Deceased: 2001-02-14
Diocese: BALTIMORE
Seminary Graduation Year: 1942
Monsignor Gerard William Broderick, former pastor of St. Pius X Roman Catholic Church in Rodgers Forge, died on February, 14 2001 of cancer at the Cardinal Sheehan Center at Stella Maris in Timonium. He was 84.
Monsignor Broderick, who had been pastor of St. Pius X from 1967 until resigning the pastorate in 1974 because of failing health, had lived at Long Crandon, a retirement home in Baltimore County for priests.
“He was my first pastor at St. Pius X after I was ordained a priest in 1968,” said Monsignor Dennis Tinder, pastor of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Towson. “He was always a gentleman and a very kind, kind man, and his greatest blessing was showing me how to pastor.”
Monsignor Broderick was born and raised in West Baltimore, and while attending parochial school at St. Martin’s Roman Catholic Church, he decided to enter the priesthood.
“He was in the fifth grade at St. Martin’s and was taught by a brother who proved to be a great influence,” said a niece, Mary Kennedy Behning of Catonsville.
“Monsignor Broderick was from a fabulous Irish-Catholic West Baltimore family,” said the Rev. Michael Roach, pastor of St. Bartholomew Roman Catholic Church in Manchester.
He entered St. Charles College Seminary in Catonsville in 1930 and, after six years in the minor seminary, entered St. Mary’s Seminary on Paca Street. In 1938, he was appointed to the American College in Rome for theological studies, which were interrupted by World War II.
Returning to Baltimore in 1940, he completed his education at the St. Mary’s Seminary campus in Roland Park.
Ordained a priest by Archbishop Michael J. Curley in 1942 at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, his first assignment was as assistant pastor at St. Ann Roman Catholic Church on Greenmount Avenue, where he remained until 1960.
That year, he was assigned to his first pastorate at St. Paul Roman Catholic Church in East Baltimore and several months later was appointed director of the vocation committee for the archdiocese.
In 1962, then-Archbishop – later Cardinal – Lawrence Shehan established the St. Paul Latin School at Caroline and Oliver streets and assigned Monsignor Broderick as superior.
“It was a day seminary for young men of high school age who were interested in the priesthood, and he was truly the patriarch of the school,” said Bishop William C. Newman, a longtime friend who at the time was the school’s principal.
Monsignor Broderick was elevated to monsignor in 1965.
A passionate Orioles fan and fisherman, Monsignor Broderick liked trout fishing in streams near Baltimore and ocean fishing at Cape May, N.J.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 11 a.m. today at St. Pius X Roman Catholic Church, York at Overbrook roads, Rodgers Forge. He is survived by a brother, Marvin A. Broderick of Parkville; a sister, Doris H. Kennedy of Catonsville; and other nieces and nephews.
