In addition to his duties as a priest, Rev. Mahoney also served as pastor to generations of parishioners at St. Francis de Sales Church in Charlestown. He was 94 when he died Wednesday.
“Dan was a saint,” former Boston Fire Chief Joe Finn said, “and I don’t use that word lightly.”
Reverend Mahoney served two missions during the years he helped people in Charlestown and at the fire scene.
“I always wanted to be a pastor and I always wanted to be a firefighter,” he said in 2016. The Boston Fire Department named a new fireboat “Father Dan” in honor of his service as a chaplain.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston, who was traveling, issued a statement saying Mahoney “was a stabilizing and reassuring presence in the lives of countless people who took refuge in him in times of tragedy.”
During his nearly 70 years as a priest, Rev. Mahoney “was beloved by his parishioners and the entire community,” O’Malley said, adding that for 60 of those years he “was a trusted friend and chaplain to the brave men and women of the Boston Fire Department, including 31 years as senior chaplain.”
When Pastor Mahoney was called to disaster sites, he often did more than just pray.
“He never hesitated to jump in and help wherever it was needed, especially when lives were at risk,” said Edward Kelly, a longtime Boston firefighter and president of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
“But it was during the most difficult times that he really shone,” said Kelly, a member of Ladder 17 in Boston’s South End neighborhood and a past chapter president of the union. “When everyone else’s hands were shaking, Father Dan’s hands were steady and supportive.”
In 2016, Rev. Mahoney was also awarded a granite statue of St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, which was dedicated outside St. Francis de Sales Church in Charlestown Parish.
“Father Mahoney was always there for us every single day, especially during the worst and most difficult days that Local 718 has had to endure,” said Sam Dillon, president of Boston Firefighters Local 718.
“He was a cornerstone of comfort and guidance,” Dillon said, “and had a true God-given gift for making people feel better on the worst days of their lives.”
Born Feb. 19, 1930, Daniel J. Mahoney grew up in Haverhill, the son of Daniel Mahoney, an immigrant from County Cork, Ireland, who owned a hardware store, and Mary Tannian Mahoney, a housewife.
Mahoney’s sister, Mary, who died in 2018, told the Globe in 2016 that as a child, little Dan would chase fire trucks around the neighborhood near his father’s store.
Rev. Mahoney attended St. James Primary and High School in Haverhill before going on to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. Rev. Mahoney was ordained a priest in 1956 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston by then Archbishop Richard Cushing.
Pastor Mahoney’s early assignments took him to Revere, East Boston and Wayland before arriving at St. Francis de Sales Church in 1978. He retired from his duties as chaplain to the church and the Boston Fire Department in 2022, at age 92.
“He went out of his way to help anyone who needed something, always thinking of them,” said Joan Ray, who worked with Mahoney for decades as the church’s business manager.
When Ray and Pastor Mahoney both retired, they and her husband “moved into an apartment together so that she had someone to take care of her husband,” she said.
She said just as Rev. Mahoney was always there for Boston’s firefighters, he was always there for his parishioners.
“He was their rock,” she said. “If he had to go out in the middle of the night to bless someone or if they just wanted to talk, they could call him. He was always there for them, 24 hours a day, just by ringing the rectory bell.”
On Wednesday, Boston firefighters escorted the Rev. Mahoney from Carr Funeral Home in Charlestown to St. Francis de Sales Church, where he will be laid to rest.
The wake will be held from 4 to 7 p.m., followed by a Vigil Mass. A funeral Mass will be held at St. Francis de Sales Church on Thursday at 11 a.m. Burial will be in Holy Cross Cemetery, Malden.
Mahoney believed being a firefighter was “the noblest calling, but he was called to be a priest,” said Finn, the former fire chief, adding that “as a pastor he was able to live both callings.”
Sometimes that means heroism, like when, more than 40 years ago, he rushed with two other priests and three firefighters to Congregation Tifereth Israel in Everett to rescue a Torah scroll from the burning temple.
As a priest, Reverend Mahoney has frequently spoken out against racism and anti-Semitism, and has long worked to bridge the gap between Catholics and Jews.
“I remember Cardinal Cushing telling the young priests, ‘Pray and live in the present,'” Mahoney told the Globe over coffee in the St. Francis rectory in 2006.
“I try to do that,” he added. “And sometimes I fail terribly. Maybe that’s the key.”
But for the most part, he was ready to help, and for years he was at the scene of fires and in the homes of firefighters mourning the injured and killed.
“A community is woven together by its people, especially its leaders, and Father Dan is that very leader,” Kelly said. “Father Dan has been the one true leader that has always been there for us for 60 years, through the good times and, more importantly, the bad times.”
One of the deadliest fires occurred in 1964 at a vacant toy factory on Trumbull Street in Boston, killing five firefighters and one civilian.
Called from the rectory just after midnight, Reverend Mahoney went to pray with the families, and a few hours later Cushing appointed him assistant chaplain to the Boston Fire Department.
“I’m humbled by that,” Mahoney said in 2016, reflecting on his years as associate pastor and then senior pastor, adding that he drew quiet inspiration from five firefighters who died in 1964 and “tried to be the best pastor I could be, despite my human frailties.”
But to the firefighters he worked with, Pastor Mahoney was always a source of comfort and strength.
“He just took Christ with him,” Kelly said, “wherever he went he took Christ with him. He’s going to be missed.”
Bryan Marquard can be contacted at bryan.marquard@globe.com.
