Deacon Petrosino, known for gifts as educator, dies at 84

Deacon Victor Petrosino, who brought imaginative lessons and communications skills he learned as a public school educator to his diaconal ministry at St. Margaret in Bel-Air, died Nov. 5. He was 84.

Deacon Petrosino was ordained at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland June 26, 1999, after retiring from a 33-year career teaching social studies at Bel Air High School, North Harford Middle School and C. Milton Wright High School. He was named Harford County Teacher of the Year for 1993-94.

St. Margaret was his home parish. He studied at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg to prepare for his diaconal ministry.

Born in Wheeling, W.V., May 25, 1940, the son of Victor and Melba Petrosino, he grew up in Havre de Grace and graduated from Havre de Grace High School in 1958.

He received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1959, but his hopes for a military career ended when he sustained a serious neck injury during plebe summer.

He changed his goal to education, earning a bachelor’s degree from what is now Towson University, and master’s degrees from both Ohio State University and Towson. He and wife, Carol, married in 1962.

“(As a deacon), he just had a way of listening to people and bringing out maybe what the other person did not see within himself – that they had special gifts,” said Deacon Herman Wilkins, who was ordained with Deacon Petrosino. 

Deacon Petrosino was a devotee of St. Francis of Assisi, Deacon Wilkins said, and he wanted to do more about bringing Christ’s message to people.

In schools where he taught, Deacon Petrosino occasionally dressed up as the historic figures he was discussing. As a deacon, he was known to dress up as St. Francis for the annual blessing of the animals, and, of course, as St. Nicholas at Christmastime.

“Whatever it would take to tell the story,” Deacon Patrick Goles, who also serves at St. Margaret. “He was so humble. Never a big deal. That’s who he was.”

His teaching career gave him confidence as a homilist who could delve into historical perspectives, and he also was beloved as a regular presence for families “at the time of their greatest need,” particularly funerals, Deacon Goles added.

Deacon Petrosino’s decades in public schools also provided him with a seemingly endless supply of two-line jokes, usually depending on puns.

“He always had a joke,” Deacon Wilkins said. “The last time I talked to him, he had one: ‘Why did the ghost go into a bar? He went in to drink the boooooooooze!’”

Deacon Wilkins thought that teaching school gave Deacon Petrosino “a calm center and demeanor. That was a good gift that he had.”

“I remember growing up reading a children’s book about a little engine that could do the impossible,” St. Margaret’s pastor, Monsignor Kevin Schenning, said in a statement.

“That is what I think about when I think of Deacon Vic. This little Italian person had a big heart and used it to serve the people of God. He showed that through baptizing babies, blessing pets, visiting the sick and comforting families who lost loved ones. Vic was that little engine that made Christ visible to all that he served.”

Deacon Petrosino was also an auxiliary member of the Legion of Mary and a Third Order Franciscan.

As the chaplain for the Harford County Committee for Veteran Affairs, he was a regular presence at area nursing homes and assisted living facilities. He also was the chaplain-on-call for the Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air and Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace, and previously at the defunct Fallston Hospital.

“He was a holy, kind, gentle Franciscan soul,” said the Rev. Dr. Thaddeus Siegel, director of spiritual care services at the medical center, in a statement.

In addition to his wife, Deacon Petrosino’s survivors include his son, Gregory.

The family will receive friends at a visitation Nov. 15, 1-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. at the Abingdon-McComas Family Funeral Home at 1317 Cokesbury Road in Abingdon.

A funeral Mass will be offered Nov. 16 at 10 a.m. at St. Margaret.

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