“He is really going to be missed,” said Owen Kubik, president of the parish council. “He was really loved by his parishioners. A lot of people will really mourn his passing. It was highly unusual for a pastor to stay in one place for so long.” Term limits did not apply to him because the church was staffed by the Marianists and “he was grandfathered in,” Kubik said.
Kubik said Father Lee had been ill since August 2009. Since December he had been at Mercy Siena Woods, a Marianist nursing home and retirement center on North Main Street.
During his illness he continued to run the parish business from his bed in the nursing home.
Father Joseph Tedesco was named temporary parochial administrator just in the past month, which is like an interim pastor, Kubik said. The decision on a future pastor for the church will be made by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, he said. The church has about 600 families and about 800 people attend Mass on Sunday, he said.
Father Lee, who grew up in the Cleveland area, has an identical twin brother, Father Paul Sciarrotta, a retired priest in the Cleveland area, Kubik said.
Under Father Lee’s leadership the church maintained a very traditional style of Catholic worship, Kubik said, keeping many conservative and traditional devotions. The church is one of the few that still use the altar rail at holy communion, in which the parishioners kneel rather than stand in taking holy communion, he said. Many Catholic churches today don’t even have an altar rail, he said.
Under Father Lee’s leadership the church also became a central point for Catholic home-schooled families, he said. “Even though we’re a downtown church, our congregation includes several hundred children, because we have a lot of large families — families of 6,10, and 12 kids.
Father Joseph Tedesco described Father Lee as “a little short Italian guy” who was always smiling and very personable. “He lived really, really simply so as not to cause the church a lot of money,” he said.
He got to know Father Lee when he became a staff member at a parish in Portage, Mich., where Father Lee was pastor in the early 80s. “He never made a major appeal,” he said. “He developed really strong relationships and got a lot accomplished.” People would respond if he asked for their help. “He taught an awful lot by example about justice,” he said.
“A lot of people owe him a lot,” Father Joseph said. Emmanuel Catholic Church sponsors over 50 charities and has given nearly $40,000 away to charitable causes each year. The church’s endowment fund is used for scholarships. Father Lee helped develop a number of choirs at the church and at his funeral the children’s choir and the Rwandan choir will be singing, he said. The church became a place for Rwandan refugees to worship with a Rwandan priest coming up from Cincinnati on Sundays, he said. Many of the Rwandan children were able to go to Chaminade-Julienne with tuition help from the church. Before that it was Vietnamese refugees that the church helped, he said.
Former Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk will be attending the funeral services, he said.
All services and viewings will take place at the church.
The viewing will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday Sept. 27, with vigil prayers for the deceased at 6:30 p.m.
The Mass of Christian Burial will be at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28, with a reception to follow.
Internment will be a private grave side service Wednesday at Mount St. Johns, the Marianist Cemetery in Beavercreek, with only family and Marianists present, Kubik said.
A memorial fund has been established in Father Lee’s name at the Dayton Foundation to support Catholic education, pro-life activities and Emmanuel Catholic Church, he said.
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