The Muffled Drum
Bishop Robert F. Garner
John Leonhardt Remembered · Bishop Robert F. Garner · Al Cohen · Joseph F. Beckmeyer Sr. · Ray Facundo · Joe Porta · Tommy Schefter
The following is reprinted from the January Edition of the Cavaliers Alumni & Booster Newsletter, reported by Ken Nolan.
TRANSITIONS - Finales.
The Most Reverend Bishop Garner, 80, moderator of the Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights Junior Drum & Bugle Corps.
Bishop Garner passed away on Christmas Day after a long illness. His funeral Mass was celebrated at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark, New Jersey on December 29, 2000.
Long the symbol of the "class" of eastern junior drum corps, Blessed Sacrament was a local Newark New Jersey Catholic parish junior corps that was formed from kids in the Blessed Sacrament Parish Elementary School in 1946.
Their history making achievements after that are much covered in drum corps history and legend.
Like Don Warren, Jim Jones, Clarence Beebe, Rick Mass, Bill Kemmerer and a host of others, Bishop Garner is another member of that "Greatest Generation" that so much is now written about.
I believe that we all diminished a bit when people like Bishop Garner pass from the scene.
Our sympathies are extended to the many people touched by Bishop Garner and his good works.
The Cavaliers Alumni.
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Bergen Bishop Robert F.
Garner dead at 80
12/27/00
BY DAVID GIBSON
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Back in the 1970s, when then-Archbishop Peter Gerety
was looking to put the preaching of the Second Vatican
Council into practice, he decided to place an auxiliary
bishop in each of the four counties of the Newark
archdiocese to be his personal representative to the flock.
Despite the elevated title, the job would require a warm,
personal style -- the better to implement the collegial,
pastoral approach promulgated by the churchmen at
Vatican II -- and one of the first men Gerety turned to was
the Rev. Robert F. Garner, whom he consecrated in 1976
as the regional bishop for Bergen County.
On Christmas Day, Bishop Garner died at age 80 after a
long illness.
As friends remembered Bishop Garner, it was his
people-centered touch that they recalled -- the bishop who
never forgot he was a priest first.
"He had a good Irish wit, he loved to tell stories," said
Bishop Dominic Marconi, the regional bishop of Essex and
Union counties who was consecrated the same day as
Bishop Garner. "He was very outgoing, because he had
been a parish priest all his life."
That style, Marconi said, was what was needed.
"If certain difficulties arose, people would approach the
bishop to help resolve them. Before, the auxiliary bishops
were looked at as more administrative posts. This was a
whole new experience."
That Bishop Garner took to the new job was no surprise to
those who had followed his life in the church.
Born in Jersey City on April 27, 1920, Robert Francis
Garner was the second of eight children of Michael Garner
and the former Mary O'Keefe.
He was ordained to the priesthood in 1946, and then
named to Mt. Carmel Parish in Jersey City, where he
learned to speak Italian. In the 1950s, he was sent to
Blessed Sacrament Parish in Newark and he developed a
strong relationship with the large Jewish community in the
neighborhood.
Throughout his ministry, Bishop Garner worked to
strengthen his interfaith ties, establishing his own
apostolate to Jewish Hospital in Newark because, he said,
the patients might like to see another familiar face from the
old neighborhood.
In 1987, Bishop Garner helped to launch the Interfaith
Brotherhood-Sisterhood Breakfast, held annually in Bergen
County, that brings together believers from various faiths.
In 1967, Father Garner was appointed administrator of
Christ the King Parish in Jersey City, where he was
touched by the poverty. He helped establish a morning
breakfast program for 200 city children, mapped out
strategies to provide affordable housing and low-cost
mortgages, and created a local employment network.
In 1976, he was elevated to bishop and spent the rest of
his church service visiting the many parishes of the largely
suburban county, the largest in the archdiocese, and
visiting many of his old Hudson County friends who had
moved out of the area before he did.
"Bishop Garner would have been 25 years a bishop this
spring," said the outgoing leader of the Newark
archdiocese, Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick. "In that
almost quarter of a century, he never ceased to be a most
pastoral and caring priest."
In fact, when Bishop Garner formally stepped down in
1995, he said retirement "only means letting go of
administration; my priestly life will continue."
At the time of his death, Bishop Garner had been at St.
Joseph's Home for the Elderly, operated by the Little
Sisters of the Poor, and he asked that contributions be
made to that organization in lieu of flowers.
Bishop Garner is survived by three sisters, Sr. Maria
Michael, S.C., of Saint Thomas the Apostle Church in
Bloomfield, Mary Garner Berkiwietz of Jersey City and
Irene Garner Keegan of New Brunswick; one brother,
Francis Garner of Port Reading; 27 nieces and nephews,
49 grandnieces and nephews, and 10 great-grandnieces
and nephews.
Bishop Garner's body will be brought to the Cathedral
Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark at 3 p.m. tomorrow
and a Vigil Mass will be at 7:30 p.m. Visitation will be from
10 a.m. Friday until the 1 p.m. funeral Mass. Interment will
follow in Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington.
© 2000 The Star-Ledger.