This year the Priests of the Sacred Heart celebrate the 100th anniversary of the congregation’s presence in North America.
During his studies in Rome, Fr. Dehon met a number of North American seminarians, including Louis Nazaire Bégin, who later became archbishop of Quebec City, and Emile Legal, who in 1902, was named bishop of St. Albert in Alberta.
Fr. Dehon was looking for new apostolates for his growing congregation and through his on-going correspondence with these North American friends, he began to explore the possibility of a presence there.
“It is my profound desire that your missionaries come and help us in this new land, and particularly in the St. Albert Diocese,” wrote Bishop Legal. “I know that you have priests from many countries, and we receive people from many countries. I consider it providential that you help us… I must say that the area is very poor. It will be a real missionary life for your priests and brothers. But the future is promising.”
On April 7, 1910, three French SCJs, along with a diocesan priest, left for Alberta. The Priests of the Sacred Heart were given pastoral charge of Wainwright, a village on the edge of the Diocese of St. Albert near the Saskatchewan border. Fr. Dehon visited them after attending the Eucharistic congress in Montreal. He found his missionaries working hard, but living in poverty, similar to the people to whom they ministered.
Fr. Dehon traveled in Alberta with Msgr. Thiberghien. Seeing that the SCJs were in dire need of assistance Msgr. Thiberghien said that he would be willing to pay for either an altar or the use of two horses to help the missionaries. They chose the horses.
By 1911, three more SCJs joined the group. Hoping to develop the congregation in Canada, the SCJs began vocational recruitment. In 1919 the Holy See gave the community permission to open a novitiate in western Canada. The first members of what was to become the French Canadian Province were from these early formation efforts in Alberta. Among them was Fr. Damase Caron, SCJ, who later served as provincial superior of the North American Province. The North American Province was the predecessor of what is now the U.S. Province and the Canadian Region.
These first SCJs who came to North America ministered primarily to French-speaking Catholics. As the face of western Canada changed, ministry to the French-speaking diminished. In 1940, the SCJ presence in western Canada ended and the congregation’s focus in Canada moved to Ontario and Quebec.
However, while ministry in Alberta came to an end, ministry in North America as a whole was growing. Shortly after the first North American novitiate was established in 1919, the first SCJ arrived in the United States. Fr. Mathias Fohrman, SCJ, arrived on a fund-raising mission to find assistance for the German Province. On Palm Sunday, 1923, Fr. Fohrman celebrated Mass at St. Mary Church in Lower Brule, and began the congregation’s ministry in the United States.
Although the governmental structures of SCJs in Canada and the United States have changed over the years (there has been a single North American Province, French and English-speaking regions and provinces in Canada, and now a U.S. Province and Canadian Region) there has always been a strong interconnectedness between SCJs in North America. Many Canadian SCJs did at least part of their formation in the United States and SCJs from the United States have also studied and ministered north of the border.
Members of the Priests of the Sacred in both the United States and Canada share together in the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the SCJ presence in North America.
The Canadian Region will host an anniversary gathering at Resurrection parish in Ottawa on feast of the Sacred Heart, June 11.
