Last night, Father Stephen Rooney of Michigan was on a boat with other people in Lake Erie, and it capsized. Everyone was saved except for two men, the driver and Father Rooney. The Coast Guard is searching for the bodies. Father Stephen Rooney was from Belfast, Ireland and has been in Michigan for twenty years. We are asking for Prayers for Father Rooney.
My goodness I knew Fr Stephen very well. If it is the same priest he used to be going on to be a Cistercian monk at one time. So very,very sad to hear this. Life is so strange and sad often. Prayers through the night.
Archdiocese of Detroit 5h ยท It is with great sadness that we share that Father Stephen Rooney, pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Trenton is missing along with longtime parishioner Robert Chiles after a boat capsized yesterday evening in the Detroit River, off Stoney Island. Several others were rescued from the water by a Good Samaritan nearby. Let us unite together in prayer for the missing, for the rescued, and for first responders searching the waters today. UPDATE: THIS PRAYER SERVICE WILL BE LIVE-STREAMED AS WELL! There will be a Prayer Vigil tonight at 7pm in the Parish parking lot and the public lot for Fr Rooney and Rob Chiles with Bishop Battersby.
They found his body in Monroe, Mi. It had drifted out of the Detroit River into Lake Erie. He was in Monroe at St.Michael's Parish when I first met him. The people in Monroe say he wanted to come back there, and his body was found on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Knock. He was also a Hibernian. I remember when he came to Monroe he talked the parish into re-doing the church, and hired an artist to paint the great saints all over the walls and ceilings of the church . . .it looked like a European chapel when he was done. Quite different from the churches over here, he appreciated art. He was very sweet. I asked him one time why he came to the United States and he said too many people knew him in Ireland, he wanted to be fresh over here. Well, Ireland sent a wonderful Priest and he will be missed. May he rest in peace.
A little view of the present St.Michael the Archangel Church in Monroe, Mi. that Father Rooney enhanced. Beautiful!
The last time I saw Father Stephen was at mass in Our Lady of Bethlehem Abbey , Cisterician. He had only been ordained about a year or two before. He was young, I think maybe around 26. The mass was in honour of Our Lady. It was maybe a Saturday mass. Anyway after the Gospel he invited anyone who wanted to talk about Our Lady to do so (he was celebrating the mass) . No one else spoke so I did. After the mass he came to me and said he had never heard anyone talk about Mary in such a personal way. The Chapel was the Mass Rock Chapel. It was an altar the Locals used to used in the open air when the English would kill us for saying the mass and we had to say it in hidden places. As far as I recall several of Father Stephens family were imprisoned, like myself, for fighting the British. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_rock_(Portglenone)