Florida Catholic | The Many Priesthoods of Father Hubert

Father Raymond Hubert will celebrate 50 years of priestly service on April 6. “I don’t think that I ever thought of anything else from the time I was 6 or 7,” Father Hubert said about his vocation.

LINDA REEVES | FC
Father Raymond Hubert will celebrate 50 years of priestly service on April 6. “I don’t think that I ever thought of anything else from the time I was 6 or 7,” Father Hubert said about his vocation.

The many priesthoods of Father Raymond Hubert

BENNET BOLTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 02.22.08

LANTANA | Father Raymond Hubert, who will soon be honored on the 50th anniversary of his ordination, has led three distinct lives in his time as a priest: as a missionary, a chaplain and a pastor.

After being ordained in 1958 in New Bedford, Mass., Father Hubert served almost two decades in the Philippines as a member of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. He then became a hospital chaplain in Providence and Woonsocket, R.I., then pastoral care director at St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach. He was appointed as parochial vicar of St. Martin de Porres Parish in Jensen Beach and spent 10 years as the pastor of Emmanuel Parish in Delray Beach. Since retiring, Father Hubert, now 74, celebrates Mass and performs other priestly duties at St. Matthew Parish here.

Father Hubert’s big day will be April 6, when Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito, along with three other bishops, celebrates the noon Mass at St. Matthew in honor of his golden jubilee. A Filipino choir from Emmanuel Parish will add to the celebration.

That evening, fellow priests, two of his sisters — one of whom is Sister Yvette Hubert, a Franciscan Missionary of Mary from North Providence, R.I. — a brother, other relatives and friends will honor him with a cocktail party and dinner at the Delray Beach Golf Club.

Tickets at $25 each are available at St. Matthew and Emmanuel parishes for persons wishing to attend the dinner.

Father Hubert told the Florida Catholic that, from his earliest childhood, he wanted to be a priest.

“I don’t think that I ever thought of anything else from the time I was 6 or 7,” he said. “From the earliest age, I saw myself as a priest. I never changed my mind. I have no idea what else I would have become other than that.”

“Our father was an electrician, and there were six of us children — three girls and three boys,” said his sister Lucille Swinney, who with her husband lives in Boynton Beach and is a parishioner of St. Thomas More Parish there. “One sister is deceased. We grew up in Woonsocket, R.I., on a family farm.”

Father Hubert said life on the farm kept him so busy that he had no time for hobbies or sports — but that has now changed.

“I help out at St. Matthew during the winter months, then in summer I go to North Carolina to serve at a mission church and enjoy my hobby — horseback riding,” he said. “I got back into horses when I retired and was given an invitation to go to Blowing Rock, a resort town 4,000 feet up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Each year it stages the oldest continuous horse show in America.”

The mission church caters mostly to summer tourists in rural Boone and in Blowing Rock, which he said has only four or five Catholic families. The church is closed in the winter.

“I learned to ride horses years ago while I was in the Philippines, in Tuguegarao, now known as Ilagan Isabela province, on the island of Luzon. That also enabled me to learn a Filipino dialect called Ilocano, to add to the French language that I already knew.”

In 1958 he became associate pastor at St. James Parish in Santiago, Isabela, and from 1959 through 1974 he served as pastor of San Isidro Parish in Aurora, Isabela.

After his missionary years in the Philippines, Father Hubert left the La Salette order and in 1984 became a priest in the Miami Archdiocese. He was incardinated into the new Diocese of Palm Beach when it was created in 1986.

Gina Garroway, director of religious education at St. Matthew and a member of its Council of Catholic Women, had words of admiration for Father Hubert.

“I met him seven years ago,” she told the Florida Catholic. “He has always talked so brightly about his vocation. He is a real proponent of the sacrament of reconciliation, especially with children and young adults.

“Our religious education children talk about him all the time and the memorable words he speaks to them at Mass. He has touched so many people in so many ways. He says things that people need to hear.”

Asked what advice he has for young people who are thinking of becoming a priest or a nun, Father Hubert said, “What I say to them is go for it! We won’t get many teenagers. The place to recruit these days is in the colleges and universities — and there are many of them in this diocese,” he said. “We are missing the boat, because we do not have chaplains in those places. A chaplain is a good guide into the priesthood. Chaplains do not have to be priests — they can be deacons, and we have many deacons all over the place.

“If it means cutting bureaucratic and academic red tape to get Catholic chaplains into those institutions of higher learning,” Father Hubert continued, “I say go for it and cut the tape.”

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The many priesthoods of Father Raymond Hubert

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