More than 75 clergymen – including 60 priests from the Diocese of Tulsa and the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City – were present Feb. 11 at the Mass of Christian Burial for Father Bernard C. Jewitt, who died Feb. 6, seven months after he retired.
A native of Great Britain, Father Jewitt was a child when he was evacuated to a town near the North Sea during the German bombing campaigns of World War II. He died at age 71.
His last assignment was as pastor of St. Bernard of Clairvaux Parish in south Tulsa, from 1991 through June 20007, and he was the founding pastor, in 1973, of St. Thomas More Parish, also in Tulsa.
Father Jewitt, who was diagnosed with kidney disease several years ago, had been spending 10 hours a day on a dialysis machine and also was an insulin-dependent diabetic. He lived in a small apartment in the retirement center next to the chapel at St. Bernard’s. There, almost 100 parishioners took turns sitting with him in the final weeks of his life. He died at about noon on Ash Wednesday.
“Father Jewitt spent his entire priesthood, nearly 50 years, serving the Church in Oklahoma,” Bishop Edward J. Slattery said. “He served the Church well, with a special love for the poor and the sick. I would often encounter him at the hospital.
“Besides being a parish priest and a pastor, he served the Diocese of Tulsa as vicar general and as administrator, once in 1977, and a second time during the year following Archbishop Beltran’s transfer to Oklahoma City and prior to my installation as the Bishop of Tulsa in January 1994,” Bishop Slattery continued.
Bishop Slattery was the principal celebrant at the funeral Mass; Archbishop Beltran was the homilist. The St. Bernard parking lot was full a half-hour before the Mass began, and the church was full, with mourners filling the aisles. A bus was provided to transport clergy to the interment at Calvary Cemetery.
In an interview last spring, Father Jewitt wryly described himself as “kinda like Jimmy Stewart,” by way of explaining that he has lived “a wonderful life.” He added that he has never regretted, “not for one moment,” his decision to become a priest.
The seed of his vocation began forming in the British boy’s mind when he and his sister were sent care packages by his uncle during World War II. Their uncle, Father Alexander Andrews, sent candy bars, canned meats and other luxuries unavailable in Britain even after the war.
After serving in what is now Pakistan, Father Andrews moved to the United States when the war was over and settled in Ardmore. He persuaded his sister, Catherine Jewitt, that she and her children would have a better life in the United States. “I was thrilled to death,” Father Jewitt recalled last spring. “I thought this was the biggest adventure anyone could ever have.”
He was 14 and his sister, Monica, was 21 when they and their mother crossed the Atlantic in a small ship. After sailing by the Statue of Liberty in New York, they took a train first to Chicago and then to Ardmore. He was sent to St. Gregory High School in Shawnee.
He decided to give the seminary a try and after attending Assumption and St. John’s Seminaries in San Antonio was ordained, at age 23, in 1959. Father Jewitt’s first assignment was to St. Francis Xavier Parish in Enid; he also served at Sts. Peter and Paul, Tulsa, studied religious education at Corpus Christi College in London and from 1967-1973 was director of the Religious Education Office of what was then the Diocese of Oklahoma.
In 1973, he established St. Thomas More, which he described as “a nice little church.” For several years, the congregation celebrated Mass at Disney School and called themselves the Mickey Mouse Club.
In 1977, Father Jewitt was named administrator of the Diocese and served two stints as vicar general. In 1985, he was named pastor of St. John Church in Bartlesville, where he remained until 1991, when he arrived at St. Bernard.
He cherished St. Bernard’s commitment to social justice and drew great satisfaction that volunteers built eight houses for Habitat for Humanity, and the parish dedicated 10 percent of its income to charitable causes.
In Father Jewitt’s memory, donations may be made to the Diocese of Tulsa Retired Priests Fund, P.O. Box 690240, Tulsa 74169-0240.
