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  Monsignor Is Celebrating 50 Years in Priesthood

Tribune Democrat
May 25, 2007

Monsignor Thomas K. Mabon celebrated 50 years as a priest on May 25.

A Mass will be celebrated in his honor on June 3 at Our Mother of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church, 415 Tioga St., Westmont.

Mabon was pastor at Our Mother of Sorrows from 1993 to 2001, when he retired at age 75.

He graduated from Johnstown Catholic High School, now Bishop McCort, in 1944, and received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and history from Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Md., in 1951.

Mabon attended Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C., for two years and studied for the priesthood at St. Vincent Seminary, Latrobe.

He was ordained May 25, 1957, and celebrated his first Mass the next day at Our Mother of Sorrows.

Mabon's first assignment was as assistant pastor at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Renovo, Clinton County, where he also was a teacher in the high school.

He was transferred to Gallitzin, where he continued pastoral work at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church and teaching at the elementary level.

Mabon taught Latin and English at Bishop Carroll High School in Ebensburg from 1960 to 1964.

"I didn't think I wanted to be a teacher, but God knew better," Mabon said.

"I was living at the parish doing work there and teaching full time."

He served as assistant principal at Bishop Carroll from 1964 to 1967.

Mabon has master's degrees in religious education and education and systematic drawing.

After serving as assistant superintendent of schools for the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese, Mabon was named superintendent in 1969.

He was named papal chamberlain, or monsignor, in 1973.

While serving as superintendent, he was appointed pastor of St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church in 1973 and pastor of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Hollidaysburg in 1976.

Mabon was superinten- dent of schools until 1987, when he had heart bypass surgery.

"I resigned and retained the pastorate at St. Mary's," Mabon said.

Mabon remained at St. Mary's until 1993, when he became pastor at Our Mother of Sorrows in Westmont.

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