Friends and colleagues remember Bishop Robert Bennett, formerly of the diocese of Huron, as a caring, hilarious and deeply pastoral bishop who invariably put his relationships with parishioners first. Bennett died April 14 after a life touched by the love of his wife, Kathleen, their daughters Meghan and Jessica and countless Anglicans, an amazing number of whom Bennett always remembered by name, say his friends.
“In multiple church buildings across the diocese, Bob could close his eyes and instantly visualize Sunday schools filled with children, long-passed choir members who had been remembered for their ‘big’ personalities and countless sermons delivered by previous generations of clergy,” wrote Canon Grayhame Bowcott, rector of St George’s Church in the parish of the Blue Mountains, Ont., who served as Bennett’s domestic chaplain. “Bob kept their stories in his heart and would bring them alive again by telling younger generations of their faithfulness.”
Bowcott remembers his time working with Bennett as filled with frequent laughter, easily given expressions of appreciation and jokes Bennett often made at his own expense. “He will be remembered by many as a bishop with a shepherd’s heart.”
Bishop Terry Dance, who formed the other half of what Bowcott calls a dynamic duo with Bennett when he served closely alongside Bennett as a suffragan bishop, worked with Bennett for over 50 years. “He was one of my best friends in the world,” he says.
The two met in seminary at Huron College, where Bennett was a year ahead of Dance, becoming a priest in 1975. When they began their careers, Dance says he seemed to always be assigned to a parish right after Bennett left. This held true at no less than four Ontario parishes.
In 2002, Bennett became suffragan bishop of the diocese of Huron and served in that role until 2008 when he was elected diocesan bishop. Shortly after his election, Bennett asked a diocesan committee to develop liturgies for blessing same-sex couples, though not performing marriages. He was among the first bishops in the Anglican Church of Canada to implement such blessings during a time of significant controversy. In a 2016 interview with the Anglican Journal when he retired, Bennett described the division caused by this issue as one of the most challenging parts of his term as bishop.
In 2009, Dance became a suffragan bishop in Huron and the two began working more closely together after years of moving from one parish to another, slightly out-of-sync. “I always thought that it was an incredible sign of God’s sense of humour that Bob and I were working together as bishop,” he says.
Though the job of bishop can often be a largely administrative role, Dance says Bennett made it more of a pastoral one, always putting his relationship with the diocese’s people first. “It was amazing the number of people he knew in the diocese of Huron,” he says. “When he would go to do a parish visit, it wasn’t ‘the bishop from London’ coming, it was Bob coming. And so it was kind of a celebration. People knew him, they loved him and they looked forward to being with him.”
Dance says he and his wife lost their daughter a few years ago. Bennett was there in the hospital when she died and preached at her funeral, he says. His sermon repeated the phrase “we gather,” over and over, says Dance. “When we have no words to say, when we don’t know what to do, when we can find no comfort, we gather,” he quotes.
On April 14th, Dance received a gift in the mail from some old friends in Simcoe, Ont. A door mat with the words “We Gather” written on it. About an hour later he got a call from current bishop of Huron, Todd Townshend, saying Bennett had died.
“And the irony for me is that next week, we will gather,” he says.
