A Venerable Priest.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 13, 27 March 1902, Page 4

A Venerable Priest.

The Yen. Archpriest Sheehy, 0.5.8., V.G., Ryde, New South Wales, celebrated his golden sacerdotal jubilee on Thursday, March 6, and was congratulated by his fellow-priests and a number of laymen, who called upon him at the presbytery. The ex-students of old St. Mary's Seminary during the time of Father Sheehy's presidency presented him with an address. Archpriest Sheehy (says the Freeman's Journal) was born in Cork, Ireland, on the Ist of October, 1827, and arrived in Sydney with his parents in July, 1838. Educated at St. Mary's Seminary from January, 1839, till its close in 1814, young Sheehy spent a year with his parentß at Wollongong preparatory to entering upon his studies for the priesthood. Filled with a vocation to which from the first to the last he unfalteringly responded — for of Samuel Augustine Sheehy it may be said, as a great Frenchman remarked of the greatest of his countrymen, that ' imagination could not conceive of him as a layman' — encouraged by Dr. Polding, he entered the Benedictine Mouas-tcy of St. Mary on May ( J, 1845, and on the 11th of July, ISIS, made his religious profession Four years lacer, on the 6th of M >rch, 1802, he was ordained priest by Bi«hop Davis, Coadjutor to Dr. Polling, being at the prcs' nt moment the doyen of the Australian-ordaiii'.d clergy — his f-emor in th.it pob'tion, Dean O'Coiiiiell. having passed away last year. Shortly after his ordinntion he had übiirg 1 of So. Mary's Seminary day s< hool until it-i close, aim-c^si; the pupils being the late Williai-a Bede Dally. He was also President of the Lyndhurat College from 18(51 to 1864:. In the early years of his niinibtry Father Sheehy had charge of the Sacred Heart district, and for eight years \v\.s chaplain to Darlinghurbt gaol. For 13 years, at a time when tne office require! more than ordinary powers of administration, Dr. Sheehy was V. car-General to Archbishop Polding, occupying the position up to the time of Dr. Vaughan's arrival. When the Vicar-Generulship was practically merge! in the Coadjutor&hip of Dr. Vaughan, Dr. Sheehy was given charge of the Windsor mission, in puccef-tion to the Ycry llev. Dr. Ballinan (another of our veteran churchmen, vi ho still surviveb), and he retained that charge for 12 years, till, broken down in health, he waß removed to Wollongong. Atter three years' administration there, Dr. bhcehy, wishing for rest, applied for the newly-formed mission of Ryrie. But the Yen. Archprii <~t, although residing in a spot suggesting in its beautiful environments the very haven for ' otium cum dignitate,' has hardly realised the popular idea of rest in his 13 years' missionary v\o-k in the Rye district. Religion, education, and charity have phown wonderml development there ; and the fact that the venerable pastor is now vigorously engaged in the task of liquidating the parish debt of Rjde does not necesbarily make for rest to a priest 75 years of age. It may not be generally .known that in 18(if> Archpriest Sheehy (at that tirre "Vicar-General) was appointed Assistant-Bishop to Archbishop Folding under the title of Bishop of Bethsaida ; and it is characteris ie of the man and the priest that he decline! the honor without the least ostentation.