Part One. The Race for Canada 1853-1933.
The first Passionist actually to come to Canada came to “quest” money from Canadian Catholics. In the summer of 1858 Bishop Ignace Bourget of Montreal, Canada sponsored Brother Lawrence DiGiacomo of Pittsburgh during a six month trip which began in Toronto and ended in Quebec. $5,530.00 was collected. In effect, Canadian Catholics paid one-third of the price to build the first Passionist monastery in Pittsburgh!
In November 1863 Fathers Anthony Calandri and Albinus Magno preached the first Passionist parish mission at Maidstone Cross, Diocese of Sandwich (London). Twelve converts and the founding of a Temperance Society were the result. This led to twelve other parish missions over the next two years. Overall, 1865 till 1908 show that Passionists preached only a small number of parish missions in Canada. 1894-1908 was the high point when twenty-five were conducted.
It highlights the competitive sense of mission planning between, again, the Passionists in England and their counterparts in the eastern and western United States.
At the turn of the century the English Passionists had reversed their earlier position and began to show interest in a Canadian venture. Not helping their case was an 1892 assessment of United States Passionist General Consultor Thomas O'Connor that the English province was in organizational and spiritual malaise. Furthermore, the 1906 split of one United States province into two: east—based in West Hoboken (later Union City), New Jersey and west—Chicago, Illinois, led to the opinion that expansion to Canada was more their right than that of their English brethren.
As so often is the case, opinions proved stronger than action. Nothing came of a 1908 United States desire to investigate establishing a Canadian foundation. Later, a 1914 invitation by Archbishop of Toronto Neil McNeil was put on the back burner due to the election of a new eastern province provincial who had to deal with unexpected financial concerns: the collapse of the Passionist monastery in Scranton, Pennsylvania—it was built on a coal mine shaft; and a proposal to build a preparatory seminary on Shelter Island, New York.
In 1917 the English Passionists began to show interest in Canada once more. This led both United States provincials to participate in a letter writing campaign with Passionists in Rome to “defend” their perceived Canadian turf. In 1919 United States Passionists documented this claim but took no action until 1921 when Father Provincial Justin Carey of the eastern province made a more formal offer to Archbishop McNeil to establish a monastery so as to offer retreats to laity and clergy. However, there were disagreements over the location of the foundation. Discussions in 1923 and 1927 proved unsuccessful. 1928 saw the Passionists agree and later halt the establishment of a foundation at a Fort Erie site. In the 1930s negotiations commenced again. In the 1932 Provincial Chapter of the eastern province, Superior General Titus, who had just attended the western province chapter, urged a decision be made on Canada because the interest of the English province had still not diminished.
On January 11, 1933, in the heart of the Depression, the Passionists purchased a remote piece of land and a home owned by the Anglican Sisters of St. John the Divine on Bayview Avenue near the Don River in Toronto. The cost was $32,000. Eighty years after their first invitation, the Passionists had a foundation in Canada—Sacred Heart Retreat.
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