After attending grade schools in his home town of Peabody, Massachusetts, James Sherry received his A.B. degree from Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1907. He continued his education at Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary, where he received his PhD in 1909. After graduating from Saint Charles College in Boston, Massachusetts, and Saint John’s Seminary in Boston, he was ordained a Catholic Priest on November 30, 1912. He served as Pastor of Saint Thomas Church in Boston, and worked for Brothers of Charity, and then served as an assistant at Saint Patrick’s Church in Roxbury, and then Saint Thomas Church in Jamaica Plain. He entered military service prior to World War I and was commissioned a U.S. Army chaplain, serving with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. From 1932 to 1938 he was Curate of Saint Bridgit’s Roman Catholic Church in Maynard, Massachusetts, and was pastoring Saint Thomas Church in Boston prior to his death in 1947.