Rev. Daniel Mahoney, chaplain and spiritual leader of Boston Fire Department, dies at 94 - The Boston Globe (2024)

Rev. Mahoney, whose duties as a priest also included serving as pastor to generations of parishioners at St. Francis de Sales Church in Charlestown, was 94 when he died Wednesday.

“Dan was a saint,” said Joe Finn, a former Boston fire commissioner, “and I don’t use that term loosely.”

In Rev. Mahoney’s years ministering to those in Charlestown and at scenes of fires, he combined two callings.

“I always wanted to be a priest, and I always wanted to be a firefighter,” he said in 2016, when the Boston Fire Department named a new fireboat the Father Dan to honor his service as chaplain.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley of the Boston Archdiocese, who was traveling, sent a statement saying Rev. Mahoney “was a steady and reassuring presence in the lives of countless numbers of people who sought refuge with him during times of tragedy.”

During almost 70 years as a priest, Rev. Mahoney “was beloved by his parishioners and the wider community,” said O’Malley, who added that for 60 of those years, “he was a trusted friend and chaplain to the brave men and women of the Boston Fire Department, including 31 years as chief chaplain.”

When Rev. Mahoney was called to a scene of devastation, he often did more than just pray.

“He had no hesitation jumping in to help wherever it was needed, especially when a life was at risk,” said Edward Kelly, a longtime Boston firefighter who is general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

“But where he truly shined was in the toughest of times,” said Kelly, a member of Ladder 17 in Boston’s South End and a former president of the union local. “When everyone else’s hands were shaking, Father Dan’s were the steady hands that helped.”

In 2016, Rev. Mahoney was also honored with a granite statue of St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, which was dedicated outside St. Francis de Sales Church, his Charlestown parish.

“Father Mahoney was always there for us, every single day, especially on some of the worst and most difficult days that Local 718 has ever had to endure,” said Sam Dillon, president of Boston Firefighters Local 718.

“He was a bedrock of assurance and guidance,” Dillon said. “He had this truly God-given gift of making people feel better on some of the worst days of their lives.”

Born Feb. 19, 1930, Daniel J. Mahoney grew up in Haverhill, the son of Daniel Mahoney, an immigrant from County Cork, Ireland, who ran a hardware store, and Mary Tannian Mahoney, a homemaker.

Rev. Mahoney’s younger sister, Mary, who died in 2018, told the Globe in 2016 that when they were children, young Dan would run and chase fire trucks that rode near their father’s store.

He attended St. James elementary and high schools in Haverhill before heading to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. Rev. Mahoney was ordained as a priest in 1956, in Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, by then-Archbishop Richard Cushing.

Early assignments brought Rev. Mahoney to Revere, East Boston, and Wayland before he arrived at St. Francis de Sales in 1978. He retired in 2022, at 92, from his duties at the church and as chaplain of the Boston Fire Department.

“He did over and above for anybody who needed something done, keeping them in his thoughts all the time,” said Joan Rae, who worked with Rev. Mahoney for decades as business manager of the church.

When Rae and Rev. Mahoney both retired, she said, the two of them and her husband “all moved into a condo together so that he would have someone taking care of him.”

Just as Rev. Mahoney was a constant presence for Boston’s firefighters, she said, he was there at all hours for parishioners.

“He was their rock,” she said. “They could call him in the middle of the night to go out to bless somebody, or if they needed to talk. If they rang the doorbell at the rectory, he was always available to them, 24/7.”

On Wednesday, Boston firefighters will escort Rev. Mahoney from Carr Funeral Home in Charlestown to St. Francis de Sales, where he will lie in state.

A wake will be held from 4 to 7 p.m., when a vigil Mass will be said. A funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. Thursday in St. Francis de Sales. Burial will be in Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden.

Rev. Mahoney thought being a firefighter “was the noblest calling, and yet he was called to be a priest,” said Finn, the former fire commissioner, adding that “he got to live both callings as a chaplain.”

Sometimes that meant performing heroics. More than 40 years ago, he rushed into Congregation Tifereth Israel in Everett with two other priests and three firefighters to save the Torah scrolls from the burning Jewish temple.

As a priest, Rev. Mahoney often raised his voice against racism and antisemitism, and worked for years to bridge gaps between Catholics and Jews.

“I remember Cardinal Cushing saying to us as young priests: ‘Be prayerful and be present,’” Rev. Mahoney told the Globe in 2006, while sipping coffee in the St. Francis rectory.

“I try to do that,” he added. “Sometimes I fall flat on my face. Maybe that’s the key.”

Mostly, though, he stood ready to help, doing so for years at fires and in the homes of firefighters when families mourned injuries and deaths.

“Community is woven by the fabric of people, and particularly leaders, and that’s Father Dan,” Kelly said. “Father Dan was the one true constant leader we’ve had for 60 years who was there for good times, and more importantly at the bad times.”

Among the worst times was the 1964 fire at a vacant toy factory on Trumbull Street in Boston that killed five firefighters and a civilian.

Summoned past midnight from his rectory, Rev. Mahoney went to pray with the families. Hours later, Cushing appointed him a Boston Fire Department assistant chaplain.

“I am humbled by it,” Rev. Mahoney said in 2016 of his years as assistant chaplain, and then chief chaplain, adding that he had drawn quiet inspiration from the five firefighters who perished in 1964 “to be the best chaplain I can be, in spite of my human frailty.”

To firefighters he served alongside, though, Rev. Mahoney was always a source of comfort and strength.

“He just brought Christ with him,” Kelly said. “He brought Christ with him wherever he went. He will be missed.”

Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.