Rest in Peace Fr Peter 29th July 1936 – 2nd August 2025 
Fr Peter Downes was born to be a Shepherd.
Born in Three Springs to Frances Catherine Louise (nee Hackett) and Charles William Downes setting up Meadowbrook farm in Yandanooka, Western Australia. After the death of his father in a farming accident in 1947, Peter immediately promised his mother he would look after her. Not so much as a shepherd at this stage, but, as we call them in the country, a ‘sheep farmer’. So, Peter was smelling the sheep well before the late Pope Francis urged that priests be “shepherds with the ‘smell of the sheep'.
Though there were only two good growing and harvest seasons in 20 years [1948-1968] change came upon the Yandanooka district and families. Peter remained faithfully though working on the farm.
Drawn into the Cursillo Catholic movement in 1977 he had a dramatic awakening and after 35 years of wheat, sheep and cattle farming, he entered St Charles Seminary Guildford, in 1980. In 1981 he commenced studies in St Francis Xavier Seminary, Adelaide where this shy and quiet country-boy earned the name “Rowdy”.
Peter died on the 2nd of August, two days before the Memorial of ‘the Cure of Ars’ St John Vianney. And St John Vianney, like Peter, was a “delayed vocation” and, like Peter, overcame various obstacles which included great difficulty with their seminary studies.
In spite of all this, Peter was ordained in St Francis Xavier Cathedral, Geraldton, in January 1986 by then-bishop Barry Hickey. Peter served in 13 parishes in the Diocese.
Peter never forgot his roots. Up to his last few years he attended many of the local Agricultural EXPOS' catching up with the people he served as a shepherd of the Church, and while there checking out the big green and, sometimes red, machinery. A vast difference from the Massey 585 harvester they had on the farm when he toiled the land as a farmer. And he wouldn't leave the Expo until he visited the real sheep in their pens, noting that the smell of real sheep had not changed in over 70 years!
In 2015 he moved into partial retirement at the Bishop's House in Geraldton where he caught up on the reading he hadn't time to do before. Most days he could be found sitting in the office reading the Tablet newspaper before moving onto more serious spiritual writers.
In 2019 Fr Peter entered Nazareth House Aged Care in Geraldton. Firstly, as a chaplain, then due to failing health progressed to being a patient.
Peter was laid to rest at Utakarra Cemetery Geraldton with his brother priests after a Pontifical Concelebrated Requiem Mass. Principal Celebrant Bishop Michael Morrissey DD, Concelebrants: Bishop Emeritus, Justin Bianchini DD and Priests of the Geraldton Diocese.
May his soul rest in the peace of heaven.
