Rev. Patrick Dowd: championed the rights of Montreal’s English-speaking Catholics. This month marks the bi-centennial of the birth of Father Patrick Dowd who for more than 30 years during the 19th century was pastor of St. Patrick’s church. Father Dowd figured prominently in establishing a number of charitable institutions for the diocese and was instrumental in preserving the church as a place of English-speaking worship in Montreal. To mark the anniversary Msgr. Francis Coyle will celebrate the 11 a.m. Mass on Nov 24 in his honour. The same day a Mass will also be celebrated in his memory at St. Brigid’s in Dunleer, Ireland, in the church in which Dowd was baptized 200 years ago. Patrick Dowd was born in Dunleer Nov. 24, 1813 and studied for the priesthood in Newry; He was ordained in 1837 at the Seminaire de Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and became a Sulpician in 1848. He arrived in Montreal in June of that year and was appointed to serve the burgeoning Irish immigrant community which fled to Montreal during the Great Famine. He founded the St. Patrick Orphan Asylum, as well as other relief agencies and quickly enjoyed an influence which made him the envy of some of his colleagues. In a letter to his family, Dowd deplored the sufferings of a great number of immigrants he found in Montreal, “which is truly afflicting to witness…Whole cargos of widows with small children and young females emptied out from the poor houses not knowing where to turn, their young exposed to the worst of dangers, the widows unable to work from the burden of their children.” Father Dowd was appointed pastor of St. Patrick’s in 1859, where he quickly became a tough taskmaster known as “the unofficial bishop,” of Montreal’s Irish community. As pastor he was both revered and feared. “He could be vindictive where his legitimate authority or political opinion was questioned,” historian John Loye observed. His blunt words and sometimes tactless behavior were, however, tempered by his extraordinary ability to charm. Pope Pius IX wanted to make him a full-fledged bishop on three occasions, but each time, Father Dowd refused. In 1866, Bishop Ignace Bourget attempted to eliminate English-language parishes on the Island of Montreal by integrating the 30,000 English speaking Catholics into six French parishes. Father Dowd, with the help of one of his most famous parishioners, D’Arcy McGee, was having none of it. He went over the bishop’s head and appealed to Rome. In spite of Bourget’s objections, St. Patrick’s was designated the mother church of all English-speaking Roman Catholics on the island. In 1877 Father Dowd led a pilgrimage to Rome, in which his ship was lost at sea, creating several weeks of anxiety in Montreal. In 1887 he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a priest. He was devoted to St. Patrick’s. “We are happy in the extreme… in truth I would not exchange my happy position here for any place in the world,” he once wrote to his father. In 1887 he built the church presbytery which still stands. “He had two peculiarities,” recalled one of his friends, “No matter how intemperate the weather or how cold it might be he never wore anything but cotton socks and he never used gloves.” Father Dowd died on Dec. 12, 1891. “It was touching to visit his room and his wardrobe after he died. With the exception of an armchair which a parishioner gave him when he was ill with rheumatism, I don’t think the effects in his room, if sold at auction, would realize ten dollars,” wrote one observer. Twenty thousand people lined the streets as his funeral cortege passed by. He is buried in the crypt of the Grand Seminaire on Sherbrooke St. and is commemorated in the basilica with a cameo in the first stained glass window to the right in the nave. As The Star wrote in an editorial when he died, “Father Dowd is now but a memory, never to be erased while St. Patrick’s exists.” Alan Hustak
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 16:16:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015