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Santa Maria served Sudbury, Sault and Elliot Lake parishes

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Rev. Angelo Santa Maria served Catholic parishes in several Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie communities.

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The Sault Ste. Marie native died last Monday at Algoma Residential Community Hospice. He was 80.

Father Angelo was gentle, gracious and focused on others,” said Rev. Hamish Currie, pastor of Precious Blood Cathedral, in an email to The Sault Star. “Generous with his time and talent and always very affirming.”

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The Sault Collegiate Institute graduate studied at St. Augustine’s Seminary and was ordained in May 1963 at St. Ignatius in the Sault.

More than half of his priestly ministry was at St. Jerome’s in Sault Ste. Marie, where he served as assistant pastor and pastor for about 12 years, and St. Andrew the Apostle. Santa Maria was also at the Sudbury parish for 12 years.

Santa Maria took part in a mortgage burning ceremony at St. Jerome as part of a thanksgiving mass celebrated by Bishop Bernard Pappin in 1976.

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He also served for eight years at Our Lady of Fatima in Elliot Lake with shorter periods of service at Our Lady of Good Counsel in the Sault, St. Clement in Sudbury and St. Basil in White River.

He served as dean of the diocese’s Algoma Region for two terms. Santa Maria served one term as dean for the Sudbury region.

In that role, he would act as the bishop’s representative in the area. He would gather priests to discuss their spiritual and personal needs and serve on the presbyteral council, advising the bishop.

He retired from active ministry in 2004.

He was the most compassionate, caring person we ever met,” said St. Andrew the Apostle parishioners Ida and Aldo Ceccarelli in an online tribute.

A funeral mass was held Friday. Currie was celebrant.

Santa Maria is the second diocesan priest to die in less than a month. Rev. Jean Pierre Makuna died Aug. 21.

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