Fr. Robert Bauer, SDB (1941-2020)
Fr. Robert Bauer died peacefully around 10:00
p.m. on March 23, apparently of heart failure, at United Hebrew Nursing Home in
New Rochelle, N.Y., where he’d been resident for a few months. He was 78 years old and had been a professed
Salesian 59 years and a priest 48 years.
Bob Bauer was born in Chicago on June 25,
1941, the son of Viktor and Mildred Paulsen Bauer. Bob was baptized within a month at St. Viator
Church in Chicago.
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Fr. Bauer during his Josephinum days
(New Rochelle Province Archives)
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He entered Don Bosco Juniorate at Haverstraw,
N.Y., and was admitted from there to St.
Joseph’s Novitiate in Newton, N.J., in September 1959. On September 8, 1960, he made his first
profession of vows, and six years later (on June 25) made his perpetual
profession at Newton.
In June 1964 Bro. Bob graduated magna cum
laude from Don Bosco College in Newton and began his practical training there
as assistant to the Sons of Mary, post-high school candidates for Salesian life
(1964-1966). He completed his practical
training teaching at Salesian High School in New Rochelle, N.Y. (1966-1967).
While Bro. Bob was still in college he took
on the task of teaching Greek 101 to the Sons of Mary at Mt. Don Bosco in
Ellenville, N.Y. One of those Sons in 1962 was the future Fr. Tom
Ruekert, who “is grateful for Bob’s
presence in my life,” and offers many specifics of that presence. He still recalls Bro.
Bob’s daily mantra: “Greek is easy; Greek is fun”—a mantra that he
continued to use when teaching Greek at the Josephinum years later, and in
table conversation at the provincial house in his last years.
Fr. Ruekert also remembers Bro. Bob’s
contribution to community life at Don Bosco College. “Often,” he writes, “Bro. Bob would
skillfully accompany our community services by playing the organ. He was a
talented musician.” On one particular
feast of St. Patrick, “he and I danced an Irish reel during one of those
community entertainment times. Imagine:
two Germans doing the Irish reel!”
Bro. Bob undertook theological studies at the
Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio, in 1967, earned a Master’s
degree in religious education in 1970, and was ordained on September 11, 1971,
in Hackensack, N.J. He earned another
Master’s, in English, from The Ohio State University in 1971.
According to Fr. Ruekert, “as a theology
student, Bob was well-respected. In his
fourth year he was elected as president of the Student Senate, a group of
students who would bring issues to the administrators and help with seminary
life at the Josephinum.”
Following ordination,
Fr. Bob spent two years teaching at St. Dominic
Savio High School in East Boston. One of
his students the first year was future Salesian John Nazzaro, a senior at that
time. He remembers: “I first had the privilege of meeting Fr. Bob when he was a newly
ordained priest at St. Dominic Savio High School…. For a young priest, teaching our senior class
was a challenge, but Fr. Bob quickly became one of our favorite Salesians
because he was there for us. His office
was in the gym building, and he would always be available to open the gym for
us to play basketball at nights to keep us off the street. Six of us made a TEC (Teens Encounter
Christ) retreat, and Fr. Bob took the time on a Sunday night to be at our
final Mass at the Cenacle Retreat House in Brighton, Mass.”
In East Boston, Fr. Ruekert notes, “he was a
special friend to Fr. Joseph Caselli, whom he admired very much. He
looked forward to visiting Fr. Caselli whenever he could.” Fr. Caselli, the founding director of Savio
in 1958, was retired from teaching by that time but remained a highly regarded
senior confrere (and was renowned all over East Boston, and perhaps farther,
for visiting the sick—walking when he could, and otherwise using the T).
In 1973 Fr. Bob moved to the San Tarcisio
community in Rome and began his specialization in biblical studies at the
Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, coming away with a licentiate in
Scripture in 1976. He returned to the
Josephinum that year as professor of Old Testament, proving himself over the
next 25 years one of the most popular teachers among both the Catholic
seminarians and the Protestant students from the Lutheran and Methodist schools
in the Columbus theological consortium.
A typical appreciation comes from Fr. Ken
Shaw: “Bob was an outstanding
Biblical scholar of the Old Testament. He had the gift of teaching that
was recognized by both Catholic and non-Catholic students. You had to arrive at
his teaching sessions early in order to be guaranteed a seat.”
Fr.
Ruekert observes that one of his teaching techniques—rooted in his personality,
and so it wasn’t just a “technique”—was “that he sought to get to know each of
his students on a one-to-one basis. He preferred ‘walking and talking’
oral exams to written ones.”
Fr. Bob brought his
biblical learning to bear in his preaching, as Adam Rudin, director of the
Salesian Lay Missioner program in New Rochelle, testifies: “I certainly enjoyed his homilies and
appreciation of the Old Testament. He always made it so relevant to today
in such an effortless way.”
Fr. Nazzaro had Fr. Bob
as a Scripture professor for all
four years in Columbus. “He was always
available and was my spiritual director before we called it spiritual
direction,” he writes. “We will miss
him….”
Fr. Bob also taught Hebrew and Greek. Fr. John Serio was in a Greek class. “When we had Bob for Greek at the Josephinum, his first lesson was
‘Greek is easy! Greek is fun! Don't panic!’
He was right. It was a great
class, we learned a great deal, and it was painless. It was a very practical approach. We must have translated almost the entire New
Testament. Class met at the difficult
time of 3:30—it was never boring.”
He also served for several years as director
of the PCJ Master of Arts program and, for approximately six years, book review
editor of the Josephinum Journal of Theology.
His particular ministry outside the classroom
was visiting juvenile offenders in local confinement, together with some of the
Salesian theology students. Of this
ministry, Fr. Serio writes: “I don’t
think many people know how dedicated Bob was to visiting and ministering to
incarcerated young men in Columbus. He
often said Mass, heard confessions, and counseled young men at Buckeye Training
Center and TICO (Training Institute of Central Ohio), a maximum security
facility for adolescents on the west side of Columbus. He helped introduce me to ministry at
TICO. On my first day, he took me on a
tour, and in the middle of it he said, ‘Well, I have to go back to the ’Phinum
for my Greek class.’ He left me at the
intersection of two long corridors. But that was my introduction to a
‘part-time-that-became-almost-full-time’ ministry during my Columbus days.
Bob enjoyed this immensely, and he was very instrumental for me and many
others in this ministry.”
A friend from his time at the Josephinum, Dr.
James A. Yeager, a church musician now living in New Mexico who remained a
presence in Fr. Bob’s life until his last days, recalls him as “a good friend,
colleague, funny, at times devilishly so.
Yet he always was a man of honor and good faith. He was beloved by his
students and rightfully so. He was dedicated to the best things that his
vocation demanded, and he never swerved from the work or the study.”
Another friendship formed in the Salesian
community in the 1970s was with Bill Moriarty, who later left the Congregation,
but feeling a great debt of gratitude to Fr. Bob. Bill shares some this reason for gratitude: “Because of Bob, I taught adult Scriptural
studies, first in the Formation for Ministry Program in Syracuse, N.Y., later
for the diaconal classes there, and later in my parish in Marblehead, Mass. I
would never have been able to do that if Bob had not whetted my appetite for
the wonder of God’s word.”
Ann Brown, a Salesian Cooperator from
Columbus, writes: “Heartbreaking.
I spoke with him a week ago and he sounded better than he had in a long
time. Our family loved him like family. I will miss him so.”
Fr. Bob left the Josephinum in 2001 to teach at
St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton
Beach, Fla., until 2004. He resided in the
Salesian community in St. Petersburg for
one year, then another year at the Institute of Salesian Studies in Berkeley,
Calif. In 2006 he retired to the
Salesian provincial house in New Rochelle, where he suffered for many years
with various health problems, including diabetes,
Parkinson’s, and congestive heart failure. After several hospitalizations, early in 2020
he entered United Hebrew Nursing Home.
One of Fr. Bob’s gifts was making guests and
newcomers to the provincial house community feel welcome. For example, Fr. Thomas Pallithanam, who
joined the community in 2019, states: “He
was always very welcoming and in the days I was new to the community he made
sure that I felt at home. He helped me
navigate the early days, introduced me to the library, helped me with my
driving routines as he sat beside me I while I drove him to the library. I was happy to do that and he was always very
grateful for that and would tell me that every time. He did not take that for granted.”
Another who appreciated Fr. Bob’s thoughtful
welcomes was Mr. Rudin: “While at the
provincial house, he always kept a steady supply of children’s books for all
the [Rudin] kids (usually trucks, dinosaurs, or trains ;-), and would always
wipe the book covers clean to ensure they were safe for the kids.”
Another way in which he supported his
confreres and friends was by some unexpected remembrance. Bro. Tom Sweeney recalls that “Bob would mail a note with a holy card, an
article he knew you might be interested in, a card congratulating you on a
particular occasion (birthday, Christmas, profession anniversary, graduation,
or something you’d accomplished). It was totally unexpected, but I really
appreciated that he took the time to do this. He will be missed.”
Besides the sacred Scriptures—the Psalms,
especially—Fr. Bob had two abiding passions:
aircraft and ships. (If you got
him started on the Titanic, which didn’t take much, he could go on for
an hour or more.)
Fr. Ruekert again: “If an airplane were flying overhead, Bob
could tell you precisely what make and model it was, as well as how much it
cost to manufacture it. He would often drive
near an airport, just to watch the planes land and take off.”
Bill Moriarty learned of Bob’s early
life: “His father was a baker, whose
only day away from the oven was Sunday. When
it was only Bob, his mother and his father, each would pick a different restaurant
to go to on Sunday. As Bob said to me
and Marian [Bill’s wife] with that mischievous gleam in his eye, ‘Every third
Sunday we went to the airport’ so he could see the planes taking off and
landing.”
Fr. Bob always retained a love for good
music, both liturgical and classical.
Another of Mr. Moriarty’s recollections:
“One day, while Bob was visiting the
East Boston community, he drove to our house in Marblehead, and entered waving
a CD. He immediately made us sit on the
sofa, popped the CD into the player hooked to the Bose speakers, and said, ‘You
have to listen to this.’ ‘This’
was Evgeny Kissen playing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. It was
glorious.”
A great many confreres and friends would
endorse what Fr. Tom Ruekert prays: “May God reward him for all the good he has
done for so many, especially to his former students.”
On account of the corona virus pandemic and
restrictions on any large gathering of people, there was no funeral for Fr. Bob
other than a Mass for the deceased at the provincial house the morning after
his death, and his burial in the Salesian Cemetery in Goshen, N.Y., was
private. A memorial Mass is to be
planned at a later date.
