Our office received news that after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer, Father Dennis Dale Donovan died on July 25, 2024, at the Joe Raso Hospice Residence in New York City, N.Y.  Father Dennis, 70, was a member of the Marian Shrine community in Haverstraw-Stony Point, N.Y., and had served as director from July of 2021 until June of 2024. He was a professed Salesian of Don Bosco for almost 51 years and a priest for 41 years.

Father Donovan was born to Thomas and Helen Rudolph Donovan on February 26, 1954, in Nyack, N.Y.  He entered Salesian Junior Seminary at Goshen, N.Y., in September of 1968, and upon graduation was admitted to the Salesian novitiate at Ipswich, Massachusetts.  He was ordained by Bishop James Griffin at Christ the King Church in Columbus, Ohio on May 21, 1983.

Father Donovan’s first assignment as a priest brought him back to his alma mater, Salesian Junior Seminary, teaching and assisting the school’s treasurer, Father Joseph Stella, from 1983 to 1985.  He returned to Columbus in 1985 as treasurer at the Salesian Center and the Salesian Boys & Girls Club until 1994.  In those years, he also served as chaplain to the Ohio State Senate, the capitol was four blocks from the Salesian Center, and chaplain to the Central Ohio Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

In 2004, Father Donovan moved to Mary Help of Christians School in Tampa as treasurer for the school and the Salesian community.  Two years later, he was appointed director there and served two terms (2006-2012). During that time, he oversaw the closing of the school, the move of Good Shepherd Parish to the Mary Help campus, and the parish’s renaming to Mary Help of Christians and the Salesian work renamed Mary Help of Christians Center.  The Center’s retreat program was developed further.  The Center is also the home of Saint Philip the Apostle Residence for senior Salesians, a work that led to Father Donovan developing a province plan for the care of elder confreres.  His management skills led him to be named province treasurer in 2012 and he moved back to the provincial house for nine years.  He served briefly as director of the community (2017-2018), which included the merging of the Salesian High School community with the provincial house.

Father Donovan is survived by his sister Lynn and her husband Andrew Krakaur of West Nyack, N.Y., and his nieces Lauren (Matt Finn) of Montrose, N.Y., and Erin (Matthew Dybus) of Norwalk, Conn., and many members of the Donovan family.  Father Donovan was one of 56 cousins of the Donovan clan!

Funeral services were celebrated on July 30^th in New York.

Donations in Father Dennis’s memory can be made to The Marian Shrine, 174 Filors Lane, Stony Point, NY  10980

Complete obituary at this link.

Please keep Father Donovan’s surviving family members and loved ones in your kind thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

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May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,
by the mercy of God, rest in peace!