Saint Joseph’s Seminary and College’s fourth annual gala honored two of its most fervent supporters, Tracy and Ted McCourtney, and one of its most esteemed former instructors, Father Anthony Sorgie.
About 450 people attended the event, held April 3 at the Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle, which raised $650,000 for the Yonkers seminary. Many of the attendees were clergy and sisters and brothers religious from the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre.
The evening began with the presentation of the inaugural Saint Joseph Award, presented to Father Sorgie, now serving as pastor of Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Our Lady Parish in Tuckahoe, in his 43rd year as a priest, including 15 years of teaching at St. Joseph’s Seminary.
“I think one of the most beautiful titles I have ever been given in my life was to be called ‘Abuna.’ Abuna, Abuna. Father, in Arabic. Abba. And it is because of the paternal life of a priest being a father, like Saint Joseph, to care for Christ and to care for Christ’s body,” Father Sorgie said. He encouraged the seminarians and other guests to pray to and follow the example of the patron saint of the seminary and of the award he was receiving. “Go to Joseph, try to do that. I invite you to do that with him; we will be great caretakers of Christ.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan presented Tracy and Ted McCourtney with the Archbishop Michael A. Corrigan Founder’s Medal. Graduates of Pennsylvania State University and Notre Dame University, respectively, the McCourtneys attended the event with some of their four children and 15 grandchildren. The couple have been married for nearly 60 years.
“Today, as in Jesus’ time, we can use his own words. He said, ‘There are many lost sheep searching for a shepherd. The harvest remains plentiful, but the laborers are few.’ He went on to say, ‘Pray to the Lord to send out workers into the harvest field.’ I hope tonight our attendance here and our prayers will enable St. Joseph’s Seminary to strengthen its mission of sending out much-needed workers into the bountiful harvest field,” Ted McCourtney said, accepting the award on behalf of his wife and himself.
Special guests included His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York; Most Reverend Robert Brennan, Bishop of Brooklyn; Most Reverend John Barres, Bishop of Rockville Center; Bishop James Massa, Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn and rector of Saint Joseph’s Seminary; Auxiliary Bishop Edmund Whalen, Vicar for Clergy of the Archdiocese of New York; and Monsignor Joseph LaMorte, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of New York. Rob Astorino, broadcaster and former Westchester County Executive, served as master of ceremonies.
The evening featured performances by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, and by Saint Joseph’s Seminary Schola Cantorum.
Saint Joseph’s Seminary and College, founded in 1896, is the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of New York and the fifth educational institution of the archdiocese for the formation of Catholic priests. Archbishop Michael Corrigan laid the cornerstone in 1891, and the seminary accepted its first students five years later.