St. Anthony Catholic School in downtown Fort Lauderdale, the first Catholic school in Broward County, has begun a yearlong celebration of its 100th anniversary. The festivities opened on September 13 with a Mass, an open house and a surprise from a Fort Lauderdale tech company: a lifelike, talking digital version of the priest who led the parish for half a century.

A century downtown

St. Anthony grew up with the city around it. The parish's first, smaller church went up on East Las Olas Boulevard and was dedicated in 1922 as the first Catholic church in Broward. The school followed, and the campus filled in over the decades: a convent in 1939, a gymnasium the next year, and in 1949 the church that still stands today. The school's high school division eventually became St. Thomas Aquinas High School, still a fixture of Broward Catholic education.

Today St. Anthony serves more than 430 students from Pre-K 3 through eighth grade, and the principal, Jenna McIntosh, has said its admissions waiting list is long. The campus has been going through renovations and upgrades as it heads into its second century. The school was once staffed by Adrian Dominican sisters from Michigan, and many families now count three and four generations of St. Anthony students.

A blessing from Rome and a proclamation from City Hall

The centennial Mass carried two notable pieces of paper. The school received an apostolic blessing from Pope Leo XIV for the anniversary, and the pastor, Father Rolando Cabrera, displayed it in the church. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis then presented a proclamation from the city, joined by City Commissioner Pamela Beasley-Pittman.

After Mass, the school opened its doors. Student guides led tours of the historic campus, memorabilia displays lined the halls, and alumni from as far back as the 1970s walked into their old homerooms. The theme for the year is "Honoring Our Past, Building Our Future."

Father O'Looney, in pixels

The moment people will remember came in the gym. ConstantLife, an artificial intelligence company based in Fort Lauderdale, built a photoreal, speaking avatar of Father John O'Looney, who was first appointed pastor of St. Anthony in 1929 and stayed for about fifty years. He oversaw the building of the 1949 church. Visitors could stand at a large screen, ask him questions, push back on his answers and hear about the parish in the voice of the man who built much of it.

The project came together quickly. ConstantLife founder Scott Coloney, who is also a trustee of the nonprofit History Fort Lauderdale, said the team started curating material only about three weeks before the event. Volunteers walked across the street to the parish research center and scanned documents, photographs, newspaper clippings and recorded oral histories from priests who knew him, none of which had been digitized before. The story they assembled runs from his birth in County Clare, Ireland, in 1900, to his ordination at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and his arrival in South Florida in the late 1920s.

The company has built similar figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Hancock for museums and classrooms. Coloney has said more material will be added to Father O'Looney over time, so the avatar should keep getting better through the centennial year.

What it means for Fort Lauderdale

Few institutions downtown can say they have been teaching children since before the city's skyline existed. For alumni, the centennial is a year of reasons to come back, and for newer residents it is a chance to see a piece of Fort Lauderdale's history that is still a working school. Watch the Archdiocese of Miami news pages and the parish for centennial events through the 2026 to 2027 school year, and if you are an alum, this is the year to dig out the class photo.