Father Figlia, 91, served at St. John Bosco in Harvey

By Salesian Father Mike Mendl
Contributing writer

Salesian Father Isidore Joseph Figlia, familiarly known as Father Sid, died at St. Philip the Apostle Residence in Tampa on March 6.  He was 91 years old and had been a professed Salesian of Don Bosco for 63 years and a priest for 53 years.

Father Figlia had been in poor health for a long time, including a bout with COVID-19 in 2020. After a brief hospitalization this winter, he went into hospice care at home on Feb. 25.

Father Figlia served in many of the works of the New Rochelle Province, most notably 19 years at St. John Bosco Parish in Harvey, as assistant pastor (1984-1987) and then pastor (1994-2010).

He was born on April 8, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, son of James and Frances Marchese Figlia. After high school, he served in the U.S. Army and entered the adult candidacy program at Don Bosco College in Newton, New Jersey, on July 1, 1956.

  In September 1957 he was admitted to St. Joseph’s Novitiate in Newton, where one of his 41 classmates was Frank Carabello. They professed as Salesians at Newton on Sept.  8, 1958.

At St. John Bosco in Harvey, he had a thriving parish and shared a thriving parochial school with the other Salesian parish in town, St. Rosalie. He was loved by his parishioners, enjoyed the comradeship and parochial assistance of his confreres at Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero, and was close to his old classmate, Father Frank Carabello, who had become a priest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and was pastor of St. Joseph in Gretna.

Hurricane Katrina in the late summer of 2005 changed everything.  He continued his faithful service for five more years, but the parish and the school struggled with the storm damage, the departure of many people, and a heavy blow to the local economy.

In 2010 Father Figlia moved back north, assigned to the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw, New York.

His Funeral Mass was celebrated March 10 at Mary Help of Christians Church in Tampa. Burial was in the Salesian Cemetery in Goshen, New York. He is survived by a first cousin, Sister Rosemarie Figlia, S.S.J., of Brentwood, New York, and a second cousin, Joseph Pizzigno of Florida.