Fr. Thomas Barrett, C.Ss.R., Obituary

Thomas Jeremiah Barrett of the St. John Neumann Residence, Stella Maris, Timonium, Maryland, died on February 15, 2021, at age 79.

Born in Brooklyn on January 6, 1942, to Thomas and Margaret (Corkery), he was baptized February 1, 1942 and confirmed November 17, 1952 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn.

He attended the Redemptorist minor seminary of St. Mary’s College, North East, Pennsylvania from 1955 to 1961 and made his first profession on August 2, 1962 at St. Mary’s College, Ilchester, Maryland. He attended the major seminary for philosophy first at Mt. St. Alphonsus in Esopus, New York from 1962 to 1963, and then at St. Alphonsus College in Suffield, Connecticut from 1963 to 1964 before returning to Mt. St. Alphonsus Seminary for theological studies between 1964 and 1968.

He made his final profession on September 2, 1965 at Mt. St. Alphonsus and was ordained there on June 18, 1967.

In addition to obtaining his baccalaureate degrees, as well as a master’s degree in religious education, Father Barrett went on to further studies in sociology at Fordham University where he obtained an MA and Ph.D. His dissertation was on urban sociology and his doctorate was obtained in 1979.

While pursuing graduate studies, Father Barrett was assigned to the Redemptorist parish of Immaculate Conception in the Bronx from 1968 to 1970 and was later assigned to teach as a professor of sociology at St. Alphonsus College in Suffield between 1970 and 1984.

Between 1979 and 1981 he also conducted pastoral research as an affiliate of the Catholic Center of the Archdiocese of New York. He took on additional responsibilities when he became rector of the community at Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Manhattan between 1981 and 1987.

He left academia and parish life for a new ministry as a retreat master at the Redemptorist’s Notre Dame Retreat House in Canandaigua, New York. He was rector there from July 1987 to July 1988. That summer he was assigned to Most Holy Redeemer, NYC (pro tem) and then became associate pastor of Our Lady of Fatima, Baltimore from 1990 to 1993. He took up a new post as a missionary at the Redemptorist parish of St. Gerard in Lima, Ohio from 1993 to 2006, and conducted parish missions in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

It was while traveling to give a mission in Ohio in January 1995 that Father Barrett was in an automobile collision with a tractor-trailer that put him in intensive care. In August 2006, Fr. Barrett returned again to Notre Dame Retreat House in Canandaigua, NY. Since 2013, he had been battling lymphoma and other ailments and on April 14, 2014, he began a period of assisted care at the St. John Neumann Residence, Stella Maris, Timonium, NY.