Father Loftus named pastor of Leicester parishes

Father Robert A. Loftus has been named pastor of St. Joseph and St. Pius X parishes in Leicester, effective Oct. 15. He succeeds Father Stephen D. Johnson, who died Sept. 15 after a long battle with cancer.
Father Loftus is currently associate pastor of St. Bernard Parish at St. Camillus de Lellis Church in Fitchburg.
The son of the late Kenneth J. Loftus and Joanne Marie (Murphy) Loftus, he was born Sept. 11, 1956, in Rutland, Vt.
He attended Wachusett Regional High School, Worcester State College and Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., where he received his master’s of divinity in 1990.
He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., on May 25, 1991.
In the summer of 1991 he went to Santiago in the Dominican Republic to learn Spanish, and oversaw St. Charles Borromeo Parish there.
He served as associate pastor at St. Peter Parish in Bridgeport from 1991-1992 and St. Catherine Parish in Greenwich, Conn., from 1992-2001.     In 2001 he came to the Worcester Diocese, where he was incardinated. He is now a priest of the Worcester Diocese. He served briefly at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Worcester, was associate pastor at St. Anne Parish in Shrewsbury, and filled in at St. Augustine Parish in Millville and St. Patrick Parish in Rutland.
Oct. 22, 2004, he was appointed to full-time chaplaincy at Worcester County Jail and House of Correction, with residence at St. Bernard’s.
In July 2006 he became Catholic chaplain at WPI, with residence at Notre Dame-St. Joseph rectory in Worcester.
In July 2010 he became associate pastor of St. Bernard Parish in Fitchburg.