David Boeri is a reporter for a news station here in Boston. He is also a parishioner at Our Lady of Sorrows, in Sharon, MA, where Fr. Bob Bullock served before his death last month. Boeri has written a tribute to Fr. Bullock, describing why it is that his death is such a great loss for his community, the archdiocese of Boston, and the Catholic Church in the United States.

A Priest Named Bob
by David Boeri

While still a young priest, Bob Bullock once met legendary political activist Saul Alinsky on an airplane. Alinsky, who counted Tom Paine as one of his heroes, had spent a lifetime helping poor people organize to gain the power they needed to improve their communities. Alinsky knew that participation and a sense of belonging were the prescription against cynicism and despair.

"Do you want to be a priest or a bishop?" Bob Bullock remembered Alinsky asking him.

Not understanding, Bob asked what Alinsky meant.

"You need to decide now which you want to be, because it will make all the difference which path you take."

Bob Bullock, who would have been a great Bishop, chose to be a parish priest. He wanted and aspired to no higher office. In that role he became one of the very best, profoundly affecting the lives of his parishioners, among whom I was so fortunate to be numbered.

Reading news stories reporting his death, I was saddened to see the headlines compressing his life into "critic of the Archdiocese dead at 75." This needs to be addressed because Bob was so much more than that in life. He would have hated the headline.

He was, to be sure, ready for that moment when it came, calling for a prophetic voice to speak truth to power after the scandal broke about pedophile priests and the bishops who had protected them. His moral sense, his thinking and speaking, were as clear as a mountain stream.

But Bob hated the moment. I have never known a more loyal Catholic. He loved the Church, hated bringing attention to himself, and in a career of ministry had always sought to bring people together. Having chosen to become a parish priest, he was not political. He was more naive perhaps than Saul Alinsky, who said change means movement and movement means friction. But he never had a doubt that what he had to do was speak out against injustice and wrong. Moral truth meant everything.

As a chaplain at Brandeis in the Sixties, he had begun intensive study and discussion of the Holocaust. He visited the death camps, stood mute in the horror, and returned home to give voice to must be said. With brilliant mind and insatiable intellectual pursuit, he became what he would be loath to admit: a widely recognized scholar. He became an ardent, devoted supporter of Facing History and Ourselves, where for over thirty years he taught and challenged educators around the world to confront the legacy of the Holocaust and teach the history of Christian-Jewish relations in all their complexity. When asked how he had come to be so intensely interested in the Holocaust, he couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't be. Moral truth was everything.

Typically, Bob began speaking out about the scandal of sexual abuse by blaming himself - the only one he blamed by name-along with his fellow priests for having failed to uncover what was going on. He was horrified as evidence emerged of the concerted efforts of the hierarchy to protect pedophile priests, cover-up scandal, and reassign offenders. In his voice he was steady and stalwart.

An intensely private, modest man, he became a Rolodex entry for newspaper and television reporters across the country: Skeptics and cynics were deeply impressed by the man they had interviewed. He was calm, measured, clear, forceful…and a disappointment to those who wanted him to storm the Bastille. With such moral authority, he led the Boston Priests Forum, encouraged Voice of The Faithful, called for reform and openness, and just as importantly called for due process for accused priests.

Along with fifty seven other priests, he signed a letter calling for the Cardinal to resign when the extent of the hierarchy's protection of pedophile priest became clear. Typically, he worried about the tone of the letter's language, yet he signed it, knowing that was what he must do. It was a moment of great significance for both Bob and the Archdiocese. But, for all its import, it was one moment in the course of a life that affected a wide spectrum of people.

In matters of spirituality, parish is where the rubber meets the road. That ministry doesn't make headlines for priests; it's a country road rather than the superhighway. That's where Bob wanted to be and where he became such an extraordinary success.

He talked of the Church not as a hierarchy with top-down chain of command, but as "We the pilgrim people of God," a constant reminder this Church was a community of believers. He treated the laity as fellow pilgrims. He loved being called "Bob." How much more user friendly can you get than a priest named Bob? At Our Lady of Sorrows in Sharon we loved him dearly.

Over and over again in the days following his death, parishioners have repeated the most simple and praiseworthy description I can imagine for a pastor: "he was always there for us."

Hundreds of families will tell you stories of how he came into their lives in their moment of greatest need with extraordinary compassion and wisdom. There was a happiness about him, an inviting smile, and an extraordinary ability in moments of tragedy and mourning to acknowledge the pain of loss while uplifting spirits with celebration of life and community. "Nobody did it better than him," observes the local funeral director.

My very young daughter, whom we had begun to teach about God and his goodness, actually thought Bob was God. In recognizing those qualities of happiness, compassion, love and acceptance, she was more right than wrong.

Before a proud old World War II veteran died, he announced that if the Church insisted that the American flag be removed from his coffin for his funeral mass, he wanted his coffin to be left on the street outside the Church. When the day of that funeral came, Bob told the congregation what the new Church rule was, and then with a smile, stated that given the circumstances, he didn't think God would mind having the flag remain for the rest of the service.

He knew the difference between the letter and the spirit of the law and of the Gospels. And he loved the Gospels as much as he loved the prophets calling out for justice and truth. He had a great teacher's gift of instilling us with the Word.

While never glossing over real differences, he sought common ground and understanding. He counseled interfaith couples, fostered dialogue between Christians and Jews, welcomed an Islamic mosque to Sharon, worked on the town's Youth Council, led interfaith tours to Israel to meet Jews and Palestinians there, and promoted Facing History and Ourselves (which honored his passionate service as Chairman of the Board and then as Chairman of the Board of Scholars by creating the Robert Bullock International Fellow Program). In Sharon, he was often respectfully addressed as Rabbi. His wisdom and spirituality transcended the borders of religion, but everyone knew, to the pride of his parishioners and his Church, that Bob was a Roman Catholic priest, our parish priest.

What Saul Alinsky understood about giving people a sense of participation and belonging and thus the antidote to cynicism and despair, Bob put into practice as a pastor. Lay people were his partners in ministry, in managing, and in teaching. He welcomed women into service and ministry, girls as altar servers. And he listened. He was a remarkable, even indulgent, listener. He praised the good. His intelligence was informed by an openness to have his own opinions changed.

He drew back into the Church many disaffected Catholics who saw in Bob inspiration and hope that his was a Church of openness, renewal, and a capacity as youthful as Bob to reform itself, ever seeking the truth.

This Easter he delivered six remarkably well-attended public lectures on the Gospel narratives and the Passion at a time when Mel Gibson's movie raised troubling questions. He was high-powered, articulate, possessed of great purpose, but also possessed by metastatic cancer yet undiagnosed.

Another moment came for which he was so exceptionally well prepared. He was extraordinary even in dying. He wrote an open letter to his parishioners announcing his terminal illness. He wrote the same thing he told people in person: he was unafraid, calm, and accepting of what was to come, though he regretted he still had work he hadn't finished.

At his funeral service, someone observed that "Bob invited you to give up your hurts." He carried other people's burdens without ever sharing his own. Even in dying, Bob carried out his pastoral duty, uncomplainingly consoling a long line of those coming to him in grief at his own impending death. "It was amazing how serene he was," observed one of his friends.

We have read so much in recent months about priests who were some of the worst. Here among us was one of the very best. A loyal Roman Catholic whose compassion and wisdom transcended religious borders. Scholar, teacher, chaplain, pastor, ecumenist, reformer, and gifted priest who saw himself as a fellow pilgrim. Dead at 75.

David Boeri, a reporter for WCVB-TV, was a parishioner at Our Lady of Sorrows in Sharon and a longtime friend.

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