He first arrived on Block Island in 1958, hired to be a summer chef.He was not invited back. Everyone lost weight.But maybe, just maybe, they should have followed his diet, as at age 85, Monsignor John C. Halloran still looks like he’s 50, and appears as fit and full of energy as he was when he was 30. He daily plies all the hills and trails that Block Island can throw at one, gets his own bottled water from springs off of Cooneymus Road, gulps enough coffee daily to make a Starbucks shareholder giddy, and still gets around on his motorcycle. Yes, 85 and still riding a motorcycle.
During his 60 years visiting Block Island on and off, (he affords St. Andrew’s Pastor Rev. Joe Protano and past pastors their yearly vacation), he has lived it all. From a first year curate “temporarily” housed for six years in a custodian’s closet at St. Matthews parish in Cranston, to stints as the vocation director and rector in Warwick and Providence, an educator teaching high school for 15 years by the gritty corners of Chalkstone and River Avenue in Providence, to multiple assignments in different parishes working his way up
