A new administrator joins Our Lady of Lourdes

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The Rev. John David McCarthy, previously a priest-in-residence at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Floral Park and the chaplain at Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville since 2013, has been appointed administrator of Our Lady of Lourdes church in Malverne.

“As administrator of the parish, he will have basically the same responsibilities as a pastor,” said Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Rockville Centre. “He will live there in the rectory in Malverne.”

McCarthy, 55, will also continue to serve at Holy Trinity, Dolan added.

A 1991 graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, McCarthy served in the U.S. Navy for 25 years. He was ordained in 2008, and spent his first years as a priest at the Cathedral of Saint Agnes in Rockville Centre. He was also a navy chaplain at the Naval Submarine Base in Kings Bay, Ga., for two years.

According to a past press information issued by the diocese, McCarthy was born Oct. 15, 1960, in Brooklyn. While he thought about becoming a priest as a boy, military service had a greater pull on him. “My father was a Marine in World War II, and I looked up to a cousin who served in Vietnam,” he told the diocese. “I used to go to recruiting stations and hang out.”

After graduating from Holy Trinity High School in 1978, he enlisted in the Navy, where, he said, he was greatly influenced by Navy chaplains. After 10 years, he felt a profound calling to be a priest, and remembered asking God to let him finish 20 years of service in the Navy. He eventually retired with the rank of senior chief petty officer, and began pursuing his second career, as a priest.

Monsignor Paul F. Rahilly, who retired last year, had been the administrator of Our Lady of Lourdes since late June.