Retired Bishop Robert E. Mulvee of Providence, R.I.

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Retired Bishop Robert E. Mulvee of Providence, R.I., died Dec. 28 at the St. Antoine Residence in North Smithfield, R.I., following a brief illness. He was 88.

“Bishop Mulvee was a good and gentle shepherd of God’s people. He was a faithful follower of Christ who served the Church with dignity and compassion,” said Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin in a statement.

A Funeral Mass was celebrated Jan. 10 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Providence, followed by a burial at St. Ann Cemetery in Cranston.

Bishop Mulvee was bishop of Providence from 1995 to 2005.

Msgr. John Darcy, diocesan vicar general, chancellor and personnel director from 1999 to 2005, said Bishop Mulvee was “such a wonderful bishop to the priests; he really knew them and cared for them very, very deeply. That was his greatest attribute.”

Known for taking a pastoral approach to matters, Bishop Mulvee often visited the infirm and provided comfort to those who experienced loss, particularly after the infamous Station Nightclub fire in February 2003 that claimed the lives of 100 concertgoers in West Warwick.

In the mid-1980s, long before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops established the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, Bishop Mulvee was known for implementing a zero-tolerance approach to clerical sex abuse.

He took a strong pastoral approach in meeting with those who said they had been abused in the past.

He was also known as a friend and mentor to many pursuing a priestly vocation at the Seminary of Our Lady of Providence. In addition to visiting the seminary on holy days and to lead Holy Hours, Bishop Mulvee would also make it a point to visit on other occasions to connect on a social level.

In 2017, Bishop Mulvee was honored by the Diocese of Providence with a Lumen Gentium award in the category of Administration and Stewardship in recognition of his lifelong dedication to the Church and his service in the diocese.

Born in Boston, he was considered a late vocation because he didn’t discern a life of priestly service until he was in high school.

Bishop Mulvee followed this advice and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Manchester, N.H., in 1957.

Twenty years later, he was ordained as an auxiliary bishop of Manchester, where he served for eight years before he was installed in 1985 as bishop of Wilmington, Del.

While he was bishop of Wilmington, he was a board member with Catholic Relief Services and traveled around the world with CRS.

In 1995, after serving a decade as bishop of Wilmington, Bishop Mulvee came to the Diocese of Providence where he would serve for the next 10 years, until age 75, when St. John Paul II accepted his resignation, as required by canon law, in 2005.—CNS

Retired Bishop Robert E. Mulvee of Providence, R.I.