Born in Rome, Rev. Paris was the oldest and longest ordained priest in Archdiocese of Boston
If you grew up in Malden’s Edgeworth neighborhood in parts of four decades, you knew his name and what he meant to the community. For just over 30 years, Father John U. Paris served as a priest in two of Malden’s most prominent bastions of Catholic worship, located almost exactly one mile apart in the city’s West End. Father Paris, a native of Rome, Italy, passed away peacefully at the Regina Cleri residence for retired priests on January 15, 2025. He was 97 years old.
His last stop as a parish priest was at the former St. Peter’s Church on Pearl Street, Malden, serving until just before it closed as a Catholic church in 2005. Father Paris continued to serve others, however, when he returned as a faculty member to St. Sebastian School in Needham. He was a familiar face to generations of students at St. Sebastian Country Day School, at both its previous and current campuses, having been on the faculty before his years in Malden…