St. Rita’s Catholic Church will be having a celebration for its former pastor’s 80 birthday and 50 years of priesthood starting at 6 p.m. Feb. 20. Father Walter Dockerill retired from the church about six years ago, but still is active with weddings, funerals and baptisms. Dockerill was born in New York and became a priest at age 30. Before that he had briefly served in the Korean War and received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Cornell University in New York.
“Not too many priests have been around as long as I have,” he said.
As to why he wanted to become a priest he said: “I wanted to bring the truths of the Catholic religion to as many people as possible. The essence of all of those truths are to follow the example of Jesus who redeemed us by his passion, death and resurrection.”
Dockerill started his career in Miami where he worked for 10 years before taking over at St. Mark Catholic Church in Boynton Beach for another 10 years. In 1980 he helped found St. Rita’s and became its first pastor. At the time he said Boynton Beach was primarily a senior community and he grew tired of performing wakes and funerals. Wellington, on the other hand, was a younger community. The church started with 300 families and today has more than 2,000.
“One of the things I remember the most was he really had a way of bringing all of the parishioners together and making everyone feel like a family,” Wellington resident Peter Spahl said.
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