Father Robert Hewes was born on March 18, 1951 in Jamaica, Queens. He moved with his parents Robert and Ethel to Lindenhurst. in 1953. His sister Julie Anne was born in 1956. He grew up in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Lindenhurst. He attended the OLPH Parish School. St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Uniondale, Cathedral College in Douglaston, and the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, and ordained priest on March 11, 1978.
Father Hewes served his first assignment in St. Dominic’s Parish in Oyster Bay from 1978 to 1983. There he got to know Father, later Monsignor, Leo Goggin, the first pastor of St. Matthew’s through his best friend, Monsignor James Collins, pastor of St. Dominic’s at the time. He was transferred to Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Massapequa Park, where he served from 1983 to 1989. He was an associate pastor at Our Lady of Mercy in Hicksville from 1989 to 2000, when the late Bishop James McHugh appointed him pastor of St. James Parish in Seaford. Father served there for ten years, until Bishop Murphy asked him to become the fifth pastor of St. Matthew’s Parish beginning in June of 2010.
Along the way, he has served in the United Air Force Reserve as a chaplain; and has been asked to be a part of the Pastors’ Council of the Diocesan Department of Education. Father Hewes also served several years as the Executive Pastor of St. John Baptist De la Salle Regional Catholic School in Farmingdale during his pastorate at Saint James, Seaford.