Three local priests granted senior priest status

Archbishop Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap. announced that he has granted senior priest/retirement status to three archdiocesan priests. Father Antonio L. Andrade’s retirement was effective Jan. 26; Father Hugh H. O’Regan’s on Feb. 2, while Father Richard S. Moran’s senior priest status becomes effective March 1.

Father Andrade

A native of the Azores where he was born Nov. 11, 1938, Father Andrade was initially ordained for service in his home diocese on April 28, 1963. In October 1974 he arrived in the archdiocese and was named associate pastor at Immaculate Conception Parish, Stoughton. There was already a growing Portuguese speaking community there and his priestly ministry of nine years was essential. On Oct. 24, 1980 he was incardinated into the Archdiocese of Boston.

In October 1983 he was named associate pastor at St. Anthony of Padua Parish, one of several national parishes in Lowell — this one established for the needs of Portuguese Catholics.

Father Andrade had a change in ministry in June 1985 when he was named chaplain at Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham. The hospital, spread over a large tract of land on the Watch City’s southeast border with Belmont, served a large patient population with varying problems ranging from chronic alcoholism and drug abuse to much more serious emotional and psychological problems.

Four years later Father Andrade moved from Waltham to Dorchester and was named chaplain at The Chronic Care Hospital. While in residence at St. Gregory Parish in Dorchester, Lower Mills he had responsibility for the several nursing homes and long term care facilities in the parish.

In 1996, when the hospital closed, Father Andrade returned to parish ministry as parochial vicar at St. Michael Parish, Hudson another archdiocesan parish serving a community with a rapidly growing Portuguese speaking community.

Since December 2001, health concerns forced Father Andrade to be on a health leave. With his being granted senior priest/retirement status, Father Andrade will be available as time and health permit for priestly service and will live in his own residence in Hudson.

Father O’Regan

A Boston native, Father Hugh H. O’Regan was born Jan. 29, 1930. He was ordained to the priesthood at Holy Name Church, in Boston’s West Roxbury section on Feb. 2, 1957.

Following ordination he was named an assistant at Sacred Heart Parish, Middleborough and in February 1959 as an assistant at St. Margaret Parish, Lowell. Father O’Regan served briefly as chaplain at Our Lady of Nazareth Academy in Wakefield living at St. Joseph rectory there.

In June 1963 he was released for service in the chaplain corps of the United States Navy. For the next 24 years he served the men and women in the Navy both at sea and in port. His assignments were many and varied, stretching not only across the nation but in other nations as well. When he returned to the archdiocese in 1987 he was briefly parochial vicar at St. Ann Parish, Wayland and a chaplain at Massachusetts General Hospital, living then at St. Joseph rectory in Boston’s West End.

Cardinal Law named him administrator of St. James the Greater Parish, located in Boston’s Chinatown but also surrounded by New England Medical Center. The parish has seen changes over the years of its fabled history, from one of the most densely populated in the city to one serving a mostly commuter population and staff and visitors to the medical centers within its borders.

In November 1996 Father O’Regan accepted the additional responsibility as administrator of Holy Trinity Parish in Boston’s South End. The parish, one of two established for German Catholics in the archdiocese, had seen a change in the demographics of the area and a decline in the number of Catholics requiring services — sacramental and social — in German. Because of its location, Cardinal Law had designated the church as the archdiocesan site for the weekly celebration of the Latin Mass using the Missale Romanum of 1964. Father O’Regan excelled at serving the various communities entrusted to his care and gained the approbation of his brother priests, evidenced by his being named to two terms as vicar forane from 1999 to 2005. Father O’Regan will live in his own residence in Wellesley as he begins his retirement.

Father Moran

A Boston native, Father Richard Moran was born July 28, 1935 and after completing seminary formation he was ordained a priest of the Redemptorists at the seminary at Esopus, New York on June 18, 1961.

For the next 30 years he served with the Redemptorists in their various ministries. In September 1991 he was named parochial vicar at St. John the Baptist Parish, Quincy and he became a priest of the archdiocese with his incardination on May 15, 1998.

He completed his assignment at Quincy and served for the next six years as parochial vicar at St. Bernard Parish, Newton. In July 2004 when the announcements about parish changes across the archdiocese were made, Father Moran — along with several other priests — changed assignments and was named parochial vicar at Sacred Hearts Parish in Haverhill’s Bradford section.

In his retirement, beginning March 1, Father Moran will live in Malden.

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