BY SUZANNE HAUGH

Staff Writer

MARIETTA--Author Robert Fulghum wrote that everything he needed to know he learned in kindergarten, but it took Patrick Bishop until the second grade to realize his calling to the priesthood.

This year Father Bishop, pastor of Transfiguration Church in Marietta, celebrates his 25th year of ordination. He credits his love for the Marist priests who were at St. Joseph’s Church and School in Marietta, which he attended, as one reason for his vocation.

“I knew I wanted to be a priest since I was in second grade, but it takes almost all of 25 years just to realize how badly I wanted to be a priest,” Father Bishop, 53, said. “It’s even more incredible than I ever dreamed it would be as a seminarian ... I’m grateful to all the priests who steered me in this direction.”

Marking an anniversary such as his silver jubilee has warranted reflection on his vocation.

“What’s also struck me is I could never imagine the depth of happiness in a relationship with Jesus that can develop in the priesthood over those years. I look at society, there’s so little peace. The gift Christ gives in his church is a gift of peace.”

Being a priest means witnessing to the many births, marriages and deaths along the life journeys of his parishioners.

“I’ve come to realize that the priesthood is about relationships. I have a relationship with anyone I’ve ever celebrated a sacramental moment with,” he said.

And Father Bishop’s history to date includes many rich relationships with those he’s served and with whom he has served.

Evidence lies in the May 15 celebration of his jubilee. Father Bishop baptized Mark Keeler Buis and Christopher Patrick Manning, children of former high school students whom he taught. He confirmed Patrick Lindsey Cook, whom he baptized and to whom he gave first Communion. And he renewed the marriage vows of Steve and Melinda Boothe, childhood friends of Father Bishop and the first couple he married.

Father Gavin Barnes, spiritual director to Father Bishop while he was in the seminary at St. Meinrad in Indiana, began the jubilee Mass by reading words Father Bishop prepared.

“A 25th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood is not a celebration of a ‘thing,’ a state or even a vocation. It is a celebration of relationships in Jesus Christ through the holy and intimate family that is church.”

Rosemarie Erbs, a friend and past parishioner of Father Bishop’s, remembered listening to these words.

“You know when you hear the truth and you say, ‘Ah, yes!’ That was the way it was with everyone in the congregation,” said Erbs, a parishioner at Our Lady of Assumption Church, Atlanta.

Erbs met Father Bishop briefly as a seminarian, but she and her husband, Lou, later worked with him when he served at Holy Cross Church, Atlanta, from 1974-76.

Father Bishop has “a marvelous sense of humor,” Erbs said. “You would never know when he’d show up to zing you.”

Through Father Bishop’s love of liturgy, Erbs is among many who receive a spiritual ‘zing’ from his services.

“For who we are as Catholic Christians, he makes everything so relevant,” she said. “(Attending Mass is) a part of the week that rejuvenates and renews you. You don’t go to hide … You’re given an extra push if you’re not on the right path.”

Every year Erbs and her husband try to attend the Holy Thursday liturgy Father Bishop prepares. All of those having their feet washed are introduced to the congregation. A large table replaces the altar and anyone who has a part in the liturgy sits around the table.

“It’s dramatic in every way and beautifully presented,” she said.

Erbs hopes her presence at the Holy Thursday liturgy also conveys to Father Bishop the importance of their relationship.

Father Ed O’Connor, pastor of Queen of Angels Church in Thomson, recalled many fond memories with Father Bishop at Holy Cross Church where Father Bishop served as parochial vicar soon after his ordination.

“(Father Bishop’s) a very good liturgist and an excellent homilist,” Father O’Connor said. “It comes very naturally to him. He always loved to celebrate the Mass; he loved liturgy.”

Father O’Connor also remembered one particular liturgy Father Bishop prepared while at Holy Cross. He had arranged for a rock band to play.

“When people gave him an ovation after the entrance hymn, I knew we were in trouble,” Father O’Connor said.

Father Richard Morrow, the vicar for clergy now residing at the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta, can also attest to Father Bishop’s unique approach to liturgy.

“He does wonderful things to make the liturgy more interesting for more people,” Father Morrow said. “He’s very knowledgeable and his theology is very sound.”

Father Morrow was sent to Smyrna to establish a parish in 1967. That summer Father Bishop, then a seminarian, served under Father Morrow who became a mentor to him. Father Bishop’s mother and father died while he was preparing for the priesthood and so he spent many vacations and holidays with Father Morrow.

“I’m glad that he did pursue the priesthood because he’s sure been a blessing to (the Archdiocese of) Atlanta,” Father Morrow said.

Father Bishop has had many homes within the archdiocese. He served as parochial vicar at St. Thomas More Church, Decatur, and Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Decatur, from 1976-79. Later he was spiritual director at St. Pius X High School in Atlanta from 1979-83 before serving as pastor of the Church of St. Bernadette, Cedartown, from 1983-89.

Father Bishop recently attended a funeral in Cedartown. The Rev. Jerry Mahan, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cedartown, said that Father Bishop is “still fondly remembered.”

Mahan and Father Bishop worked together in many ways. Both were members of the Cedartown Ministerial Association, they exchanged pulpits and they started the Samaritan House, a place local residents in crisis can go to for food before receiving welfare.

Their efforts to alleviate ill will between the growing number of Hispanics moving into the area to work at a local food processing plant and longtime Cedartown residents resulted in the formation of a community relations committee.

These accomplishments, as well as the start of a workers union to handle labor unrest with management at the food processing plant, earned both Father Bishop and Mahan local and statewide acclaim.

“Father Bishop was really the moving force behind everything (to settle the labor unrest),” Mahan said. “We did a lot of things together, but if I was a partner, I was a junior partner.”

Mahan noted Father Bishop’s “strong sense of social justice.”

While living in Cedartown, Father Bishop was active in the Lions Club, the Polk County Chamber of Commerce, the Child Abuse Council, the NAACP and chaired the Polk County Heart Association. He also served as president of the Cedartown Ministerial Association and wrote a weekly column, “In the Land of the Living,” for the Cedartown Standard newspaper.

“He has as much energy as anyone I’ve ever known,” Mahan said, who likened him to President Roosevelt. “I’ve joked with him about a friend of (President) Roosevelt’s who said that Roosevelt wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.”

Through his role as pastor at St. Bernadette’s and his commitment to Cedartown, he has “made an impact on the community,” Mahan said.

Dolores Waters met Father Bishop while serving as youth minister at Holy Cross. She offered a litany of adjectives to describe Father Bishop.

“He’s a magnificent person--loyal, loving, energetic, has exceptional strength and is a superb liturgist.”

He is “marvelous” in youth ministry and his adept street sense is an asset with young and old.

“He’s a pragmatic person,” said Waters, who also served as youth consultant under the late Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan. “When he speaks to youth in trouble, or an adult, he’s not stilted or academic ... He moves easily among people and that’s a gift from God.”

Waters also enjoys Father Bishop’s approach to liturgy, which includes a keen sense of liturgical music.

Evidence, she said, is in Father Bishop’s direction of the renovation of Transfiguration Church, where he has been pastor since 1989.

“He had a major sense of what the entire worship scene should look like.”

Because of her past experience working with Father Bishop as a youth minister and also helping him on occasion when he served as spiritual director at St. Pius X High School, she calls him a “dynamo.”

While at Transfiguration Church, Father Bishop remains active in many ministries including youth ministry, adult education, involvement with civic groups and the media, ecumenical and interfaith events, and social justice issues which focus on the needy and eliminating the death penalty. He was elected for two terms as president of the Atlanta Council of Priests and has served on the Archdiocesan Finance Review Board.

Father Bishop received the Clergy of the Year Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1994 along with Rabbi Steven Lebow. For his outstanding service in the spiritual development of Catholic youth, the Boy Scouts of America presented him with the Bronze Pelican Award. And in 1996 Father Bishop carried the Olympic torch through the streets of College Park.

For someone with a history as full of varied experiences and accomplishments as this, it is no wonder that the closest Father Bishop has come to temperance was to name one of his basset hounds after it.

“When he feels like there is a need, he goes full tilt,” Waters said. “He keeps a good pulse on the community.”

And what binds a community are the relationships among its members. That’s one thing Erbs remembers when she recalls Father Bishop’s priesthood.

“There’s a sense of belonging, of owning a piece of each other,” she said. “We belong to each other.”

SILVER ANNIVERSARY -- Father Pat Bishop, pastor of the Church of the Transfiguration in Marietta since 1989, is the main celebrant during a Mass of thanksgiving May 15 in honor of his 25th year as a priest.
Photos by Michael Alexander

RENEWING VOWS -- Steve and Melinda Boothe, the first couple married by Father Pat Bishop 25 years ago, beam after renewing their marriage vows during the Mass at which the pastor celebrates his 25 years of priesthood. The couple’s two daughters tearfully look on. Boothe and Father Bishop have been friends since kindergarten. Afterwards Father Bishop presented the Boothes with 25 red roses.