FATHER Stephen Rooney was a compassionate and practical Christian pastor with a razor-sharp wit.
From Ballymacarrett/Short Strand in east Belfast, Stephen tragically drowned in a boating accident in his adopted home of Detroit on Sunday August 16.
One of 15 children, he lived at Anderson Street with his parents, the late John and Catherine, and if truth be told, his was an unlikely journey to the priesthood.
In fact, a newspaper once ran a story about him under the headline “The monk who used to stone the Brits”.
Aged 16, Stephen entered the house of the Passionist Order at Tobar Mhuire (Mary’s Well) in Crossgar, Co Down.
Subsequently he joined the Redemptorist Order, first in Clonard in west Belfast and then the order’s house in Esker, Galway.
He worked in the St Vincent De Paul charity shop in Galway, and was active in a programme to help young Traveller children. This was at a time when there was much anti-Traveller sentiment in the city.
Coming from a background in the north of Ireland, where Catholics suffered institutionalised discrimination at the hands of the state, heightened his strong sense of social justice.
Stephen took his vows as a brother with the Redemptorists in St Joseph’s, Dundalk in 1975.
He then took an unexpected detour when he decided to enter the Cistercian Order.
In 1978 he joined the monastery at Bolton Abbey, Co Kildare where, with his characteristic enthusiasm, he undertook the ascetic life of a monk.
The routine of communal prayer, physical labour and solitary contemplation left an imprint on him for the rest of his life.
Stephen took his final vows while a member of the Cistercian community in June 1985.
The following year he left for the United States.
He stepped back into the world as a priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit, working in parishes including St Martin de Porres, Warren; St Alphonsus, Dearborn; St Michael’s, Monroe; Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Temperance; Our Lady on the River, Marine City, and finally at St Joseph’s in Trenton.
There is a short blessing in Irish, “Is gaire cabhair Dé ná an doras (God’s help is closer than the door), that underpinned the compassionate and practical love which Stephen showed in his mission as a Christian minister.
Fr Stephen connected with people on a fundamental level and established deep-seated and lifelong friendships everywhere he served and studied.
He had a wicked sense of humour which endeared him to people. He loved life, was an avid reader, a skilled debater, a lover of art-house film, music and religious architecture.
Fr Stephen is survived by 12 brothers and sisters, Jim, Betty, Marie, Eddie, Gerald, Dolores, Patrick, Aodh, Pilib, Brendan, Bernadette and Paula; brothers and sisters-in-law; and 47 nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his brothers John jnr (1945, aged 11 months) and Billy (1951, aged four days), and his parents John (1999) and Catherine (2017).
A Mhuire na nGael guigh ar a shon agus go raibh suaimhneas síoraí ar a anam uasal.
