Msgr. Daniel S. Hamilton, 87

Msgr. Daniel S. Hamilton died on Feb. 18. He had served the Diocese of Rockville Centre in many roles including information director, editor of The Long Island Catholic Newspaper, college chaplain, pastor, and director of the Pastoral Institute for Ecumenism. He was 87.

Born in Far Rockaway, Msgr. Hamilton graduated from Cathedral College in Brooklyn and Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington. He was ordained on May 31,1958, at St. Agnes Cathedral, Rockville Centre. His first assignment was as an associate pastor at St. Anne, Garden City. He took on the additional roles of chaplain of the Newman Clubs at Adelphi and Hofstra Colleges. He was appointed to the Diocesan Commission of Ecumenism and later the director of the Pastoral Institute for Ecumenism.

He became the director of the diocesan Bureau of Information in 1968 and editor of The Long Island Catholic newspaper in 1975 In 1985, he was named pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish, Lindenhurst, where he served until his retirement in 2007. In 2015, Msgr. Hamilton published a book "Jousting with The New York Times," a collection of the Letters to the Editor he had submitted to the paper from 1961 to 2015, usually explaining and defending Catholic teaching.

He told a reporter that the goal of his letters was to fulfill what he felt was his public duty as a citizen and as a Catholic, to engage in the political sphere and to try to contribute to the common good.

“It’s our obligation as citizens and certainly as Catholics even more so, to contribute to the common good of society,” he said, “to support those measures, policies and laws which enhance our society, which defend and uphold the dignity of the human person, and to oppose those things which we are convinced are harmful to ourselves and to the future of our society.” -Long Island Catholic