A New York native, born in Brooklyn, reared in Queens, educated in Baltimore, and ordained in Charlotte, Msgr. Michael Shugrue, who can trace his ancestral roots to Ireland, followed a circuitous road to get to the Diocese of Raleigh.
While commuting from Queens to a Catholic high school in Brooklyn, he discerned that he wanted to be a foreign missionary. His parish priest at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Elmhurst, New York steered him toward the South to do his missionary work, saying that in the 1950s the South was mission country. In his high school junior year, the future priest applied to Bishop Vincent Waters, Bishop of Raleigh to study for the priesthood. He took his first airplane ride to Raleigh for an interview with the Bishop and was accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Raleigh.
He spent his college and seminary years in Baltimore before being ordained in Charlotte at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1966. (Charlotte was part of the Raleigh diocese then.) He earned a masters degree in religious education from Fordham University in 1970.
His early years as an assistant pastor, which was the name for a parochial vicar then, included parishes in Cary, Wendell, Greenville and Raleigh. His first assignment at St. Gabriel’s Church in Greenville was a one-year “training apostolate.” During that year he spent half of the week in a nearby small community ministering to seven families. “It was a learning experience,” he commented.
When he assisted Monsignor Koch at St. Michael’s Church in Cary in 1970, he was also serving as the Diocesan Director of Religious Education.
His pastorates include St. Mary’s Church in Laurinburg, St. Joseph’s Church in Raleigh and Rector of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Raleigh. His longest assignment of nine years was at Duke University where he served as the Catholic Campus Minister.
Following a sabbatical in 1998, Msgr. Shugrue returned to the diocese as Vicar for Priests. In 2002 Bishop F. Joseph Gossman appointed him Vicar General, a post he held until coming to St. Patrick’s Church in Fayetteville in July 2007.
Fr. Anthony Vincent DeCandia (Fr. Tony) was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Raleigh on June 9, 2007. This “baby priest” joined the seminary in September of 2001 and spent one year at St. Thomas More in Chapel Hill before going to St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Before discerning a vocation as a diocesan priest, he spent one year in a religious order, completed a B.A. in Philosophy at UNC Charlotte, taught tennis professionally for seven years in Raleigh, Burlington and Gastonia, NC and participated in various parish activities including youth ministry and RCIA. During his time as an Evangelical Christian studying as an undergraduate at NC State, he discovered the beauty and truth of Roman Catholicism. He was received into full communion on April 2, 1994 at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Cary, NC.
His hobbies include tennis, golf and vigorously cheering for the Wolfpack, the Carolina Panthers, the Chicago Cubs and Pope Benedict XVI. There is a rumor that he is an intense ping-pong player and that he has already identified some of the better restaurants in Fayetteville. You can frequently see him at Schlotzky’s, Village Coffee House and Zorba’s. When asked about his favorite foods he often replies with a smile, “I’ll eat anything that’s not moving on my plate.” His parents, Tony and Shay DeCandia currently reside in Charlotte, NC and love to visit St. Patrick Church. His sister Danielle lives in a suburb of Charlotte and she has 3 children: Nicholas, Nathan and Hope.
My father, a Puerto Rican mechanical engineer graduated from Ohio State University (1917) and a veteran of WW-1; married my mother in the Dominican Republic where I was born in October 31st 1933. Since my father was an American citizen, I had USA citizenship at birth. Our family moved to Puerto Rico a year later.
In May 1956, I graduated as a civil engineer from “Colegio de Agricultura y Artes Mecánicas de Mayaguez”, Puerto Rico and at the same time I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers in the US Army.
On December 24, 1956 I married my high school sweetheart Myrna Alcaraz. The Army assigned us to Fort Leonard Wood, MO. and our first son was born there December 26, 1957.
After my military duty was honorably completed I worked for the Government in design and construction for one year, then for a Private construction firm until 1961 when I started my own small construction firm. In 1968 after closing the construction company I started a design firm with a partner, Eng. Haraldo Otero and retired in September 1999. Of the 44 years I worked in my life, 37 of them I have been self employed.
My wife and I have been blessed with one son, four daughters; nine grandchildren and one great grand child. I was blessed to be the church witness for my 5 children wedding’s and have baptized all the great and grand children.
From 2nd grade to 8th I studied at Colegio San Antonio, a Catholic School in San Juan. In 1968 we started to be seriously involved in Church. In 1975 my Pastor asked me if I would like to go to classes to see if I had the vocation to be a deacon. I was ordained deacon on May 29, 1978. That was the first group of permanent deacons in PR. Today in the Archdiocese of S.J. has over 300 permanent deacons.
I worked in 2 parishes in PR, 11 years in each. While having some assignments at Archdiocese level, Permanent Deacons Council (12 years), Permanent Deacons Commission (5 years}, Pastoral Care for the Elderly (16 years}, Archdiocesan Economic Council (Named for 5 years and retained for 10 years).
In May 2002 I received another blessing from God when with the consent of Bishop Joseph Gossman; Fr. Jack Kelly opened the doors of St Patrick Church in Fayetteville, NC; to me so that I would have the opportunity to serve the people of God in this parish.
Reverend Deacon Vicente Colón
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Trish McDowell tmcdowell@stpatnc.org (910) 323-2410 x101
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