After “playing” priest as a little boy on Saturday mornings, & regulating his siblings to the altar servers & parishioners, Fr. Peter entered the seminary at 13 years old.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 5, 1942 to Pasquale and Lucy Sticco, the unstoppable decisiveness that defined his life started with his early vocation to the priesthood.
At 13, he entered the Pallottine Minor Seminary at Bishop Eustace Preparatory School in Pennsauken, New Jersey, followed by his Noviate at Queen of Apostles in Sag Harbor, New York. He made his first profession on August 22, 1962, moving then to the Pallottine Seminary at Green Hill, Maryland, to pursue his undergraduate and graduate studies at Xaverian College, St. Joseph Seminary, and Oblate College. On April 12, 1969, at All Saints Catholic Church in Brooklyn, he was ordained a priest.
During his incredible life, he met the Popes who would be Saints in Paul VI and John Paul II, and was close friends with Mother Teresa. He shared that he didn’t know how he was able to meet St. Pope Paul VI in the 60s, but the Holy Father told him, “you will be a great missionary one day.” His Holiness, recognized as a prophetic Pope, must have also sensed the talent & willpower of Fr. Peter, & the supernatural destiny to which he was bound. Just as it was impossible for St. John to write all of the miracles of Jesus — “the world itself would not contain the books that would be written” — so also is it impossible to to write the extent of just how many people Father touched.
On paper, he served as Provincial Rector multiple times — a position he held at the time of his death — as well as beloved Pastor of Our Lady of Grace Church and Academy, Our Lady of Pompei Church, Director of Pallottine Center for Apostolic Causes, the St. Jude Shrine Promotional Center, and Vocational Director. He also spearheaded the opening of the Pallottine Peruvian Mission in Ayacucho and Lima, in addition to the incomprehensible missions he supported across the world. In 1982, he started 20 years of servce as Chaplain in the US Air Force, and retired in 2002 as a Lietenant Colonel. Seeing the needs of married couples and families, he received a Masters of Arts from Iona College in 1988, and a Doctor of Ministry from New York Theological Seminary in 1991, both in family and marital counseling.
All his life, he distinctly championed the youth and young adults. He pushed them to “keep running the race, outstripping all those who are slow or fearful,” knowing that the Church needed their “momentum, intutions, and faith.”
Fr. Peter is survived by his siblings, Phyllis Condon, Jeannette Bertucelli, Charles Sticco, and Lucille Joye, 10 nieces and nephews, 19 grandnieces and grandnephews, his students at the Academy of Our Lady of Grace, Parishioners, and all of those in the world who loved him.