Retired Brooklyn Auxiliary Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan

Retired Brooklyn Auxiliary Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan, who had served as vicar for human services and headed diocesan Catholic Charities, died June 7 of injuries he suffered in a car accident a week earlier on the Long Island Expressway in Syosset. He was 83.

A native of Brooklyn, Bishop Sullivan lived, studied and worked his entire life in his home diocese, serving in many positions that allowed him to use his training in social work and his commitment to Catholic health care.

He retired in 2005 but continued to serve on boards for Catholic hospitals and other health institutions, said Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio.

“He epitomized the best of our Church’s teaching and the fundamental option for the poor,” Bishop DiMarzio said in a statement. “He was an outstanding priest.”

“During his tenure, Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens became a nationally recognized provider of social services,” Bishop DiMarzio said.

News reports said Bishop Sullivan’s car got a flat tire as he drove on the expressway May 30, causing him to stop in the HOV express lane, where his car was hit from behind. He was airlifted to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, where he died the following week.

As auxiliary bishop, Bishop Sullivan served as regional bishop for 62 parishes and as vicar for human services.

In 1968, Bishop Francis Mugavero chose then-Father Sullivan to succeed him as executive director of diocesan Catholic Charities and appointed him secretary for Charities.

He served on numerous Church and civic boards involved with health and human services, including the chairmanship of the Catholic Health Association, of the Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn and Queens and membership on the board of Catholic Charities USA.

He served as chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Domestic Policy Committee in the 1980s and was for many years a member of the committee.

Within the bishops’ conference, he chaired an ad hoc committee in the 1990s that produced a pastoral letter on charity, “In All Things Charity: A Pastoral Challenge for the New Millennium,” approved by the bishops in 1999.

He described the letter as intended to “reclaim the meaning of charity,” which he said had become a pejorative term in society.

Bishop Sullivan, one of 11 children, attended Manhattan College. After studying at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, he was ordained in 1956 at Brooklyn’s St. James Cathedral.

After serving at a parish in Queens Village, he began studies in social work, leading to a master’s degree from Fordham University in 1961. He was named assistant director of Catholic Charities’ childcare division and became director four years later. After obtaining a second master’s degree in public administration from New York University, he was named executive director of Catholic Charities.

In October 1980, Pope John Paul II named him an auxiliary bishop, along with two other Brooklyn priests, now-retired Auxiliary Bishop Rene Valero, who remained in Brooklyn, and the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who went on to head the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Six of his siblings survive him, along with more than 100 nieces, nephews, and grandnieces and grandnephews.

A Funeral Mass was scheduled for June 12 at his childhood parish church, St. Ephrem in Brooklyn. Burial was to follow at St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village. —CNS