Father Rick Phipps and Ann Hardy, principal, thanked everyone for their help in preparing for the blessing.
Christopher Green (above) reads a display about Sister Bowman set up in the school.
Sherman Nunn Abdur-Razzaq of the Mississippi Afrocentrik Dance and Drum Ensemble performs during the ceremony.
Students spell out Sister Thea Bowman as Yolanda Henderson, sixth-grade teacher, holds up a photo of Sister Bowman during the blessing ceremony for the Sister Thea Bowman Catholic School at Jackson Christ the King Church on Sunday, Oct. 29.
Father Delaney celebrates 50th
anniversary with parishioners By The Greenwood Commonwealth
GREENWOOD — When Thomas Delaney became a Catholic priest in 1957 in Ireland, he was overcome with joy, gratitude and a little trepidation.
Some of those same feelings came rushing back recently when a church full of well-wishers gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of his ordination.
“I feel very lucky and blessed to be called to the priesthood, to be enlightened to accept the call,” said the 73-year-old pastor of Greenwood’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church. “I’m grateful to all of the people who helped me over the years in Ireland and here. I have happy memories of every place I’ve been assigned. I hope they have happy memories of me.”
There seemed to be no doubt about that May 30 at the Mass Father Delaney celebrated with two bishops and 27 other priests, and at the reception. In addition to members of Immaculate Heart, the gathering included parishioners from most of the half-dozen communities in which he has served since coming to Mississippi in 1959.
Glenda Grossman first made Father Delaney’s acquaintance when he was pastoring at St. Peter’s in Grenada. She and her late husband, Fred, active members of Immaculate Heart, had begun attending church at St. Peter’s because it was closer to their home in Holcomb. Delaney welcomed them instantly.
“He’s just been a really good friend. He’s a good man. He would give you the shirt off his back,” Grossman said.
When it came time for Father Delaney to be reassigned in early 1998, Grossman said she prayed that he would be sent to Greenwood where her three children and their families lived.
“I said, ‘My children need you,” she recalls telling the priest.
Less than a year after Father Delaney was sent to Immaculate Heart, Grossman’s son, David, an Itta Bena farmer, lost an arm when he was electrocuted while trying to remove tree limbs from a power line following an ice storm.
Father Delaney, she said, was a constant source of comfort for the family after that accident and later when Fred Grossman suffered and died from cancer.
Ministering to the sick has been a special calling for him. For 17 years he served as chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Vicksburg, now closed.
Father Delaney felt the call to the priesthood while attending a Catholic boarding high school for boys in Sligo, Ireland.
“I thought it might be something where I could do some good. I also thought it might help me personally to get to heaven. I still think it will,” Delaney said.
The rural area of Ireland where he grew up was a hotbed for religious vocations in the post-World War II era. In fact, there was such an overflow that dozens of priests from that region came to the United States to serve areas where they were in short supply. Mississippi was a particular draw.
Father Delaney returned June 4 to Ireland for his annual month-long visit. Joining him for the trip was his sister, Mary McKeon of Azusa, Calif. McKeon came to Greenwood for the golden jubilee celebration. Father Delaney’s three other siblings live in Ireland.
