Reverend Clarence J. Bogetto, CM

1915–2009

He was a prolific story teller with a penchant for enhancing an otherwise ordinary tale. He delighted many with his witticisms and anecdotes. He definitely will be remembered for many, many years.

The “He” is the Reverend Clarence J. “Boggs” Bogetto, CM, born on February 15, 1915, to Peter and Margaret Bogetto in Negaunee, Michigan. Fr. Bogetto was supposed to be named “Constantino”, but the German pastor who baptized him told his Italian parents that “Clarence” is English for Constantino. He never forgot that!

His elementary and secondary education was acquired near his home town. Once he decided to become a priest, he spent his last two years of high school at St. Vincent’s College in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. His spiritual and theological formation took place at St. Mary’s of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville, Missouri. He entered the novitiate on September 7, 1937, and took permanent vows on September 8, 1939. After completing the required years of prayer and study, he was ordained a priest on June 9, 1945 by Bishop George J. Donnelly of St. Louis.

Fr. “Boggs” had a great devotion to his family: father, mother, three sisters and one brother, all of whom he visited regularly. He, in turn, was greatly admired by his family, especially his many nieces and nephews. His heavenly reward began when he died on June 3, 2009, at the Apostle of Charity Residence at St. Mary’s of the Barrens.

In his long life of 94 years, Fr. Bogetto had various assignments and lived in a number of Vincentian community houses. For the first sixteen years after ordination he resided at the DePaul Vincentian Residence in Chicago, where he worked at DePaul Academy, DePaul University and one year at St. Vincent’s Parish. From 1961 to 1967 he was assigned to the new St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Lemont, Illinois. In 1967 he moved to St. Vincent’s College in Cape Girardeau, where he witnessed the closing of the seminary in 1979, and the beginning of the Evangeliza­tion Center in the same buildings. For the next 11 years, he worked as a chaplain at Southeast Missouri
State Hospital.

He will be especially remembered for the volunteer work he did in addition to his assigned work as an English teacher. In Lemont he took on the duty of chaplain to the volunteer fire department. While stationed in Cape Girardeau, he served as a weekend chaplain to the men at the Air Force base in Blytheville, Arkansas – approximately 120 miles south of his residence. In his retirement, he continued to give spiritual help to the prisoners in the Perryville jail.

He will be remembered in many other ways as well. I remember his daily trips to “Truckers Salvage” in Cape Girardeau, and his “Flaming Cherries Jubilee” dessert, with which he entertained the seminarians. Many times early in the morning, Fr. Boggs celebrated Mass for the sisters and patients at St. Francis Hospital in Cape Girardeau and visited patients at Southeast Missouri Hospital. Wherever he was, many came to him for spiritual direction and confession.