From the archives: Church called three siblings to life of service

This story was originally published in Newsday on June 1, 2007

To know the Fagan family story is to begin with a look at the solid middle-class life found in mid-20th-century Brooklyn. Then, it was de rigueur for a Catholic family to send their children to parochial school.

But less typical is that three of the five Fagan children spent their lives in service to the church, all becoming prominent Catholic leaders. As the Diocese of Rockville Centre marks its 50th anniversary this weekend, the Fagans represent more than one family's calling to religious life. They also illustrate the far reach of the church on Long Island - in education, in social welfare and in parish work.

"Long Island has a no more outstanding family, and the Catholic Church is blessed and enriched by them," Bishop William Murphy said in a statement.

Msgr. John Fagan was the director of Little Flower Children and Family Services in Wading River for more than 40 years before his death last year. For decades, his younger brother, Msgr. Emmet Fagan, now 77, headed Catholic Charities for the diocese and is now an at-large parish priest. And their baby sister, Kathleen Fagan, is the headmistress of the all-girls Marymount International School in London.

"We were blessed," said Emmet Fagan of his family.

When their parents, Helen and Thomas Fagan, first settled in Flatbush, the nearest church was a 25-minute walk, until another one was built a block away from their home.

Thomas Fagan worked at the New York Stock Exchange and Helen Fagan taught school until John was born in 1926. Emmet was born in 1930, Jane in 1931, Helen Marie in 1935 and Kathleen in 1942.

Theirs was a tight-knit family - "very close, very funny," said Jane Fucigna, the oldest daughter, who became a teacher and raised five children while living in Garden City.

Religion was part of daily life and schooling - the family's summer house in Quogue had a chapel - but the Fagans said their parents never seemed overbearing about Catholicism.

"They didn't preach to others," Fucigna said. Instead, they led by example with active charity work or simply by inviting neighbors to dinner.

Said Emmet Fagan: "They taught us that you're supposed to care for one another."

As the oldest, John Fagan was the first to test the waters of religious life. At his mother's insistence, he attended Cathedral College in Brooklyn before entering the seminary at Immaculate Conception in Lloyd Harbor. Later, he received a master's degree in psychiatric social work from Fordham University.

Ordained in 1952, he was assigned to Little Flower, where he found his life's mission.

His former colleagues there said he was a natural leader of the agency and a loving father figure for the children. "His door was always open. He would never raise his voice," said Sister Agnese Palczynski, who works in the external relations department.

One winter, John Fagan brought several of the Little Flower children to Fucigna's home for a Christmas dinner. The young visitors, all from bleak circumstances but who found sympathetic care at Little Flower, came adorned in little hats.

"I said, 'Oh, what nice hats!'" Fucigna said, chuckling. "And then John said to me, 'Well, they all have lice.' I spent the next day scrubbing my children's hair."

John Fagan also took on broader issues of social policy. He advocated for babies left alone in hospitals because of a lack of foster care, and he expanded Little Flower's scope to include services for mentally disabled and disabled adults.

Healing souls instead

As a teenager, Emmet Fagan found himself wavering between a secular life as a doctor and a religious alternative. "It would depend on if I was dating," he said - with a grin - during a recent conversation at Most Holy Trinity Church in East Hampton, where he is temporarily stationed until the end of this month.

As his parents had done with his brother, Emmet Fagan was sent to St. Peter's College in New Jersey first to broaden his horizons before seminary.

Soon enough, he chose the priesthood over medicine. Emmet Fagan attended the Lloyd Harborseminary and also received a master's degree in social work from Fordham.

For many years, Emmet headed the local branch of Catholic Charities, helping the agency work with migrant farmworkers who needed housing. He also led its mental health services.

By the early 1980s, Emmet yearned to return to parish priesthood, and he decided to step back from the workload of running Catholic Charities.

He was the pastor at St. Patrick's in Bay Shore for two decades and is now based out of the Lloyd Harbor seminary. He fills in when needed, and wherever.

"I have asked him to do so many things that we kid each other that he is 'Father Interim,'" Murphy said.

An unlikely turn

Her brothers' influence was undeniable on Kathleen Fagan, who considers them her "witnesses to a real belief that the world could be better."

Kathleen Fagan attended Manhattan's Marymount School, the very school she would later run as headmistress for 26 years before leaving to head the London branch in 2005. She attended Marymount College in Tarrytown and received a master's degree in English from Notre Dame.

But as a bright, independent teenager fond of dating, parties and smoking cigarettes, her decision to become a nun surprised those who knew her.

"When she went into the convent, we said, 'Hello? Kathleen?'" Fucigna recalled.

But the spirit of religious devotion was "in the air" when Kathleen Fagan came of age in the 1950s. "A lot of women were thinking it was an exciting adventure," she said by telephone from London.

But few are choosing that particular adventure these days, she said. "If you hear someone's entering religious life today, you ask why," she said. "To me, that's very sad.

"Religious life always offered another option to have a life that would be productive and reaching out and helping to shape the world in different ways," she said. "It's so exciting."

CATHOLIC CHARITIES

Catholic Charities, the social services arm of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, opened on Long Island in 1957, the same year the diocese was estalished.

The agency now works out of more than 60 locations and has an annual operating budget of nearly $29 million with a staff of more than 600.

Some of the services and facilities overseen by the agency:

Meals-on-Wheels in Nassau and Suffolk

Four senior centers in Nassau County

Refugee resettlement

Thirteen group homes for adults with developmental disabilities

An Amityville residence for people with physical disabilities

Three mental health clinics, one in Nassau and two in Suffolk

Fifteen housing facilities for disadvantaged people

Amityville program providing assistance with food stamps applications

Source: Catholic Charities, Diocese of Rockville Centre