The Crusader - Fall 2011 September 20, 2011 - St Paul's High School

FEATURE STORY
400 th Anniversary
ofJesuits in Canada
“ It is according to our divine calling to travel to various places and to live
in any part of the world where there is hope of God's greater service and
the help of souls,” —St Ignatius Loyola, Society of Jesus Founder
On 22 May 1611, French Jesuit Fathers Ennemond Massé
and Pierre Biard landed at the small trading post of Port Royal,
Nova Scotia which started off a rich history of Jesuit culture
in Canada that led to important contributions to Canadian
history.
The “Blackrobes”, as they came to be called, immediately began
to reach out to the indigenous people of the vast new land. The
Jesuits spread across Eastern Canada scouring three thousand
miles along the Great Lakes and on to the prairies as far as Lake
Winnipeg. They went first to the Micmacs, next to the
Montagnais, then to the Algonquins. They followed the wanderers.
They made their way into the forests, along the waterways,
across the portages and through the woods. To some, these
early Jesuits seemed like adventurers on the frontiers spreading
Christianity to the ‘savages,’ forgetting that in the early Jesuit
Missions, St Jean de Brébeuf and his companions in Huronia
appreciated the natives’ rich culture. Brébeuf once wrote: “I have
never met anyone of those who have come to this area, who does
not frankly admit that the native people are quicker of mind
than our ordinary country people.” Among his pastoral work
with the natives, Brébeuf wrote a dictionary of the Huron language
and Canada’s first Christmas carol—“The Huron Carol,”
or “Jesous Ahatonhia”—in the native language of the
Huron/Wendat people.
By 1635, the Jesuits had also established at Quebec the celebrated
boys’ school in which they would teach for some 140 years.
Their cours classique would become a model for many other
Catholic colleges, and eventually the Collège des Jésuites would
evolve into Laval University, the oldest institution of higher
learning in North America. By 1760, three-hundred and thirty
Jesuits had come. Their effort in New France, both in missionary
activity and in education, is unmatched. But like the whole
of the grande épopée, it was doomed. After the British
Conquest, they were not allowed to accept novices. They died
out. The last was Jean-Joseph Casot, who had come in 1757 and
who died at Quebec, March 16, 1800.
The Jesuits returned to Canada in 1842 at the request of Bishop
Ignace Bourget of Montreal and, like their predecessors two
centuries earlier, they came from France. Again, like their predecessors
they spread rapidly. In fact, their story began to unfold
very much as did that of the Catholic Church in Canada. They
incorporated and grew strong in French Canada, travelled to the
indigenous peoples, and followed the large numbers of Catholic
immigrants who settled in Upper Canada and later on the
Western prairies.
Beyond work among the First Nations, the Jesuits were establishing
celebrated educational institutions in Canada, much like
they had already done in Europe. In 1940 there were seven
French-speaking, five English-speaking and two bilingual colleges
as well as six English high schools started by the Jesuits in
Canada. The Jesuits’ Ratio Studiorum, (the Jesuit Plan and
Method of Studies), eventually became the model for 12 Jesuit
colleges and 15 Jesuit high schools spread across Canada—
from St John’s to Edmonton.
For the early Jesuits these schools were not simply exercises in
learning but communities where all inquiry led to a reverence for
the creation of God and a fuller understanding of the God of
creation. All knowledge became part of God’s word, an insight
into the humanity of Christ, and the foundation for a society
of humane learning and professional competence.
In 1926, at the invitation of Archbishop Alfred A Sinnott, the
Oblate Fathers opened the first English Catholic High School
for boys in the Province of Manitoba—St Paul’s High School.
Initially located on Selkirk Avenue the building soon became
inadequate and the school moved to the corner of Ellice and
Vaughan at which point the Jesuit Fathers of the Province of
Upper Canada assumed ownership with a staff of four Jesuits,
four lay teachers and eight diocesan priests. With Fr Holland as
the first Jesuit rector, the school had about 200 students in attendance.
In 1964, the deteriorating property was replaced by the
construction of the present high school in South Winnipeg.
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