Catholic Mission In Canada

Catholic Missions In Canada’s co-founder worked with Archbishop Fergus McEvay to raise funds to help the newest settlements of Catholics and Ukrainian Catholics, so that they could keep the faith alive and growing as their settlements grew.

An authority in bee-keeping? An expert in Canadian forestry? An organizer for Catholic family insurance? An executive of a fruit growers’ association? Yes, the co-founder of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, Father Alfred Burke, was all these things, and more. In his native Prince Edward Island, in the early 1900s, Fr. Burke was well known as an abstainer from alcohol, and leader of the Temperance Society. His long-term campaign to dig a tunnel to the Island from New Brunswick gave him the nickname “Tunnel Burke.”

Yet, Fr. Burke was the devoted and capable pastor of the Island parish of Alberton, and his abilities came to the attention of many people, in and beyond the Church. Once he moved to the wider Church’s concerns, he focused on the need to spread the Gospel message across the country that was teeming with new immigrants.

The Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada began in 1908 to do the very things that we do now, under our new name of Catholic Missions In Canada. Fr. Burke worked with Archbishop Fergus McEvay to raise funds to help the newest settlements of Catholics and Ukrainian Catholics, so that they could keep the faith alive and growing as their settlements grew.

Over time, many churches and mission buildings have been erected, especially in the West and far North. Gradually, the assistance to Canada’s native peoples became a priority as well, as First Nations people took stronger roles in the running of their mission communities.

Whereas the funds once went primarily to help the worthy priests and sisters in the far-off missions, now there are many instances where the bishops of the mission dioceses ask for assistance for lay persons and couples and teams who live permanently in the locales and are devoted to their faith and the Word of God.

Father Alfred Burke may have had diverse interests, but when it came to the missions within the country, he was single-minded. We, too, continue his heritage by reaching out in generosity, in prayer and in what means we can, to help the mission concerns remain vital centres of God’s saving Word.

Reprinted from: Catholic Missions In Canada Highlights, July 2010.