A funeral Mass for Father Richard W. McGowan, SJ, was celebrated Nov. 9 at St. Ignatius Hall at Garden Villas North in Florissant. Father McGowan died Nov. 3 in Florissant. He was 94 years old, a Jesuit for 78 years and a priest for 64 years.
Born on Dec. 3, 1929, in Jamaica, New York, he was one of six children of Francis E. and Lucille (Littlejohn) McGowan. After graduating from Jesuit High School of Dallas in 1946, he entered the Society of Jesus that August at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. He pronounced first vows on Aug. 15, 1948, and was ordained a priest on June 15, 1960, at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. He professed final vows on Sept. 8, 1966, at Immaculate Conception Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin at Spring Hill College and a bachelor’s degree in theology at St. Mary’s College in St. Marys, Kansas.
Father McGowan began his Jesuit ministry as a regent at St. John High School in Shreveport, Louisiana. After three years, he was assigned to his alma mater in Dallas, to which he returned in 1961 following his ordination. In 1964, he became assistant pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Albuquerque, where he remained for four years. He then had several short-term assignments at parishes while pursuing his clinical pastoral education.
In 1975, he returned to Dallas Jesuit to serve first as a counselor, then as director of guidance and finally as director of senior community service. In 1980, he became chaplain at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. He returned to parish work in 1985 and over the next 12 years, served as pastor or administrator at St. John’s Church in Ennis, Texas; Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Decatur, Texas; and Sacred Heart Church in Tampa, Florida. In 1998, he was assigned again to Immaculate Conception Parish in Albuquerque, where he remained until 2019.
Father McGowan began a ministry of prayer at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, and moved to St. Ignatius Hall in St. Louis in 2023.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his brothers, Joseph, Francis and John, and his sisters, Kathleen Johnson and Lucille DeLage. He is survived by a sister-in-law, Sandy McGowan, and nephews and nieces. Burial was in Calvary Cemetery.
