Cheerful, Joyful and Pastoral

By Rocio Granados - La Voz Catolica

MIAMI | Father Jorge Luis Bello, affectionately called “Padre Wichy,” died Sept. 2, 2024, surrounded by his family, his mother and his siblings in Miami. He was a priest of the Archdiocese of Miami for more than 20 years.

He was born in Cuba February 7, 1950. He was the third of eight children born to Cesar Bello Fernandez and his first wife, Esperanza Gonzalez Bouza Mayor.

“He was a very cheerful person, very joyful, very pastoral as well,” said Father Jose Alfaro, pastor of St. John Neumann Church in Miami, who met Father Bello at St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach and was ordained to the priesthood together in 2003.

“He had a pastoral depth and a very great intuition to discern in the midst of difficult situations,” Father Alfaro said, adding that what struck him most about Father Bello” was his story.”

Missionary vocation

Before entering the priesthood, Father Bello was for almost 20 years part of the congregation of the Little Brothers of Jesus of France, which arrived in Cuba in the 1960's. As a religious, he served in several Latin American countries including Peru and Argentina.

His vocation was “impressive,” said Father Alfaro. “He took that vocation with such simplicity and naturalness. And he would tell us about doctors, lawyers and engineers, who have this vocation, who work among the poor in the poorest neighborhoods.”

He brought that same simplicity to everything he did. “He was very generous, very dedicated, very simple, and he gave himself to be loved,” said Father Alfaro, recalling the good times they had at the seminary and the friendship they shared afterwards. They traveled together to the Holy Land in 2011. “He was already sick, but he was able to go,” Father Alfaro said, adding, “for me, a great friend, the truth, it is a great loss, and I will miss him very much.”

“He was a fascinating guy because of his extensive pastoral experience in a lot of different countries,” said Father José Álvarez, pastor of Epiphany Church in Miami and a classmate of Father Bello.

“He had an impact on the way I view priesthood”, said Father Alvarez.

Recalling a conversation, a few months before his ordination to the priesthood, about what the priesthood would be like, he said “I remember him saying, ‘Priesthood is not about priesthood. Priesthood is just a means to an end to serving the kingdom. it's all about falling in love with the kingdom of God and priesthood is just one of many vehicles to serve the kingdom,’ and that impacted me deeply and I've lived my priesthood believing that”, Father Alvarez said.

The last time he saw Father Bello was during the celebration of the 20th anniversary of their ordination in 2023. “He was in a wheelchair, he was incapable of walking, but he was very happy,” said Father Alvarez.

“Now he is better off than we are. I wish I could die like that. Do you know what it's like to go to sleep and wake up in eternal life,” the priest joked.

Great sense of humor

Father Bello was a very funny person “and he had no complexes, on the contrary, he always went along with the jokes that were made to him,” said Father Alfaro.

“Sometimes he had trouble pronouncing the ‘rr’, and Father Alvarez would tease him about it,” recalled Father Alfaro.

He had a particular way of speaking and “I imitated him perfectly,” said Father Alvarez. “Sometimes I would call people on the phone, and they thought it was him,” he added.

“We would affectionately called him ‘abuelo’ by the way, he was like 10 years older than me, and he would say to me: ‘One old man calling another old man, grandpa’. And he just loved mixing it up with us,” said Father Alvarez.

Father Bello was known as “Wichy.” “At church he was ‘Padre Wichy’. All his friends knew him as 'Wichy,'” said his sister Marta Bello.

When Father Alvarez asked him the origin of this nickname, Father Bello told him that his name was Jorge Luis, and his younger brother could not pronounce Luis and “instead of saying Luis, what came out of his mouth was ‘Wichy’”.

An early vocation

Father Bello was ordained to the priesthood at the age of 54, but his vocation to religious life came to him at a very young age.

“My mother told me that from a very young age ‘Wichy’ would stand behind the doors and pray. My father would always pray in his room at eight o'clock at night and he would see that,” said his sister Marta.

At the age of 13, he entered the seminary in Havana, but a few years later, he decided to join the Little Brothers of Jesus of France. Due to the communist regime that had been established in Cuba, it was not easy to follow a religious vocation, so he left the order and years later returned to the Major Seminary of San Carlos and San Ambrosio in Havana. In his third year of theology, he left the seminary and began a career in medicine at the University of Havana while waiting to enter the fraternity of the Little Brothers of Jesus, which he finally joined in 1976. In 1980 he made his first simple vows and six years later, before professing his perpetual vows, he was sent to Peru and then to Argentina.

After almost 20 years in the community, serving in different Latin American countries, he came to Miami, where most of his family had already settled, to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a priest.

In 1999 he entered St. Vincent de Paul Seminary and after his ordination in Miami, he served as parochial vicar at Little Flower Parish in Hollywood (2003-2006), St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Weston (January -June 2006), Epiphany Parish in Miami (2006-2007), St. John Bosco Parish in Miami (2007-2009), and St. Kevin in Miami (2009-20015), from which he retired at the age of 65 due to deteriorating health.

Little Flower in Hollywood was his first assignment. “Which he loved very much because he had done as a brother, he had worked a lot with the homeless and poor people and that parish had deal with a lot of homeless,” said Father Alvarez.

He was then sent to St. Katharine Drexel in Weston, to work with Father Paul Edwards, who ironically was suffering from cancer due to a brain tumor.

Father Bello was in charge of the parish, but he was also in charge of accompanying Fr. Edwards. He had a long experience in caring for the sick and had studied medicine.

Shortly after the death of Father Edwards in April 2006, ironically, Father Bello “was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2007. It was benign, but it was very large. And so, he underwent surgery, and his motor skills became compromised as a result of that,” Father Alvarez explained.

Consequently, he could not drive, he fell constantly, and it got worse over the years. He had a bad fall for which he was hospitalized for quite a while, and he was unable to continue his ministry and retired in 2015.

When he retired, he went to live with his mother because he needed constant care. But he continued to help as long as he could, “hearing confessions at St. Kevin's and St. Timothy,” said his sister Marta adding that he had a very strong character, “he would say, ‘I have Mass today, I have to go to St. Kevin.’ Priests don't retire, we are priests forever”.

Despite his medical condition that have been deteriorating over the years, “his departure was unexpected,” said his sister Marta, because “he was doing well, we even had plans to operate on a cataract.”

“He was at home with his family and his mother until the last moment,” said his sister. Now “he is with God. He is where he needs to be and he had always prepared for this,” she added.

Father Bello is survived by his mother, six siblings, five boys, and his sister Marta, 12 nieces and nephews and seven great-nieces and nephews.

FUNERAL SERVICES

The funeral Mass will be celebrated by Archbishop Thomas Wenski, Tuesday, September 10, 2024, at 11 a.m., at St. Kevin Parish, 12525 SW 42nd Street, Miami. Burial will follow at Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery, 11411 NW 25th Street in Doral. The viewing will be private, for his family only.