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ACCEPT
Father Morty O’Shea delivers the word of God at a weekday mass at St Sebastian church in Woodside.
The priest who hails from Ireland says he’s relied on the teachings of the church since he was at least 7 years old.
“That kind of sense of God’s presence in my life has never really gone away,” said Father O’Shea.
Father Morty would eventually follow Christ’s call to enter the priesthood, and in 2013 he was ready to serve him in a big way.
“I was in the prime of life,” said Father O’Shea. “I was going to take over a big new parish in Corpus Christi, Texas.”
Until he received a shocking diagnosis.
“They said I had multiple myeloma,” said Father O’Shea, “when you hear that you have cancer, you know, that kind of shakes the foundations a bit.”
Father Morty started treatment, but in 2021 doctors told him there was nothing more they could do. The priest prepared for the worst.
“That was where I was going to, you know, spend my last days,” said Father O’Shea.
His brother Jack, who lives in Westchester County, picked up the fight, and worked to get him into Memorial Sloan-kettering Cancer center.
“I was not going to give up on my brother. I would not give up on my brother,” said Father O’Shea’s brother, Jack.
Father Morty moved to New York in the fall to continue treatment at the Manhattan hospital, but the priest still wanted to be of service. So he offered to help in the diocese of Brooklyn.
“I feel I’m doing more for the glory of God than the salvation of souls out here,” said Father O’Shea.
Although his prognosis looks grim, he says his faith has never wavered and he will be strong all the way up to the end, because Father Morty knows he has his family.
“We will never leave his side,” said Jack O’Shea.
and God on his side.
“I often quote the last words of John Paul the second, which were, ‘I will go to my father’s house, you know my circle is finished and I will go back to my father,” said Father O’Shea.
For now, Father Morty has started a new chemotherapy treatment and will continue to serve as much as he can. The rest, he says, he’s leaving to the lord.
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BRONXVILLE, N.Y. — A thought came to Father Mortimer “Morty” O’Shea on March 5 while putting Ash Wednesday blessings on parishioner foreheads at St. Sebastian Parish in Woodside.
This priest, who has dual citizenship in the United States and Ireland, has battled multiple myeloma cancer since 2013. He began treatments in 2021 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.
But, he explained, the medical insurance industry in Ireland does not cover the higher levels of cancer treatments that are available in the U.S.
“So,” he recently told The Tablet, “I was out at St Sebastian’s on Ash Wednesday, and I was putting [the ashes] on people’s foreheads, and it just hit me.
Father Morty O’Shea delivers the homily during a recent Mass at St. Sebastian Parish in Woodside. He helps out there when he is not undergoing cancer treatments in Manhattan. (Photo: Katie Vasquez)
“If I was anybody else in Ireland, without this wonderful care at Sloan Kettering, I would be [these ashes]. I mean, because that’s what we are after four years inside the coffin.”
Chemo Blasts
Father O’Shea praises God that his days on earth were extended. Still, he knows his days are numbered.
Multiple myeloma cancer, which forms in bone marrow, is a “very clever cancer” that develops resiliencies to even the most modern treatments, Father O’Shea said.
His options, he added, seem limited, so he has been undergoing chemotherapy “blasts” to buy more time.
“Maybe another trial will come up,” Father O’Shea said. “It’s a big exercise in kicking the can down the road.”
Still, he pushes on, like he has no time to waste. When he’s able, he helps out with pastoral duties at St. Sebastian Parish in Woodside, Queens.
But even while recovering from harsh treatments like chemo, he maintains a missionary zeal, sharing the Gospel and proclaiming pro-life positions via his blog — simply titled, “Fr Morty O’Shea” — at frmorty.wordpress.com.
A Mighty Adventure
With a name like O’Shea and his obvious Irish brogue, it’s easy to surmise that this priest hails from the Emerald Isle, where he spent most of his childhood. However, he was born in Detroit to parents from Ireland who returned to raise the family in County Kerry, on that country’s southwest coast.
Father O’Shea graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering. He returned to the U.S. to begin his career and settled in Boston.
“And that was a mighty adventure, I must say,” Father O’Shea said. “That was for nearly three years. But, on Mother’s Day 1990, I felt called to a kind of religious life.”
He then joined the Society of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, headquartered in Corpus Christi, Texas, which has worldwide missions.
A Complete Inspiration
During his 28 years as a priest, Father O’Shea’s ministry has taken him to Texas, New Mexico, England, Wales, and back to Ireland before his 2013 cancer diagnosis.
The fight continued for several years until, in 2021, his treatment options in Ireland started dwindling due to Irish insurance restrictions. That’s when his younger brother, Jack O’Shea, who had settled in Bronxville, got involved.
Cancer treatment options for Father O’Shea were limited in Ireland, but his younger brother, Jack, (shown here at right) helped arrange treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. (Photo: Courtesy of Father Mortimer O’Shea)
“My wife and I started looking for options here in New York,” Jack said. “We were fortunate enough that Sloan Kettering opened the doors to my brother.”
Jack recalled how, when he made his own return to the United States in 1984, his brother, the electrical engineer in Boston, helped him get settled.
“I’ve always looked up to my brother,” he said. “He was just a complete inspiration of truthfulness, honor, hard work, and loyalty to his family.”
‘Half the Man He Is’
Jack said his brother has never complained about cancer and has remained faithful to his calling. Case in point: Father O’Shea did not want to be idle during his latest round of cancer treatments, which began last November.
Father O’Shea approached Bishop Robert Brennan at the Dec. 9, 2024, funeral for Msgr. Philip Reilly, a nationally known pro-life champion who inspired the Irish priest’s own work in that field. He offered to help out at a parish, and Bishop Brennan accommodated him. Father O’Shea subsequently began helping out at St. Sebastian Parish in Woodside until his most recent “chemo blast” in April.
“He never said ‘Why me, or poor me,’ ” Jack said. “When I got the news in 2021 that his life was coming to a short end, I was not going to give up on my brother.
“I wish on my best day that I would be half the man that he is.”
Ultimate Life Insurance
Father O’Shea said he has made peace with death.
“I guess I am kind of running out of clear light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
Still, he said, there is more reason for hope over grief, considering an eternity spent with Christ.
“This is such a dangerous world that none of us gets out alive,” he said. “But, as I told one of the nurses yesterday, if we believe in Jesus, then that’s the ultimate life insurance policy.
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WOODSIDE — At first glance, working as a waiter in restaurants like Olive Garden might not seem like good training for the priesthood. However, Deacon Nelson Gerardo Tlatelpa said the two occupations have something in common. “When you work as a waiter, you have to create conversation with people,” Deacon Tlatelpa explained. “In order for you to be a priest, you need to talk to people. You have to create conversation.”
Deacon Tlatelpa, 43, is one of seven men who will be ordained as priests of the Diocese of Brooklyn at an ordination Mass at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph on June 28. He was ordained as a transitional deacon — a step men take a year before ordination — in 2024, and is now completing his studies at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts.
The Tablet met him on April 22 at St. Sebastian Church in Woodside. He chose that church as the place for the interview because that is where he spent his pastoral year. He admitted he is the last person he would have thought would wear a Roman collar. For one thing, he was never religious growing up in Mexico. And once he moved to New York City, he loved working and making money. Even after he decided to answer God’s call to the priesthood and entered the Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary, he failed his first philosophy exam and was ready to quit.
Deacon Nelson Gerardo Tlatelpa recalls a homily Father Michael Perry, former pastor of Our Lady of Refuge Church in Flatbush, gave at an Easter Vigil that inspired him. Father Perry later told him he enjoys delivering homilies because of how much he loves God’s people. (Photo: Courtesy of Deacon Nelson Gerardo Tlatelpa)
However, Deacon Tlatelpa said he had mentors who helped him and kept him on the straight and narrow along the way. Born in Chinantla, a small town 135 miles from Mexico City, Deacon Tlatelpa was one of eight children. “My life in Mexico was very joyful,” he said, noting that he was raised by his aunt because his parents moved to the United States when he and his siblings were young. “She really taught me good values, like not to steal, to behave, to respect elders, to come back home early. I always had chores in the house.”
Deacon Nelson Gerardo Tlatelpa comes from a large family. He is one of eight children. Many of his relatives from Mexico plan to attend his ordination in June.
Religion was not a big part of his life, he acknowledged. “I did my sacraments in Mexico, yes, but I didn’t practice,” Deacon Tlatelpa said. At age 20, he moved to Brooklyn with four of his siblings and worked in restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan, “working two jobs and making money.” However, Deacon Tlatelpa said he felt something was missing, so when two friends invited him to a religious retreat in the Bronx, he went. That led him to go to church at Our Lady of Refuge Church in Flatbush.
He became an active parishioner, serving as an usher and working with young people, and drew the attention of the pastor, Father Michael Perry. At one point, Father Perry suggested he consider the priesthood. “I said, ‘Father, you know what? I do not speak English that much. Second, that’s for younger guys. Third, that’s gonna cost a lot of money,’” he recalled. “And I thought that was just for people who were really intellectual.”
But Deacon Tlatelpa heard God calling him and decided to answer the call. He entered the Pope John Paul II House of Discernment in Ridgewood and then enrolled in Pope St. John XXIII, a seminary for older vocations. At first, he said, he had trouble finding his footing. In a philosophy course, he failed his first test. He sat with his advisers and cried. They encouraged him to keep going, and he came to realize that while he didn’t have academic strengths, he had other gifts — like an outgoing personality — that he felt God wanted.
“He doesn’t choose because someone is more intellectual than other people. It is because he wants somebody to be a priest,” Deacon Tlatelpa said. “He has a purpose for each of us.”
In Rome, a new pope has been unveiled. And 6,000 miles away in Chiclayo, Peru where Robert Prevost lived much of his adult life, virtually everyone seems to have a story about the new pontiff.
“I interviewed him once… one of those people that light you up just by talking,” says Antuanné Bravo, a local journalist, proudly holding today’s newspaper in her hands.
Here, the title says: “We have a pope from Chiclayo!”
Leo XIV first moved to Peru in 1985 as a missionary. By 2014, he was the bishop of this city.
His dedication to the poor and the most vulnerable is still evident among those who knew him best, like Noelia.
A plant for oxygen that we have thanks to Cardinal Prevost, she says.
“These saved many lives…we had to work three shifts because there were so many people that needed oxygen during the pandemic. Some of the gas tanks still have the names of the patients.
Prevost made an impact on the lives of many: Peruvians and also migrants – an issue that puts the first American pope at odds with the current U.S. administration.
Lisbeth, who came to Chiclayo in 2018, was one of the beneficiaries of the programs for migrants that Prevost established.
“He advocated for migrants so much here. I’m sure he will keep doing that and work toward that peace, where we can all have a place in the countries where we are,” she says.
Celebrating the new pope continues in the Diocese of Brooklyn with faithful coming together at The Cathedral Basilica of St. James.
The Sunday Mass was celebrated by Bishop Robert Brennan.
In his homily, he called Pope Leo XIV a blessing and went on to discuss the pope’s first message to the world.
At the end of his homily, the bishop also wished a Happy Mother’s Day, saying mothers are shepherds too, that with their gentleness, they are showing their children they are safe in the hands of God.
