DOMINICAN pr iest Fr Christopher Dowd OP celebrated his Silver Jubilee of ordination to the priesthood on July 30 at St Anne’s Catholic Church in Belmont.
A large crowd gathered for the Solemn High Mass, celebrated with Fr Michael Rowe as deacon and Fr Tim Deeter as sub-deacon.
The Mass was followed by dinner in the parish hall where Fr Dowd was presented with a gift and card that parishioners had compiled over the past few weeks.
Based at St Laurence’s Priory in North Adelaide, Fr Dowd was ordained in East Camberwell, Victoria on July 30, 1988 by Bishop Peter Connors.
Fr Dowd said it was “providential” that he happened to be in Perth at the time his Silver Jubilee occurred.
“I regard Perth as my second Catholic home,” he said in his homily.
“I have been visiting Perth regularly for well over 10 years now… principally to engage in historical research, and over those years I have come to know many of you and I count you among my best friends.”
Reflecting on his priesthood, Fr Dowd said it was not himself but God who has achieved the good work of his ministry.
“I hope that I’ve made a contribution to the life of the Church over 25 years,” he said.
“Whatever good God has worked through my priestly ministry has too often been worked despite the incompetence, defects, failures and the sins of his human instrument.”
Fr Dowd said felt a “sense of satisfaction” and was pleased to reach the milestone.
“It sort of crept up on me, I hadn’t been thinking about it for a long period of time, and all of a sudden it came up,” he said.
While he said his idea of the priesthood before ordination was not far off the mark, Fr Dowd admitted he was somewhat apprehensive when he began his ministry.
“When you first start out it’s all very daunting, I remember the first time… I started hearing confessions. I was terrified,” he said.
“After 25 years I’m much more knowledgeable of what I’ve got to do, and I’m certainly more confident as a priest.”
But the life of a priest is not always easy, Fr Dowd explained.
“Like everybody else, priests can be very happy and content with their work sometimes; other times you’re tired, bored, fed up, worried,” he said. “But it’s precisely the same for lay people.”
With this week being National Vocations Awareness Week in Australia, Fr Dowd said good marriages and families were important in fostering vocations.
“The Church does need [vocations to the priesthood],” he said.
“But equally important is to encourage young Catholic men and women to form good, holy, committed Christian marriages, and to raise good Christian families, that is vital today.”
In 2007, Fr Dowd was commissioned by the Archdiocese of Perth to write a biography of the first Archbishop of Perth, Patrick Clune CSsR.
He said while he has enjoyed the project immensely, the sheer scale of the project was the biggest challenge.
“There’s a vast amount of information around the place, I would have read thousands upon thousands of letters, documents, reports, minutes of meetings and so on,” Fr Dowd said. “Sometimes I thought it would never end.”
Fr Dowd said the book was in the final stages of production and expects it to be published later this year.