By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, Nov 22, 2021: Father Theodore Bowling, the oldest and last American member of the Patna Jesuit province, died November 22 in Pune, western India. He was 97.
The death occurred at 11:30 am at Sahyadri Hospital in Pune after suffering a brief period of illness.
The funeral is scheduled at 3 pm on November 23 in the De Nobili College Theologians chapel. The mortal remains of Father Bowling will be kept for people to pay their respects from 5 pm November 22 to 12 noon next day.
Father Bowling was in a hospital in Pune where had spent most of missionary life in India. He had completed 80 years in the Society of Jesus.
Father Bowling was born on May 4, 1924. He entered the Society of Jesus on September 1, 1941 and was ordained a priest on March 24, 1955. He became a full-fledged Jesuit on February 2, 1979.
Father Bowling, “a giant for manual work” was hailed for greening the campus of Pune’s Jesuit-managed De Nobili College starting in 1952 when he arrived there for his theological studies. In 1957 he was assigned to teach Basic Science and Scientific Questions connected with philosophy in the Papal Athenaeum in Pune (now Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth).
During his first year of theology he often volunteered to dig tree pits and fill up the pits with alternate layers of organic matter and mud, to give a chance to a sapling to establish deep roots.
In his second year, he was the sub-beadle and his duties included assigning fellow theology students to do 90-minute manual work twice a week to plant trees in the empty DNC spaces, and to water them for 4 years until they could survive the summer heat.
The Jesuit introduced evening “nature walks” that took him and friends to two rows of rain and Gulmohar trees planted 1942-1944 by Jesuits who built the ground floor of the theologate. The DNC lands were mostly barren he came there. Eventually, various kinds of trees came up on the college campus as well as within nearby housing societies.
Respectful farewell to Father Ted Bowling. Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and let your perpetual light shine upon the departed soul.
Both my parents were closely associated with Rev Ted Bowling; my father through the Catholic Information Centre that he ran single handedly in Kanpur, and my mother through the St Martha’s Welfare Association that was founded by Bowling’s sister in the USA, though the funding was all local.
Bowling should be best remembered for his contribution to the Catholic Enquiry Centres that he co-ordinated taking over from another senior American Jesuit from Patna whose name I cannot now recall. I salute the sacrifices of these great foreign missionaries of yesteryears, a now vast vanishing tribe.