Pender Island is part of the island chain that includes Vancouver Island off the city of the same name; Pender is a relatively small island of three thousand souls. These 3,000 doubles in summertime, when people return to their summer homes, made accessible by car ferry. This large population of people of all faiths and…
In one sense, parishes in every country on earth are much the same; they consist mainly of ordinary Catholics, whose joys and sorrows are similar no matter how different their circumstances. These Catholics want to attend Mass, have their children baptised, arrange Catholic marriages and funerals and depend on the support of a praying community…
If the diocesan websites of Ireland are to be believed, Ireland has only one diocesan chancellor who is not a priest. This is Sr Mary Lyons JCD, the chancellor of the Archdiocese of Tuam. She is a rare exception to what appears to be the norm in the dioceses and archdioceses of Ireland. In some…
Parishes deprived of a resident priest in Ireland survive only with great difficulty. The problem is that Irish parishes are centred on the priest to an unhealthy degree, and to such an extent that when the resident priest is removed, the parish flounders. I have witnessed this myself. Having been ten years in Newcestown &…
Did you see the video showing a priest in Ireland bring a funeral eulogy to a premature close? Even in Canada I was able to view this. I felt sorry for the priest in question, as I have often felt like doing likewise. As a presider at funerals in Ireland for over 40 years, there…
My current home in Victoria BC is at 740 View St, at the heart of downtown, just a half mile from the picturesque Inner Harbour (Google it!), dominated by the BC government building. I live in the rectory, a three-storey complex of apartments and offices, attached to St Andrew’s Cathedral. Rectory This rectory was re-fitted…
I arrived in Canada in mid-January. A few days later, I headed to a government office to get my first monthly Senior Bus Pass. I went armed with evidence that I was eligible; passport, driving licence, every proof I could think of. The assistant didn’t look at any of my IDs but proceeded to issue…
Gary Gordon has been Bishop of Victoria BC since 2014, having been in Whitehorse diocese (covering the Yukon territory and northern British Columbia) for eight years before that. His golden retriever brought its name Takú from a place in his first diocese. Both dog and owner were touched to hear that ‘ag tacú’ in our Irish language…
Last month, I travelled around Vancouver Island, my island home, which is the size of Ireland. Its population was 864,864 in the latest census; just 96,000 of these are Catholic, fewer than 10%. Twenty priests staff this large mission territory, with two of its 30 parishes served by (lay) pastoral administrators. I was particularly interested…
After Mass on the last Sunday before I left Union Hall for Canada, two ladies approached me. They asked how I could justify six months’ sabbatical in the light of the shortage of priests. I suggested now was the time to get away, before the shortage got even worse! I haven’t changed my mind. In…