Featured Stories | November 12, 2025
Remembering Fr. Steve…
Fr. Steve Pujdak, SCJ, 82, died early today, November 12, in Dunedin, FL (near Pinellas Park). He had been struggling with a variety of medical issues for several months (including AFib and a fractured back).
Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Fr. Steve professed his first vows with the Priests of the Sacred Heart (Dehonians) in 1962. Among those in his novitiate class: Fr. Tom Cassidy, SCJ, Fr. Mark Fortner, SCJ, and Fr. Pat Lloyd, SCJ.
Fr. Steve’s initial studies were at the Dehonians’ seminaries in Honesdale, PA (Kilroe) and Sacred Heart in Hales Corners, WI. He later went on to the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, where he earned a Ph.D. and an STD in theology.
He was ordained to the priesthood in 1969 by Bishop Joseph DePalma, SCJ, former superior general of the Priests of the Sacred Heart.
Fr. Steve’s first full-time assignments were in academics, initially serving as a professor at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology (1975-77) and at Marquette University in Milwaukee (1977-82). In 1983 he joined provincial administration as planning director and then as provincial secretary.
In 1988 he moved to the Rio Grande Valley, where he ministered at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Raymondville, TX, from 1988-2004. He then moved to Pinellas Park, FL, where he assisted with the province retirement community there and did support ministry in the diocese. In recent years was a fully retired member of the community.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
“Immigrants to the hearing world”
Both of Fr. Steve’s parents were deaf and he considered sign language to be his first language. He often was available for ministry to the deaf and hard of hearing. In an interview for a project about immigration in 2015, he shared his parents’ immigration story with Fr. Juan Carlos Castañeda Rojas, SCJ, who was a seminarian at the time. An excerpt from Fr. Juancho’s write-up from that interview:
“Fr. Steve’s parents were both first generation Americans, his father’s family immigrated from Poland and his mother’s from Ukraine. During the period in which his parents met, Polish people and Ukrainian people did not usually get along very well. But this particular couple shared something in common: both were deaf and were attending the same school for deaf people. So for his mom and dad nationalities were not a real concern. Their meeting was a beautiful experience because many times when young people meet, the language they speak, even their accents, can be a barrier. But in this case the lack of communication via spoken language helped bring together two people who did not care about nationalities; they fell in love and got married.
“In a humorous way, Fr. Steve remembers that in his fifth year of school the curriculum had a class in the Polish language. Because Fr. Steve came from a Polish background, it was easy for fellow students and teachers to assume that he had some knowledge of the Polish language; many people were surprised that neither Fr. Steve nor his brother knew Polish. Fr. Steve used to answer: ‘Well my parents did not speak Polish, in fact they did not speak even English because they are deaf.’ Because of this story, Fr. Steve explained that his first language was not Polish or English but sign language. His family were immigrants to the hearing world.”
Funeral Mass
Three of Fr. Steve Pujdak’s SCJ novitiate classmates – Fr. Tom Cassidy, Fr. Mark Fortner and Fr. Patrick Lloyd – joined Fr. Vien Nguyen, SCJ, at the altar on Friday, concelebrating the Mass of Christian Burial for Fr. Steve on Friday, November 21, 2025
Click here to read Fr. Pat’s homily.
Click here to view photos from the Funeral Mass.