Local and state police officers, firefighters and emergency medical service personnel are invited to participate in the Blue Mass at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, November 13 at the Saint Vincent Basilica. The Blue Mass was first celebrated in 1934 at Saint Patrick’s Church in Washington, D.C., and since then has become a tradition in which local communities gather to celebrate and thank those who serve in the aforementioned roles in their communities. The Mass also honors those who have died in the line of duty.
The event is sponsored by Saint Vincent Archabbey, College and Seminary and the Diocese of Greensburg.
Mass will be celebrated by Father Joseph Adams, O.S.B., presently serving as subprior of the Archabbey. Father Joseph was a chaplain at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia following his ordination in 2009. In 2011, he was deployed to Afghanistan. Upon his return he served at Fort Benning Georgia, and Fort Eustis, Virginia, until 2015 when he was deployed to serve in both Iraq and Jordan. Father oseph is also fire chief of the Saint Vincent Fire Department and previously served as the Saint Vincent director of public safety.
Detective Tony Marcocci will speak at the Mass. In 1975, Marcocci began working at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C., where he successfully completed school on Classifying and Identifying fingerprints. In 1977, he began working for the Allegheny County Crime Laboratory, as a fingerprint examiner. In 1979, Tony began working for the Westmoreland County District Attorneys Office, as supervisor of the Westmoreland County Records and Identification unit. In 1981, he received the Man of the Year award for his work in Latent Fingerprint Identification, from the Pennsylvania State Division of the International Association for Identification.
In 1985, hewas assigned to the Vice and Narcotics Unit where his job was to work in an undercover capacity to purchase quantities of controlled substances and successfully prosecute these cases. Since then, he has attended numerous seminars relative to various types of drugs, how they are used, packaged and sold. These seminars have been sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and various state and local police departments.
Over the years, Marcocci has been involved in thousands of investigations involving violations of both federal and state narcotics laws. He is a qualified expert in narcotics in the federal courts of the Western District of Pennsylvania along with the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County.
In December of 2002, Marcocci testified before members of the House Government Reform Committee hearings on “America’s Heroin Crisis, Colombian Heroin, and How We Can Improve Plan Colombia”, in Washington D.C. He received the Distinguished Career Service Award from the County and State Detectives Association of Pennsylvania in 2006 and the Outstanding Performance Commendation from the Pennsylvania Narcotics Officers Association in 2011.
He has testified in federal court in the Western District of Pennsylvania and in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court on numerous occasions relative to various aspects of narcotics and trafficking as an expert. He continues to serve on the Advisory Board for the Westmoreland County Overdose Task Force and the Drug Court Team for Westmoreland County. April 2021, Marcocci received the award for tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to the support of the Drug Treatment Court Program and its participants.
