John J. Regnery, O.S.A.

1880 – 1954 (June 28)

John Joseph Regnery was born in Locust Gap, Pennsylvania on February 19 1880, to Michael Regnery and Christina Spaeder. He entered Villanova College and later studied at Saint Vincent’s College in Westmoreland County, PA. In 1899, he entered the novitiate at Villanova, PA, and was ordained to the priesthood in Saint Charles’ Seminary in Overbrook by Archbishop Patrick Ryan on May 28, 1904.

Father Regnery served in our parishes in Lawrence, MA; Havana, Cuba; Chicago, IL, and in New York State at Carthage, Hoosick Falls, Schaghticoke, Cambridge and Troy. In 1916, he became a member of the Province Mission Band, and its rector from 1918 to 1922. In that latter year he was appointed prior and pastor at Saint Augustine Parish in Philadelphia, PA. In 1926 he was assigned the same duties at Saint Clare Parish in Grosse Point, MI, in 1930 at Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish in Bryn Mawr, PA, and in 1938 at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, Staten Island, NY. In 1944, Father Regnery was appointed prior and pastor of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Parish, Jamaica, NY, and in 1950 he became prior at Saint Denis in Ardmore, PA. At the death of Father Murtaugh, pastor of Saint Denis in 1951, Father Regnery was assigned the duty of pastor as well.

Father Regnery was 74 when he died of cancer in Philadelphia’s Fitzgerald-Mercy Hospital on Monday evening, June 28, 1954. The Funeral Mass was offered on Friday, July 2nd, at Saint Denis by the Prior General, Father Engelbert Eberhard, O.S.A. Father Stephen Lanen, rector of the Mission Band, preached the homily. Father Regnery was buried in the Community Cemetery at Villanova.