Local priest to lead Rockville Centre Memorial Day parade

The Rev. John D. McCarthy of St. Agnes Cathedral has been selected to lead this year’s Memorial Day Parade, set for Monday. The annual commemoration begins at 10 a.m. with a procession down Maple Avenue to Memorial Park, in front of the Recreation Center on Oceanside Road, where a service will begin at 11 a.m. Contingents representing the village police and fire departments, the schools and service and sports organizations will join the march and ceremony.

Calling McCarthy “an outstanding selection,” Joseph Scarola, 1st vice commander of American Legion Post 303, the parade sponsor, said the grand marshal is someone who should be worthy of being a role model. In addition, Scarola said, the honoree should have served in the military during a time of war and had a “noteworthy life” as a civilian.

“It’s a true privilege for me to join hands with the good people of Rockville Centre and beyond on Memorial Day 2011 to honor all the brave men and women who died defending and preserving our freedoms,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Memorial Day was born of our shared human need to understand, remember and honor those who have made the supreme sacrifice so that we may live in a free and prosperous United States of America.

“The men and women we honor … were ordinary people, compelled by love of liberty and country to serve God and neighbor; ordinary men and women who acted in extraordinary ways, with selfless service, courage and sacrifice; ordinary men and women who disappeared into death’s sullen dark, but must never be forgotten,” McCarthy added. “Although I feel it is impossible for us to do anything, or say anything, that can add to the honor these many brave men and women so nobly earned … it is our solemn responsibility to remember them, and to give grateful thanks to almighty God that when our nation called, they answered with their lives so that we can continue to live in the freedom of God’s love and light.”


Born in Brooklyn and raised in Levittown, McCarthy graduated from Holy Trinity Diocesan High School and joined the Navy at age 17. He spent 20 years in the Navy as a career enlisted man. As an aviation machinist mate, he had one of the most dangerous jobs on his ship — the deck of an aircraft carrier is not a safe place to be. He eventually rose to the rank of senior chief petty officer, which the Navy only gives to the best of its best, Scarola said.

During his military career, McCarthy earned a degree in professional aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He retired from active duty in 1998, and served on the staff of the Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Md., for five years.

Before he found his calling and entered the seminary to become a priest, McCarthy was active in his parish as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, as an usher and also in the Parish Council and the Knights of Columbus.

He enrolled in the Seminary of Blessed John XXIII, in Weston, Mass., before transferring to the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. He served his pastoral year at St. Anthony of Padua in East Northport, and his diaconate at Holy Spirit in New Hyde Park.

McCarthy, who enjoys all types of sports, travel and history, was ordained on June 14, 2008. St. Agnes Cathedral is his first priestly assignment.

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