Dialog reporter
Father Anthony F. Greco, a retired priest of the Diocese of Wilmington, died Oct. 15. He was 72 and had been a priest for 38 years.
Bishop Malooly will be the principal celebrant at the funeral Mass, which will be Oct. 23 at 10 a.m. at Our Lady of Good Counsel, in Secretary, Md.
Burial will be at Ss. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Springfield, Pa.
A native of Lansdowne, Pa., Father Greco graduated from Msgr. Bonner High School in Drexel Hill and attended St. Joseph’s University. He was ordained at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Wilmington in June 1979.
Father Greco served in a number of parishes as an associate, including St. Paul, Wilmington; St. John’s-Holy Angels, Newark; and St. Mary Refuge of Sinners, Cambridge, Md. His first pastorate was at St. Michael the Archangel, Georgetown, where he ministered from 1984-97. That year, he transferred to Our Lady of Good Counsel, remaining until 2009. He also served as pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea-Holy Savior Parish in Ocean City, Md., for a brief time before retiring.
Father Greco was also a professional interior designer, and his creations were on display over the years at various parishes. While a deacon serving at Immaculate Conception in Elkton, Md., he created colorful batik banners for the sanctuary. There, he also selected the hand-carved wood stations to go with the church’s new décor.
He specialized in vestment design, a trade he learned while studying with the Trappist monks in Massachusetts from 1964-71 at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Mass.
“We were completely cloistered,” he told The Dialog in 1978. “I saw my parents once a year and wrote to them once a month.”
He made vestments for seminarians at Sacred Heart Seminary in Wisconsin and designed miters for Cardinal John Wright, the abbot of Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, Pa., and, more recently, for Bishop Malooly for his installation in Wilmington in 2008. He had designed miters for Wilmington’s bishops going back decades.
“All design and decoration should point to the function of the church,” he said in 1978. “A chasuble should suit the priest’s personality as well as the liturgy for which it is designed.”
Condolences can be sent to Father Greco’s sister, Sister Mary Carmella Greco, Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pacis Hall, 1145 King Road, Immaculata, PA 19345.
Donations in his memory can be made to Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, P.O. Box 279, Secretary, MD 21664, or to the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Camilla Hall, P.O. Box 100, Immaculata, PA 19345.
