Area Catholics honored for service to church

Twelve members of North Shore parishes received the Cheverus Award from Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley in a Vespers service Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston’s South End. Cardinal O’Malley presented the Cheverus medal to 116 laypersons, deacons and religious.First awarded in 2008 at the celebration to mark the conclusion of the archdiocese’s bicentennial year, the annual award recognizes Catholics for dedicated service to the church. The medal is named for the archdiocese’s first bishop, Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus, who led the diocese from 1808 until his return to France in 1824. Cheverus died in 1836 as the Archbishop of Bordeaux.The 2014 Cheverus Award recipients from the North Shore include: Rosemary Angeramo, St. Adelaide, Peabody; Jolyne Boyle St. Mary Star of the Sea, Beverly; Sister Ellen Dabrieo, Brazilian Community/St. John the Baptist, Peabody; Concetta Donovan, Our Lady Star of the Sea, Marblehead; Donna Felzani, St. Anthony Padua, Revere; Dr. David Gabriel, St. Thomas the Apostle, Salem/Peabody (posthumous); David and Kathleen Gannon, St. Richard of Chichester, Danvers; Mary Magner, St. Thomas Aquinas, Nahant; Mary McGinn, St. John the Evangelist, Swampscott; Mary Ellen Valeri, St. Pius V. Lynn; and Donald Wark, St. Anne, Salem.The medal recipients are chosen for their service to the church. Most are nominated by their pastor, forwarded by their area vicar and approved by their regional bishop and O’Malley.Each year, one-third of the parishes of the archdiocese are asked to nominate a parishioner. The criteria given to pastors is that the nominee should be a lay person who has served the parish well over an extended period of time and has done so in a quiet, unassuming and, perhaps, unrecognized fashion.Also, each of the regional bishops is asked to nominate a religious and a deacon from his region with similar qualifications. The Central Ministries of the archdiocese also make nominations from among religious, deacons and lay persons who serve on archdiocesan committees or lead important ministries.With this year’s group of recipients, the total number of individuals and couples who have been named Cheverus medalists stands at 726.