Esteemed Bangor-area priest Richard E. Harvey dies at 84

BREWER – A well-known local Catholic priest was remembered Tuesday by friends as a compassionate man whose firm hand and blunt tongue instilled respect in those who knew him.

The Very Rev. Richard E. Harvey, 84, died early Tuesday morning at St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor after a long battle with cancer.

Gov. John Baldacci, whose hometown is Bangor, on Tuesday called Harvey “a wonderful, caring person.”

“When you think about the Greater Bangor community, Father Harvey probably has touched more families than anyone else,” the governor said.

Baldacci recalled serving as an altar boy for Harvey and learning Latin for the celebration of Mass while at St. John’s School. The governor also commented on Harvey’s tenure on the Maine Maritime Academy board of trustees, saying the priest looked for ways to get students the services they needed.

Harvey also comforted the Baldacci family each time when the governor’s father and mother died.

“He was always there for our family,” Baldacci said.

Harvey suffered little and continued to say Mass every day at 4 p.m., sitting or lying down in his home because of the pain caused by a tumor on his spine, according to Charles Milan III of Brewer, a friend of 53 years who cared for Harvey during his last days.

“He was my pal, as well as my priest,” Milan said Tuesday, remembering when Harvey came to Brewer in 1970 to serve as pastor at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

Harvey served at the church for 25 years, marrying many local couples, baptizing their children and burying their loved ones. Even after he retired in 1995, parishioners felt his commanding presence from the home he moved into just beyond a line of fir trees behind the church parking lot.

“He told you the way he thought it was. Most of the time he was right,” Milan said.

Harvey told Milan and a girlfriend how it was in 1952 at a dance he chaperoned at John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor.

“He comes over and walks right between us when we were dancing. ‘A little too close,’ he said,” recalled Milan, who since has made that girl, now Marie Milan, his wife of 44 years. “Kids, they loved him or they hated him.”

Harvey sensed something was wrong about a week ago after a doctor’s visit, Milan said.

“He says, ‘I guess this is it,'” Milan said. “I think he had a feeling.”

Born in Portland in 1920, Harvey graduated from Deering High School and earned a degree in 1942 from College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. He enlisted in the Navy and took part in the invasions of Sicily and Normandy during World War II.

After returning home, Harvey attended St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and was ordained as a priest in 1951. That same year, he was appointed as associate pastor at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, where he remained until 1967.

He became pastor of St. Mary of the Sea in Stonington, serving there from 1967 to 1970, and was appointed the first Catholic chaplain of Maine Maritime Academy in Castine.

Over the years, Harvey earned a reputation as a straight-shooter who wasn’t afraid to say what was on his mind, according to the Rev. Frank Murray, former pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bangor.

“I’ve known him all of my life,” said Murray, who was 2 years old when Harvey came to town. “I can’t remember my life without Father Harvey.

“He was a man who loved being a priest. He thoroughly enjoyed his calling.”

The compassion he showed parishioners extended to his own family, including a brother who was confined to a wheelchair, said Bill Hogan, a parishioner at St. Joseph’s for 20 years.

Hogan recalled attending a church function with his wife many years ago and watching as Harvey made his brother comfortable in a seat where he could see the event.

“That to me sums up Father Harvey,” Hogan said Tuesday. “He will be missed greatly in the community. He had the respect of many people.”

Visitation hours will be held 3-8 p.m. Thursday at St. Joseph’s church in Brewer. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at St. John’s church in Bangor.