Father Joseph Francis Girone, OSA, 66, faculty member at Saint Augustine Preparatory School in Richland, died Feb. 13 in AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, Pomona.
A professed religious for 45 years, he had served at Saint Augustine Prep since 2016.
Born on April 12, 1954, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, one of three sons of Joseph Girone and Angela Tate, he enrolled at Villanova University in 1972 and was received into the order as a novice in August 1974.
He professed simple vows on Aug. 23, 1975, and was solemnly professed in May 1980. He was ordained to the priesthood on Sept. 19, 1981, at Our Mother of Good Counsel Church, Bryn Mawr, by Auxiliary Bishop Patrick Ahearn of New York.
Father Girone served in New York, Delaware and Peru, and was heavily involved in Hispanic Ministry before joining the faculty of Saint Augustine in 2016. He taught in the Theology and World Language departments.
In 2019, Father Girone began chemotherapy treatment for cancer but continued his ministry in the classroom. In early 2021, he contracted the coronavirus and shortly after was admitted to the hospital.
“Father Joe was a conscientious and dutiful religious, and a zealous pastor and educator, whose special interest was always for the poor, a significant factor in his apostolic preferences,” his religious community recalled in announcing his death.
A funeral Mass was celebrated Feb. 19 at Saint Thomas of Villanova Church, Villanova, Pennsylvania. Burial was in the Augustinian Plot – Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
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