Plans for a party to celebrate a youth minister’s 25 years of service to St. Philip and James Catholic Church were dashed last month when he was fired without warning.

Longtime parishioner Kim Fuchs called youth minister Frank Brancaccio “a wonderful role model” and says no reason was given for his firing.

“We were planning the party and suddenly we were told that he had been fired,” she told News 12. “We want answers. He’s such a special part of our parish.”

Adam Henchel, who was also part of the youth ministry program at SSPJ, started a petition asking the Diocese of Rockville Centre to remove Pastor Thomas Haggerty due to what the petition calls “mismanagement” of the parish and the “abrupt and unjustified firing of our youth minister.”

“In less than 24 hours we had 500 signatures,” says Henchel. “Within a week, it was up to 1,000. All of this has been sent to the bishop, but we received nothing but automatic responses.”

Sean Dolan, the director of communications for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, sent a statement to News 12 saying: "The parish followed all HR protocols. This employment relationship was not terminated arbitrarily." He added that the diocese “is unaware of any complaints of sexual misconduct related to this matter."

News 12 reached out to Brancaccio who said he could not comment on the situation.

Parishioners at Saints Philip and James Parish say the coverage from News 12 led to the abrupt cancelation of Wednesday evening’s youth ministry meeting.