1900 – 1942 (December 14)
Patrick Francis O’Shea, son of John O’Shea and Sarah Hughes, was born in Braddock, Pennsylvania, on October 10, 1900. He attended Saint Brendan’s Parochial School and Braaddock High School, and then entered Saint Rita’s Hall at Villanova as a postulant, in 1917. He was received into the novitiate on June 27, 1920, and made his simple profession on June 28, 1921. He was solemnly professed on June 28, 1924 and, after completing his studies, was ordained to the priesthood in the Cathedral in Philadelphia by Bishop Michael Crane, Auxiliary of Philadelphia, on June 11, 1927. He then completed graduate work in history at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
Father O’Shea was assigned to Saint Rita Parish in Chicago, Illinois, in 1928. Later he taught at Cascia Hall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but ill health forced him to relinquish teaching at the end of the school year. In 1930 Father O’Shea became an assistant at Saint James Parish, Carthage, New York, and after five years was transferred to Saint Thomas of Villanova Parish, Rosemont, Pa. In 1937 he was appointed assistant at Saint Mary’s Parish, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Father O’Shea was 42 when he died on December 14, 1942 following an emergency operation at Braddock where he had been visiting his mother. A Requiem Mass was celebrated in Saint Brendan’s Church, Braddock, on Wednesday, December 16th after which Father O’Shea’s body was brought to Villanova where Father Joseph Hickey, O.S.A., Assistant General celebrated the Funeral Mass the following day. Father Charles Shine, O.S.A. preached the sermon. Father O’Shea was buried in the Community Cemetery at Villanova.
Father O’Shea always took a great interest in ministering to the young people of the parishes where he was stationed. In Carthage, New York, he successfully championed the cause of the children who walked to the Catholic schools from the rural districts, and saw them provided with bus transportation together with public school students. In Rosemont and Lawrence he organized study clubs and societies for the youth.
