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Mont Saint-Jean-Baptiste Seminary opens in Granby, Québec

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In 1948 the central administration of the Society of the Divine Word was exploring the possibility of new a mission house in Canada. World War II had decimated the global SVD community, forcing the Society to seek missionary vocations in new countries. Responsibility for this new venture fell to Rev. Joseph Eckert SVD, whose decades of work in the Black apostolate were now behind him. Fr. Eckert focused his efforts in the Francophone province of Québec and eventually the town of Granby, 50 miles east of Montréal, where the North American provinces purchased a farm in August of that same year. The property would become the location of yet another in the SVD’s growing network of high school seminaries through North America. Eckert then awaited reinforcements.

This was not the first time the SVDs had journeyed north of the United States. In the 1930s Rev. Albert Florian SVD was first appointed to be a traveling priest in Canada with an eye toward a new foundation. What was established instead was a short-lived mission at St. Bonaventure parish outside of Edmonton, Alberta. The parish was made up of Eastern-European immigrants, and while Rev. Anthony Humel SVD was assigned as pastor he lacked the language skills necessary. In 1941, when Fr. Humel’s successor, Rev. Joseph Faikus SVD was denied entrance to Canada due to World War II, the Society had to relinquish their only hold in the country.

A year after Eckert purchased the Granby property, in August 1949, a small cadre of SVDs arrived in Granby to spell him. They included Rev. Bruno Hagspiel SVD, who would be the community’s first rector, as well as a number of French-speaking priests and Brothers. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on September 8, and construction began a month later. The school was completed September 1950, and the community moved into the new building, christened Mont Saint-Jean-Baptiste, just days before the first 33 students arrived. The seminary featured a six-year program, during which students would receive their high school diplomas and a Bachelor of Arts degree. Students could then attend the SVD novitiate if they wished. Two members of that first class, Yvon Allard and Marcel Barsalou, would go on to be Divine Word priests as well as important figures within the Canadian SVD community.

For the next decade, the community continued its focus on education and its hope for vocations. In 1954 a new chapel and gymnasium were built under the leadership of the rector, Rev. Lawrence Walsh SVD; in 1964 a north wing was added to accommodate more students. In 1960 the Québecoise government instituted widespread educational reforms, and in turn the seminary became partially funded by the Québec province. However, the reforms also meant that Granby’s vocational recruitment could no longer be part of the school’s educational operations.

Though enrollment was increased, vocations never materialized and the seminary character of the school dissipated. By 1975 the seminary had become a day school, and then turned coeducational 1981. The Society of the Divine Word finally removed itself from the school’s administration in 1983. The École Secondaire du Verbe Divin still occupies the original building today as a private Catholic high school, while the SVD community and its Biblical Center, opened in 2002, are located on an adjacent property.

Beyond its high school seminary, the SVD community in Canada has been responsible for a number of parishes and other ministries, beginning with its establishment of St. Patrick’s parish in Granby in 1950. Parishes in Montréal, Toronto, and Mississauga, Ontario followed. The five current SVD Canadian parishes are largely focused on the pastoral care of immigrants, harkening back to the Society’s first forays into the country almost a century ago.

The text of this page is an adapted version of Communities of the Word, The Canada District Story by Rev. Marcel Barsalou SVD.

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