Rev. Msgr. Thomas Francis Dentici
Burial Details
Obituaries
Angela Beck - February 2015
Msgr. Dentici was our pastor at St. Patrick's Parish. He was just a priest here. He did not like offering Mass in Red Cliff--too few in attendance. He closed the church for six weeks when he had shoulder surgery. When he resumed Mass, it was just home Masses in Red Cliff & potlucks. He did not cook. The nun said there were no pots & pans in his house.
Archdiocese of Denver Mortuary page archdenmort.org - July 2014
Msgr. Thomas F. Dentici (Father Tom) went home to the Lord on July 17, 2014 . A rosary will be said for Msgr. Dentici 6:30 p.m. July 25 at Holy Name Parish, 524 Oak St., in Steamboat Springs. A funeral Mass will be held 10 a.m. July 26 at Our Lady of Peace Parish, 89 Smith Ranch Road, in Silverthorne. Interment will be at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass.
Denver Catholic Register - July 30, 2014
Western Slope priest dies at 85.
Msgr. Thomas Dentici, who worked to connect the Western Slope with Denver and launched its first Catholic Charities' office, died July 17. He was 85.
Born to Salvatore and Josephine Dentici on Aug. 8, 1928 in Brooklyn, N.Y., Thomas Francis Dentici attended Niagara University and Seminary and Our lady of Angels in New York. He studied at Columbia and Fordham universities in New York, Saint John's in Minnesota and the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
He was ordained a priest on May 30, 1953 in Trenton, N.J. and became incardinated into the Archdiocese of Denver in 1983.
The first 25 years of his ministry in the Diocese of Trenton "were good years" he wrote August 2001 in the Denver Catholic Register. He served as assistant pastor at St. Cecelia and St. Thomas the Apostle parishes and worked in campus ministry at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
He also spent time teaching medical ethics at a hospital and was later appointed as the dioceses's Office of Family Life director.
In 1983, Msgr. Dentici came to serve in Colorado.
His ministry was spent on the Western Slope: in Aspen, Steamboat Springs and Vail. He served as pastor at St. Mary's Parish in Aspen, Holy Name Parish in Steamboat Springs, St. Patrick Parish in Minturn along with the nearby mission churches.
During this time, he was appointed as dean of the Breckenridge Deanery and Western Slope Deanery, as well as a member of the College of Consultors.
In 1990, Msgr. Dentici was appointed to a new position, Western Slope vicar forane, in which he said he hoped to become the "visible sign of the connection between the Western Slope and the rest of the archdiocese."
He spent his time addressing economic and social justice issues, including closing the gap between the rich and the poor in the mountain towns. Msgr. Dentici also developed low-income housing projects and started the first Catholic Charities' offices on the Western Slope.
After 45 years of priestly ministry, he retired. Msgr. Dentici lived with the Trappist monks of St. Benedict's Monastery at Snowmass, which he called "one of the most beautiful places in our country."
Vail Daily page A19 - July 25, 2014
Prayer Vigil for Father Tom.
St. Patrick's Catholic Church will hold a prayer vigil and rosary for Father Thomas Dentici at the Vail Interfaith Chapel today at 4 p.m. Father Tom's funeral mass will be held at Our Lady of Peace Church in Silverthorne, located at 89 Smith Ranch Road, at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Father Tom was a great man of God with his ministry extending throughout the Western Slope to people of all faiths.
