National shrine legacy of Father Angelo

HAZLE TWP. – Friends and family of a man who founded a national shrine that has attracted hundreds of thousands of faithful Catholics to the Hazleton area remember him as a giving man who loved music, helped keep youths safe and off the streets and was deeply devoted to his faith.

The Rev. Girard Angelo, pastor emeritus of the Church and National Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Harleigh section of Hazle Township, died June 20 at age 82 after a brief illness and having served 54 years in the priesthood.

“He was well-loved by many that are devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus mainly because he built the shrine,” said Christopher Calore, president of the Men of the Sacred Heart.

A friend of Angelo’s for 33 years, Calore, of Wilkes-Barre, said Angelo told him he promised God that if he was ever assigned to a parish with enough land, he would build a shrine. The opportunity came in 1972 when Angelo was sent to St. Raphael’s Church in Harleigh.

Construction of the outdoor shrine began in August 1974 and it was dedicated on June 22, 1975, the Feast of the Sacred Heart. Bishop J. Carroll McCormick changed the name of the parish to Sacred Heart of Jesus, and it was designated a national shrine in 1997.

Anthony Antera, president of the Hazleton Chapter of Men of the Sacred Heart, said Angelo personally led tours for the busloads of shrine visitors, and frequently helped people in need “behind the scenes.”

Calore said Angelo’s hosting the Sacred Heart Congress at the shrine, when bishops, cardinals, civic leaders such as the late Congressman Dan Flood and faithful from all over the world converged there in 1978, “was the highlight of his life. … Everything about him was to bring devotion to the Sacred Heart.”

“That’s something that was never revealed to us. He used to tell us, ‘When the time comes, you’ll know.’ But his time went so fast at the end, we never got to ask him. So it remains a mystery, but a good one,” said Angelo’s sister, Patricia Angelo, of Hazleton.

In one breath, she described her brother as “tough. Everything had to be the way it was supposed to be. Like with the church, things were black and white; there was no gray,” she said, noting that he persuaded local stores to close for Christmas and Easter with the unspoken threat of bad publicity in the media. “It worked for two or three years,” she said.

In the next, she told how he always spent holidays with his family, beaming when he walked through the door to the excited greeting, “Uncle Jerry’s here,” from his nieces and nephews.

The Rev. John Manno, pastor of Annunciation Church in Williamsport and Angelo’s close friend of 30 years, recalled Angelo’s love of his Italian heritage and his hometown of Hazleton, his pride in serving in the U.S. Navy before entering the seminary and his industriousness.

While pasturing at Mater Dolorosa in Williamsport in the mid- to late 1960s, he established the famous Club Grotto – a teen night club “to keep kids off the streets,” Manno said.

It was there that Angelo helped organize and then for five years managed a teen band – Prince Charles and the Royaltones, which soon changed its name to Father’s Angels. Angelo got the band a bus, it went on tour and recorded on the Mercury record label.

“I’m really saddened by his death,” said band leader Dean Frear, who, with a friend, approached Angelo for help starting the band.

“We made a lot of money at the Grotto, and he (used some of it to help) many of the kids go to college. On the surface, he was a little bit tough. But underneath, he was a very nice man,” Frear said.

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The Hazleton area pastor, who died June 20, recalled for his love of music and goal of keeping youth off the streets.

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