By Gretchen Keiser

Father Brent Bohan died on Pentecost Sunday, May 22, at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta where he had been ill for several months.

The bilingual priest, who served the Hispanic community of the archdiocese of Atlanta from Immaculate Heart of Mary parish, was 33 years old and had been ordained for seven years.

As a student, according to one of his priest friends, he failed a course in Spanish, but he learned the spoken language on the streets during parish work in Miami and Puerto Rico and polished his fluency, and his embrace of the Hispanic culture, during his time at IHM.

His Spanish was “not good – it was perfect,” said Deacon Jorge Gonzalez, a Cuban native who worked with Father Bohan during his four years at IHM. “He didn’t have a trace of an Anglo accents.” But more than his fluency, Father Bohan brought himself to a complete familiarity with the Hispanic community, the deacon said. “He knew the culture, the way Hispanics thought.”

Because he was Anglo and not Hispanic, his impact upon the Catholic community was profound, Gonzalez said. Through his presence, “the message people got was, the Church of Atlanta cares, Bishop Donnellan cares,” Deacon Gonzalez said. “Here is the American Church learning Spanish…The Church becoming Hispanic.”

The message was: “We love you the way you are, where you are at. We want to preach Christ to you in your language.”

Father Bohan’s ministry had more impact in the Hispanic community than his own, Deacon Gonzalez said, or that of Hispanic priests.

The son of Robert and Shirley Bohan, he was born in Miami, Florida, and originally applied to be a priest for the archdiocese of Miami after graduating from high school. But in 1979, when his parents decided to move to Atlanta from Florida, he applied to become a priest for Atlanta.

Following studies at St. John Vianney Minor Seminary in Miami, and St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, he was ordained on June 27, 1981.

Father Bohan served for two years in St. Jude’s parish in Sandy Springs and was assigned to IHM in June 1983. He worked in the parish and the wider Hispanic community for the next four years.

Father Terry Kane, pastor of IHM, said that he took a fledgling Hispanic program and strengthened it, working with lay people and being accepted by the parish’s English speaking and Hispanic communities. “He was so marvelous in both communities,” Father Kane said. He organized a major Hispanic festival at IHM in 1985, at which the different nationalities of the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Mexico were represented and celebrated.

Father Kane remembered him hammering nails and putting up makeshift stages and booths for the festival. Deacon Gonzalez also recalled his unassuming presence. During weekend retreats for Hispanic youth, called Experiencia Cristo, Father Bohan would celebrate Mass, hear confessions and give spiritual direction to dozens of young adults. But he also swept the floors and made the beds during the retreats at Hard Labor Creek Camp, the deacon said. When Gonzalez’ son was being married at IHM, a last minute hitch developed when they found out no one had remembered the candles for a candelabra. “Brent disappeared,” the deacon recounted. “He had gone to K-Mart to buy the candles.”

“He was a humble priest,” the deacon said. “He was not clerical.”

“He was obviously a man of prayer – that came across loud and clear. He initiated programs and activities, but what made what he did effective was his spirituality.”

Father Ed Thein, who served at St. Jude’s with Father Bohan, said he took his responsibility as a priest seriously and “always stretched himself out -–like a one dollar bill trying to be a two dollar bill.” He took his Catholic faith so seriously that his priest friends kidded him about being the “defender of the faith.”

Out of approximately 15 Experiencia Cristo weekends, Father Bohan worked on 13 of them since 1981, Gonzalez said. He encouraged an Hispanic prayer group for young adults, attending when he could, praying with them and going out to eat at the fast food places afterwards with the group. He started a weekly Mass at a Mexican restaurant for Mexicans who had to work on Sundays, the deacon said. “This guy was so interested in the Hispanic community that people who couldn’t go to Mass, he went to the Mexican restaurant to have Mass for them….I really truly believe that the Hispanic community was his family. He would always refer to the community as “Mi Familiar.” That’s how he would start his homilies.”

When Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge from Mexico came to the archdiocese to work, Father Bohan took a special interest in them, Father Kane said. In turn, he was cared for by members of their order both in Mexico, where he became ill in 1986 while traveling there, and during recent months. Sister Martha Herrera, O.S.F. cared for him diligently as did friends from the IHM community.

A rosary was to be said at a Vespers service Tuesday evening, May 24 at IHM parish, and a concelebrated Mass, with Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, S.S.J., as principal celebrant, was to be celebrated at IHM on Wednesday, May 25 at 11 a.m. Burial was to follow at Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs.

In additional to his parents, who are members of St. Philip Benizi parish in Jonesboro, he is survived by two brothers, Marc of Jacksonville, Florida, and Damon of Jonesboro, and by his grandmother, Hazel F. Anderson of Riverdale.

In lieu of flowers, his family has asked that contributions be made to the Franciscan Religious of Our Lady of Refuge in care of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 2855 Briarcliff Road, N.E., Atlanta.