The Rev. Bill Pruett, new pastor of St. James Catholic Church, is familiar with the role of advocate.
For the past five years, Pruett was one of three priests serving Roman Catholic parishes in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Pruett said he spent a lot of time working with Hispanics who have settled in that area in large numbers.
As a priest at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Guymon, Pruett said he also served four missions, smaller parishes, in the surrounding community: Church of the Good Shepherd in Boise City, Church of the Sacred Heart in Hooker, St. Francis Cabrini Catholic Church in Beaver and the Newman Center at Panhandle State University in Goodwell.
He said Hispanic community members in each of those cities grew alarmed when the state Legislature passed a stringent immigration reform bill into law in 2008. At the same time, he said non-Hispanics in the Panhandle needed to see the important role Hispanic workers played in the local economy.
He said a rally in support of the local Hispanic community was organized by Catholic Church members, and the church also helped organize a senior citizens group and a society to aid the indigent.
“The Panhandle, in many ways, is mission territory,” Pruett said. “Many of the things you were having to do for the first time.”
His advocacy may have been like swimming upstream, but it is a role of which Pruett has never been afraid.
Pruett, 62, grew up in Carney. He said his mother and father were Baptists, and they were good people.
So, what drew him to the Roman Catholic priesthood?
“It just seemed to me from childhood that there was something more to what Christ had for us,” Pruett said. “Even as a child, I kept asking what that was.”
Pruett said his family didn’t know what to say when he told them he had decided to join the Catholic priesthood.
He was ordained in 1979 and has served at several Oklahoma City-area parishes. Pruett said his first assignment was as an associate pastor at St. Francis of Assisi for two years. That assignment was followed by an associate pastoral post at St. Philip Neri in Midwest City. Pruett said that, at the request of Oklahoma City Archbishop Eusebius Beltran, he studied canon law at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., then served on the archdiocese’s tribunal for 14 years, mostly handling marriage annulments and other matters.
Pruett said he also served Our Lady’s Cathedral as an associate pastor, as pastor at Sacred Heart in Mangum and 12 years as pastor at St. Eugene Catholic Church in The Village.
He said serving so many years in Guymon was different from serving at his new parish, St. James, 4201 S McKinley.
Pruett joined the south Oklahoma City church as its new pastor in June as part of clergy reassignments authorized by Beltran.
Pruett said the parish, formerly led by the Rev. Robert Wood, is vibrant, and he and church leaders already have begun developing plans for the future.
He said he does not see his role as advocate being needed as much. However, he has found something new to champion: St. James Catholic School.
He said the school just held a successful fundraiser to buy new books.
Pruett said he has always appreciated parochial schools and sees their value. “I want to build St. James School into a fine education program so that when our kids go to Mount St. Mary’s (high school) or some other school, they will do well.”
Pruett is certain of one thing: He will be happy wherever he serves.
“I miss the Panhandle. I miss the people there, even the wide-open spaces,” he said.
“But you choose happiness, and you can choose happiness almost wherever you go.”
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