Obituary: Father Charles Owen CP

Father Nicholas Postlethwaite
Apr 23rd, 2017

Father Charles Owen CP, Passionist and priest, died peacefully in the Pilgrim Hospice in Canterbury on 8th April 2017. Born in Liverpool on 2nd February 1939 he was 78 when he died.

As a young boy he had attended Blythe Hall – a Passionist Junior Seminary near Ormskirk. In 1956 he began his novitiate in St Saviour’s Retreat Broadway, Worcestershire. After taking vows on 29th September 1957 he moved to the Passionist House of Study in Minsteracres County Durham. After completing his study of philosophy and theology Charles was ordained a priest on 18th July 1964.

In later years Charles would reflect that despite many benefits of all the years of study, it was only after ordination and direct pastoral engagement with people, that he would begin to gain his self-confidence and ability to relate to everyone he met – which has been the hallmark of his ministry.

Over more than fifty years Charles served in Passionist parishes and communities: in St Non’s in St David’s Pembrokeshire, Minsteracres, Ilkley, and Broadway – and for many happy years in St Joseph’s Highgate. Since 2008 he has been a member of the Passionist community in Herne Bay. Into all these “fields” Charles plunged always with his customary zest for life and enthusiasm to reap the harvests that were ready. His open friendly and self-deprecating character made him a warm person people felt free to approach. His reputation spread and he was in great demand to share significant ups and downs of those who became his friends – not only in a current parish, but often invited back to celebrate with old friends their significant life moments.

Charles related to all without exception, but an undoubted preference was finding ways to encourage children and young people – a ministry for which he was exceptionally gifted. Down the years, Charles developed his own unique ways to encourage children respond to the joy of the gospel – a reality so evidently present in his own life. How did Charles achieve such evident rapport with the young? Perhaps it has something to do with never losing his innate Scouse sense of humour. Certainly Charles made children laugh – and adults too! Allegedly, Charles once appeared at a Highgate Parish Fete dressed in a Mr Blobby suit! Children responded to his sincerity and simplicity – they see he does not take himself too seriously, which many of us clergy too often do.

As one of his classmates it was a privilege to see how devotedly Charles preached the Gospel with unfailing sensitivity and compassion. St Francis might have been describing Charles when he encouraged Christians to preach the Gospel of Jesus always – only using words if absolutely necessary.

Charles was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in February 2017 and told he only had weeks to live. Since then, in the caring environment of the Pilgrim Hospice in Canterbury his room became a focus for an ongoing pilgrimage of friends come from far and wide to say goodbye and thank him for the love he helped them articulate and share. We seemed to witness a miracle happening before our eyes in his last weeks in his hospice room. Despite increasing weakness as his body was failing, the paradox was Charles seemed to be growing in spiritual stature as he approached the end. How explain this apparent paradox?

On my last visit he pointed to one of many cards sent to him. It was a large homemade card. It was sent by the children and their teacher from St Mary’s School in Whitstable where Charles loved to visit every week. Opening the card he proudly showed inside dozens of personal drawings and messages from child telling him how much they loved him and how much he was missed.

In his final instruction for his Requiem Charles asked that the Gospel should be the one where St Luke recounts the story of Jesus welcoming the children and resisting disciple efforts to keep them at bay. “I know it is not a Gospel used at funerals” he acknowledged, “but it sums up everything I believe and how I want to be remembered.”

In an era when tragically stories regarding priests and children have often been shaming, the life and ministry alongside children of Father Charles Owen is a wonderfully encouraging Gospel antidote.

The children had a very prominent presence in his Requiem Mass celebrated on 21st April in the packed Passionist church in Herne Bay. The sound of children singing and praying for their friend Father Charles is something few of those present will forget. For his family, his Passionist brothers and the hundreds of friends who travelled from near and far, this Requiem brought real consolation in our loss of a wonderful man who had devoted his life to the witness of the Gospel.

May Father Charles Owen, CP rest in peace.