By William S. Bike
Dismas Fernandez, a permanent deacon of the Roman Catholic Church and one of the founders of Gazette Chicago, died Oct. 18, 2021. He was 80 years old.
Growing up on the Near West Side, Deacon Fernandez and his twin sister, Mary Ann, were baptized at Notre Dame de Chicago Church, in what is now Our Lady of the Holy Family Parish.
He graduated from 1960 from St. Philip Basilica High School in Chicago. He studied accounting at DePaul University and Loyola University and worked as an accountant for Liquid Carbonic Corp. and other companies for many years.
During the 1970s, with the help of the Midtown Center youth program, he published a mimeographed community newsletter called the Near West Side Gazette,which inspired local resident Mark Valentino to start another publication with Fernandez’s help. In 1983, Fernandez helped Valentino found Gazette Chicago,then called the Near West Gazette. Fernandez was one of the newspaper’s first associate editors and continued in that role for several years.
“He was our associate editor, accountant, institutional memory, unofficial ethics officer, cheerleader, colleague, and friend,” Valentino said. “He was steadfast in the belief that we would be successful and helped us fight the good fight hundreds of times, often when outside forces wanted to shut us down. Today, Gazette Chicago is celebrating its 38th year of publishing. We have survived three recessions and an international pandemic. Dismas’s sprit never left us even after he left the editorial staff—and his indomitable will burns brightly in the work that we do today.”
In 1992, he was ordained a permanent deacon. In that role Deacon Fernandez worked on baptismal preparation, baptisms, marriage preparation, marriages, wakes, funerals, preaching, ministry of care, immigration advocacy, and immigration detainee visitation.
“In his 29 years as a deacon, Dismas served in several parishes including Notre Dame de Chicago, St. Maurice, and Blessed Sacrament in the McKinley Park community,” said the Office of the Diaconate of the Archdiocese of Chicago in a statement. “He was involved with Cursillo,” a movement to help Christians strengthen their faith, “as a spiritual director for a number of years, visited the homebound, and worked with the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults program helping to bring people into the Catholic Church.
“He also worked with the deacon formation program, the Office of Immigrant Affairs, and Priests for Justice,” the statement continued. “Dismas had a passion for immigration outreach and working with migrants. One pastor described him as having ‘a strong passion for service.’”
Cynthia Wollschlager, a parishioner at Blessed Sacrament, recalled Deacon Fernandez’s passion for visiting the sick and bringing them communion.
“He was a holy man, very compassionate,” she said. “If people couldn’t afford to pay him, he would just donate his services. Concerning funerals, no matter what funeral director I sent him to, the family thought he was fabulous. And his ability to speak Spanish served the congregation well.
“Everything he did was for the parish and for God,” she said.
Another parishioner, Ed Murphy, agreed.
“He was just a really good man,” Murphy said. “When I first met him he said, ‘I’m here to serve.’ He was well suited to the role of deacon and was very generous with his time.
“I’ll always remember his homilies, his sermons,” Murphy noted. “You could tell he really worked hard on them and thought them through.”
Deacon Fernandez also was a member of the Knights of Columbus, Daniel Dowling Council.
Earlier in life, he was a scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts. Valentino was one of the scouts who came under Fernandez’s tutelage, recalling that Fernandez “took over a dismantled Boy Scout Troop order and gave a bunch of us a chance to escape the grit and grim that was cast over this community from the many factory smokestacks that were within walking distance of this church. With so many of our dads working late shifts or second jobs, Dismas took on the duties of scoutmaster with little to no help.
“Our scoutmaster’s generosity held no bounds, from providing for most of the food—and sometimes treating us to steak dinners on Saturday night—to buying us a toboggan to go sledding in the winter,” Valentino said.
He is survived by his sister, Mary Ann D. Jurgus, and many cousins, nephews, nieces, and their children. He was preceded in death by his parents and six brothers.
Our Lady of the Holy Family Parish held a funeral liturgy in remembrance of him on Oct. 23. Interment is at Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Hillside, IL.