November 5, 2026
The Rev. Dominick Cutrone ’51SJC loves being a priest. He felt a vocation to the religious life as young boy, which only intensified during his time at St. John’s University.
Today, Fr. Cutrone is the oldest priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn, NY. A regular fixture at St. John’s Men’s Basketball games, he is active, feisty, and grateful for a lifetime spent in the service of others. Irrepressible and joyful, he speaks with great fondness about a life well lived—one still going strong at age 96.
Born to devout Italian American parents, Fr. Cutrone grew up in a household where faith, family, and hard work were inseparable. His father worked as an iceman, while his mother was a talented seamstress who helped support the family financially.
Deeply religious, she had once considered becoming a nun herself and regularly welcomed relatives and neighbors into the family home for Marian devotions. When her son expressed an interest in priesthood while still in grammar school, both parents enthusiastically supported his ambition.
Fr. Cutrone repeatedly missed the Catholic high school entrance exam several times and only a personal appeal from his mother to the principal at Most Holy Trinity High School in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, got him accepted. “He’ll make a good student. He wants to be a priest. I don’t want him to lose his vocation. Please take him,” his mother implored.
According to Fr. Cutrone, the principal responded, “How can I refuse a mother?”
After graduation, Fr. Cutrone decided to attend St. John’s; he decided he would apply to the seminary if his vocation was still as strong when he finished. “It was the best thing I ever did,” he stressed.
At St. John’s, Fr. Cutrone found a place of belonging, lifelong friends, and despite some academic misadventures, a deeper understanding of his vocation. “I ended up flunking Latin,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll never be a priest.’ I couldn’t believe it. And I got a D in Greek. That was the end of my classical languages major, so I switched to English.”
Fr. Cutrone eventually found himself on solid academic ground and joined Zeta Sigma Pi; membership provided his greatest source of joy and satisfaction at St. John’s. “It was a social science fraternity with an emphasis on the social,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
He was also a member of the Men’s Soccer team “because they needed bodies,” he laughed, and the Glee Club, once performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Fr. Cutrone loved his St. John’s experience and his active social life, but upon graduation he knew he was destined for the priesthood. After four years of study at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, NY, he was ordained a priest for the Brooklyn Diocese in 1955.
After a succession of gratifying assignments and pastorships, Fr. Cutrone was appointed Pastor of Our Lady of Grace Church in Brooklyn in 1983. It was an assignment that came to define his priesthood; he lived in the parish for 42 years.
One of his proudest achievements at Our Lady of Grace was establishing a perpetual Eucharistic adoration chapel. “There wasn’t any throughout the Archdiocese of New York or the Diocese of Brooklyn,” he recalled. “People were telling me I couldn’t do it, so that only made me more determined.”
Six months later, the chapel was consecrated and still exists to this day. “That gave me the greatest satisfaction,” he mused. “A couple of guys told me they became priests because they went to the chapel. They’d stay for hours at a time and prayed there regularly. Even pastors from the neighboring parishes used to come there.”
When asked what made his priesthood so joyful, Fr. Cutrone explained that as a young man, he wanted to be a “people’s priest.” A few priests he knew as a youth were pious and holy, but also aloof and somewhat standoffish. He wanted to be the opposite.
“I wanted to be a servant who relates to people,” Fr. Cutrone said. “I didn’t want to be somebody they felt distanced from. You don’t want to be separate. I wanted them to know that I’m a human being like they are.”
Fr. Cutrone has a deep and abiding affection for the parishioners at Our Lady of Grace. “They are great people. I love them.”
After more than four decades there, 18 as pastor, Fr. Cutrone moved to the Bishop Mugavero Residence for Senior Priests at the Immaculate Conception Center in Douglaston, NY, one year ago. At first, he was despondent. The infirmities of age were catching up to him and in his mind, he was no longer making a difference.
“I went to sleep one night and said, ‘God, please take me because I finished my priesthood. I did my work.’ The next morning, I woke up and was still alive.”
He began experiencing improvement through physical therapy and was in the company of dear friends who, like him, had spent a lifetime serving God and His Church. “I saw myself getting better, and I said, ‘Now I want to live.’” Each day he concelebrates Mass with his fellow senior priests.
Fr. Cutrone’s affection for St. John’s is undiminished and has endured for more than seven decades. “I loved the Vincentians,” he observed. A longtime supporter of Red Storm Men’s Basketball, he regularly attends games at Carnesecca Arena. Even at 96, he has no intention of abandoning the tradition.
Fr. Cutrone also fondly recalled his friendships with legendary Men’s Basketball Coach Lou Carnesecca ’50SJC, ’60M.S.Ed., ’00HON, and former St. John’s Baseball Coach and Head Athletic Director John “Jack” Kaiser ’49SJC, both contemporaries of his. Coach Kaiser “was a great man, a great human being.”
Of Coach Carnesecca, with whom he maintained a friendship for decades, he recalled a particularly amusing ritual whenever they encountered each other at basketball games: “He refused to speak with me in English—always in Italian.”
For a man who has spent more than seven decades ministering to others, maintaining cherished friendships, and embracing life’s opportunities, there is still plenty of which to look forward. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of my priesthood right up to today,” he reflected. “It’s been a fantastic life. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”