A New York native, born in Brooklyn, reared in Queens, educated in Baltimore, and ordained in Charlotte, Msgr. Michael Shugrue, who can trace his ancestral roots to Ireland, followed a circuitous road to get to the Diocese of Raleigh.
While commuting from Queens to a Catholic high school in Brooklyn, he discerned that he wanted to be a foreign missionary. His parish priest at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Elmhurst, New York steered him toward the South to do his missionary work, saying that in the 1950s the South was mission country. In his high school junior year, the future priest applied to Bishop Vincent Waters, Bishop of Raleigh to study for the priesthood. He took his first airplane ride to Raleigh for an interview with the Bishop and was accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Raleigh.
He spent his college and seminary years in Baltimore before being ordained in Charlotte at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1966. (Charlotte was part of the Raleigh diocese then.) He earned a masters degree in religious education from Fordham University in 1970.
His early years as an assistant pastor, which was the name for a parochial vicar then, included parishes in Cary, Wendell, Greenville and Raleigh. His first assignment at St. Gabriel’s Church in Greenville was a one-year “training apostolate.” During that year he spent half of the week in a nearby small community ministering to seven families. “It was a learning experience,” he commented.
When he assisted Monsignor Koch at St. Michael’s Church in Cary in 1970, he was also serving as the Diocesan Director of Religious Education.
His pastorates include St. Mary’s Church in Laurinburg, St. Joseph’s Church in Raleigh and Rector of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Raleigh. His longest assignment of nine years was at Duke University where he served as the Catholic Campus Minister.
Following a sabbatical in 1998, Msgr. Shugrue returned to the diocese as Vicar for Priests. In 2002 Bishop F. Joseph Gossman appointed him Vicar General, a post he held until coming to St. Patrick’s Church in Fayetteville in July 2007.
From a kid who didn’t want to be an altar boy to a young man dedicated to the priesthood, Father Michael Cassabon, St. Patrick’s new parochial vicar, has come a long way.
In his boyhood years, Father Michael always attended Mass but didn’t want to be “an altar boy in front of all those people”. Ask his mother! Even as a toddler, he attended Mass, often sleeping on a kneeler and often waking up asking in a loud and untimely manner, “What’s God doing now, Mommy?”
Educated in Catholic schools in Greenville, SC, the future priest attended Furman University on scholarship, but after two years decided to finish his undergraduate degree of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, OH. Influential in this decision were a priest he knew in his high school days and Charleston Bishop Robert Baker whom he met on the Furman campus where he was a student leader in reviving the campus Catholic Newman Club. After graduation from Josephinum, he spent a year in discernment teaching religion at Bishop England High School in Charleston.
He then went off to Rome to attend the Pontifical Northern American College for four years. Ordained in Columbia in 2007 and after studying briefly in New York, he returned to Rome for a year to study theology and canon law. He was assigned to St. Mary’s, his home parish in Greenville, in early 2009.
His time there didn’t last long.. In early June Fr. Michael went on loan to the Raleigh diocese for two years to serve as parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s. St. Patrick’s seems like a perfect match for his priestly interests which lean toward the military and Hispanic ministries. He also has ties to priests in this diocese including former pastor Msgr. David Brockman whom he knew he met in Rome while Msgr. Brockman was finishing his canon law degree. Both have ties to South Carolina..
“Fayetteville is a good fit for me,” he remarked, shortly after spending his first full week here. Although not completely settled in his office and still learning and assuming his priestly duties, he already finds the parish “diverse, active, warm, and welcoming.”
His interest in the military has been increased by his brother’s intention to
join the military when he finishes college. “Soldiers need priests to assist themselves with the spiritual needs and the needs for sacraments,” he observed.
Able to speak fluent French, Italian, and Portuguese, he hopes to “be fluent in Spanish by fall” to better serve the Spanish community.
While a student at Furman, the not-yet seminarian was a feature writer for the Greenville (SC) News as a reviewer of Greenville restaurants. An interest in creative cooking followed and continues. He began this hobby by trying to replicate restaurant dishes that tweaked his taste buds. Cooking by taste, a favorite recipe is penne alla vodka sauce which includes such ingredients as tomatoes, garlic, onion, peppers, and cream with an added zap of vodka. He has a bent for Italian recipes and, hence, has developed his own recipe for pesto sauce.
The new parochial vicar will be known here in the parish as Fr. Michael in order to avoid name confusion with Father Mike (Pastor Msgr. Shugrue). Fr. Michael offered to switch titles with the pastor.
“But Father Mike, humble as he is, is not ready to give up his title yet,” the new priest joked.
Actually he has always been called Michael. His father is the Mike in the family.
My father, a Puerto Rican mechanical engineer graduated from Ohio State University (1917) and a veteran of WW-1; married my mother in the Dominican Republic where I was born in October 31st 1933. Since my father was an American citizen, I had USA citizenship at birth. Our family moved to Puerto Rico a year later.
In May 1956, I graduated as a civil engineer from “Colegio de Agricultura y Artes Mecánicas de Mayaguez”, Puerto Rico and at the same time I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers in the US Army.
On December 24, 1956 I married my high school sweetheart Myrna Alcaraz. The Army assigned us to Fort Leonard Wood, MO. and our first son was born there December 26, 1957.
After my military duty was honorably completed I worked for the Government in design and construction for one year, then for a Private construction firm until 1961 when I started my own small construction firm. In 1968 after closing the construction company I started a design firm with a partner, Eng. Haraldo Otero and retired in September 1999. Of the 44 years I worked in my life, 37 of them I have been self employed.
My wife and I have been blessed with one son, four daughters; nine grandchildren and one great grand child. I was blessed to be the church witness for my 5 children wedding’s and have baptized all the great and grand children.
From 2nd grade to 8th I studied at Colegio San Antonio, a Catholic School in San Juan. In 1968 we started to be seriously involved in Church. In 1975 my Pastor asked me if I would like to go to classes to see if I had the vocation to be a deacon. I was ordained deacon on May 29, 1978. That was the first group of permanent deacons in PR. Today in the Archdiocese of S.J. has over 300 permanent deacons.
I worked in 2 parishes in PR, 11 years in each. While having some assignments at Archdiocese level, Permanent Deacons Council (12 years), Permanent Deacons Commission (5 years}, Pastoral Care for the Elderly (16 years}, Archdiocesan Economic Council (Named for 5 years and retained for 10 years).
In May 2002 I received another blessing from God when with the consent of Bishop Joseph Gossman; Fr. Jack Kelly opened the doors of St Patrick Church in Fayetteville, NC; to me so that I would have the opportunity to serve the people of God in this parish.
Reverend Deacon Vicente Colón
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