Rev. Urban BATES, OP

BATES, MCKERNAN, MULLEN

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 10/25/2006 at 09:29:59

The Rev. Urban Bates, OP, Dominican friar, longtime Alaska Catholic priest and missionary, died Sept. 9, 2003, in Anchorage. A funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, with a viewing and Rosary at 9 a.m. at Holy Family Cathedral, Fifth Avenue and H Street. His remains will be sent to St. Albert's Priory, 5890 Birch Court, Oakland, Calif. A vigil will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at St. Albert's. A funeral Mass in Oakland will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the priory, with burial to follow at St. Dominic's Cemetery, Benicia, Calif.

The Rev. Bates was born March 29, 1915, in Eagle Grove, Iowa, to Patrick Francis Bates and Isabel Jane McKernan. After serving as a medic in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during World War II, he joined the Dominican Friars of the Western Province in September 1947. He served in various parishes of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. He was also a missionary in Chiapas, Mexico. He was a recipient of the Archdiocesan St. Francis of Assisi Award as outstanding Catholic priest and missionary in 2002, the year of his 50th anniversary of ordination as a priest. In recent years, he faithfully celebrated Mass for prisoners in the Anchorage jails and the sick at the Alaska Native Medical Center.

He was preceded in death this year by his younger sister, Margaret Mary Bates, and his nephew, Patrick. The Rev. Bates is survived by his brother, Bernard Bates of Bayside, Wis., sister, Isabel Mullen of Westwood, N.J.; and nieces and nephews, Joseph, Mary, John, Paul, Ann, Mary, Michael, John, Catherine, Cecily and Elizabeth. In lieu of flowers, donations to support Dominican seminarians may be sent to Father Urban Bates Memorial Burse, Western Dominican Province, 5877 Birch Court, Oakland, CA 94618-1626. Arrangements by Witzleben Family Funeral Homes and Bayview Chapel, Berkeley, Calif.

Anchorage Daily News (AK)
September 12, 2003