1919 – 1955 (May 19)
Dominic Joseph Palladino, son of Antonio Palladino and Pasqualina Caggiano, was born in Revere, Massachuseetts, on August 23, 1919. After attending public grammar and high schools in Revere, he entered the House of Postulants as a post-graduate student on Staten Island, New York in September, 1939. He was received into the novitiate on September 9, 1941, and made his simple profession of vows on September 10, 1942. Following studies at Villanova College from 1942 to 1946, where he received his A.B. in Philosophy, he entered Augustinian College, Washington, D.C. He professed solemn vows on September 10, 1945, and was ordained to the priesthood on June 7, 1949 at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. by Bishop John McNamara.
Father Palladino spent the summer after his ordination at Marianao, Cuba. He was then assigned in July, 1950, as an assistant at Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Parish in Jamaica, N.Y. where he served for three years. In 1953, he was sent to teach at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C.
On Thursday, May 19, the Feast of the Ascension, while on a crabbing trip on South River, Maryland, with another friar, Father John Skelly, and two Carroll students, the boat began to take on water and capsized. Father Skelly and one of the students swam more than a half-mile to shore, while Father Palladino drowned tyring, in vain, to save the other student, Joseph Monaldo. Joseph, a Carroll senior, was 18 years of age; Father Palladino was 35. The bodies of the two victims were recovered one week later.
More than 1,000 persons attended a Mass for Father Palladino in the auditorium of Carroll High School the following Tuesday. Father James Cain, O.S.A., a classmate and also a member of the faculty, celebrated the Mass, and Father Frank Kelly, O.S.A., preached. Patrick O’Boyle, Archbishop of Washington, presided. A second Mass, for the benefit of the family, was celebrated in Saint Anthony Church, Revere, the home parish of the Palladino family, the previous day, by Father Vincent McQuade, O.S.A., President of Merrimack College, with Father John Lamond, O.S.A. as homilist.
A solemn high Mass of requiem was offered on Friday, May 27th, at Saint Mary’s Church, Lawrence, Mass., following the recovery of the bodies the previous day. Father Edward Stanford, rector of Carroll High School, was celebrant. Father Palladino’s parents, four brothers and two sisters were present. Burial followed in the Augustinian plot of Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Lawrence, MA.
