the parish has responded in a very spontaneous way, helping him with everything from medical advice to diet advice, helping him to come and go from his various medical appointments, and making sure he takes his medication."

"They love him. And it is easy to see why. He seems to know everybody, never forgets a face, seemingly remembers all the little things about everybody he meets. He's a real people person and that comes across" O'Donnell added. "He loves to socialize. And has an extraordinary network of friends that he's built up in Rye as well as from his former parish in the Bronx. I'm sure my fellow priests here would agree with that assessment."

Boyle worked his way up through the Archdiocesan ranks, from parish priest to pastor, spending 29 years at St. Brendan's in the Northwest Bronx, improving the church, the school, even having a Head Start Center named for him in a former Jewish synagogue. But every step of the way, he remained easy going, affable, with a sense of humor that perhaps came from growing up in the Irish-Catholic bastion that is Inwood off Dyckman Street, near the Cloisters in upper Manhattan where his family, from Ireland's Donegal, ran a bar.  

Reviving Resurrection

Young Paddy always wanted to be a priest. He went to Cathedral Preparatory and then Dunwoodie. He then entered the priesthood, becoming a priest's priest with a flair for organization and administration.

He wasted no time putting those talents to good use at Resurrection, which has had many lives since it was founded in 1887. At one time masses were held at the old Kirklawn Inn, with the church moving to several locations around Rye near the railroad tracks. Ground was broken on the current site at 910 Boston Post Road in 1926.

The current campus sprawls over around seven acres and includes five buildings: the church, rectory, school, parish house and a community house with an additional building knocked down last winter to create a playing field. At one time, Resurrection was also home to Cathedral Preparatory Seminary, a convent, and the Archdiocesan Center for Spiritual Studies.

Boyle was impressed with the history, but focused on the here and now, starting a fund-raising building committee that has, among other things, repaired the leaky church roof, restored the stained glass windows, repaired the air conditioning and heating plant and renovated the school.

"He's a real can do person, very easy to get along with, has a great sense of humor, and is wonderful to work for," said Rye's Nelly Mezzullo, a long-time parishioner who works in the Resurrection rectory.

"We really missed leadership, and Monsignor Boyle provides it," said Sally Biers, a church lector and head of Resurrection's Roman Catholic Instruction for Adults program.

"The church hadn't been painted inside since God knows when, and now Monsignor Boyle is getting that done in addition to all the other repairs he's been responsible for. He always says yes to our needs, is so supportive, and is such a spiritual leader. It explains why he is so well-loved, and why we are all praying for him," Biers said.

There is at least one other personal experience that is indicative of the man. My daughter-in-law, a lawyer and a Duke Divinity School graduate minister, was undergoing severe post-partum depression after a difficult child birth in Texas.

My son, a college professor, called and asked me and my wife to come to Dallas right away to help. We booked the first flight, and stopped off at Resurrection early that morning to pray and request that a Mass be said for the hurting family as soon as possible.

Monsignor Boyle looked at his watch. It was almost 9 a.m.

"What about right now; it would be a privilege for me to say that Mass," he said.  

And there, in the empty cathedral, he said Mass with me and my wife in the first row. My daughter-in-law recovered soon afterward.

It is the kind of thing you remember. Resurrection is filled with stories like that, which is why so many people in Rye are pulling for Paddy Boyle.