Father Francis J. Corry

Father Francis J. Corry, former pastor of St. Frances of Rome parish in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, died Sept. 26 at Sacred Heart parish rectory in Hartsdale following a long illness. He was 67.

A Funeral Mass was to be offered Sept. 30 at St. Barnabas Church in the Bronx. Bishop Gerald T. Walsh, vicar general of the archdiocese, was the celebrant, and Father Martin J. Biglin, a close friend of Father Corry’s and the pastor of Holy Name of Jesus parish in New Rochelle, delivered the homily.

Father Biglin remembered his friend as a brilliant and inspirational priest, but foremost as a teacher and mentor. “Certainly as a priest he was always there for people,” Father Biglin recalled. “He was there to inspire people, whether he was in the classroom teaching young people or teaching adults, forming them to ministry, he always had this positive spin on what we were about. He just wanted people to have a deeper understanding of the faith so they could live and share in the faith.”

Father Biglin told CNY he first met Father Corry when they served together at St. Barnabas in the early 1970s. “He was a deacon assigned to St. Barnabas when I was a young priest there in’73, and we became friends for life,” he said. “We were out to lunch a week ago Monday, and we had a joyful time.”

“If he met you, you became his friend,” Father Biglin added. “And particularly if you came to him in need, he would automatically be there for you, follow up with you and be support for you. It’s sad for us who are his fellow priests and also his friends and family because he had so much more, we feel, to give.”

Father Corry served as pastor at St. Frances of Rome from 1999 to 2014. During some of that time, he also served as administrator of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony parishes, both in the Bronx, as part of a reorganization by the archdiocese in 2004.

He was vice president for academics at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers, 1997-1999, and served on the faculty of Cardinal Spellman High School, the Bronx, 1977-1997, where his students praised him as a motivating teacher. He was parochial vicar at St. Joseph’s parish in Spring Valley, 1974-1977.

Most recently he was parochial vicar at Sacred Heart in Hartsdale, a post he held since last October.

Father Corry was also a knight commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

Born in the Bronx, he studied for the priesthood at Cathedral College, Douglaston, and St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie. Cardinal Cooke ordained him in 1974.

Burial was at Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne.