Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

A bishop's modern adventure

In his book Indian Bishop of the West, Frank Dolphin describes how twice within a matter of weeks, Bishop Vital Grandin, the first bishop of what later became the Edmonton Archdiocese, became lost while traversing a frozen Great Slave Lake.

On the first occasion, Grandin and his young Métis guide were trapped in a blizzard while travelling via dog team to Fort Resolution. After the blizzard had blown out, the pair stumbled into the mission church to find a priest celebrating Mass for the repose of their souls.

A couple of weeks later, the pair left on the six-day return trip to Providence Mission. This time, rather than being threatened by a blinding snowstorm, they lost the trail, were befuddled for days by mirages that appeared and disappeared, and were ravaged by hunger. Just when all appeared lost, Grandin spotted a familiar island which did not vanish. Again, they found their way and made it back to safety.

It is in the footsteps of Grandin which Bishop Thomas Collins will tread when he becomes archbishop of Edmonton, likely within a few months. Like Grandin, Collins is an evangelizer, a bishop with a passionate desire to spread the Good News.

While today the obstacles to evangelization do not come from the physical environment, the barriers are still real and the environment sometimes hostile. The harsh climate is the coldness of secularism, religious indifference and lack of solidarity. And it takes a courageous soul to assume the task of stoking the warm fire of Christ's love in a village where the wind blows cold.

The Edmonton Archdiocese has been extremely blessed in many ways. It has a major seminary, a Catholic university college, and Western Canada's only major theological college. It has numerous active and committed laity in virtually every aspect of the Church's apostolate. It has many open-minded and innovative clergy and religious sisters. And it has made a commitment, unique in Canada, to use the Catholic press to keep all laity informed not only about the local Church, but also the Church in Canada and around the world.

All of this a testimony to the high quality of leadership the local Church has received over the last 128 years from its bishops from Grandin to the about-to-retire Archbishop Joseph MacNeil. Indeed, Grandin is one of but a handful of Canadians being seriously considered for eventual canonization. MacNeil has been a great pastor, leader and enabler not only to the local Church, but for the Church across Canada.

Like virtually every diocese in North America, the Edmonton Archdiocese is a church in transition. It has been buffetted by a sharp decline in the number of priests and religious, and a decline in the percentage of Catholics attending Sunday Mass.

But under MacNeil's leadership, the diocese has never fallen prey to the twin temptations of defensiveness and despair. The archbishop has never tried to build a moat around the Church to protect it from a vastly different pastoral situation than existed when he became a priest 51 years ago. Nor has he ever given in to the sort of defeatism which assumes the Church will not be effective until society is ready for a resurgence of religious fervour. There are needs to be addressed today and MacNeil has striven tirelessly and joyfully to deal with them. In doing so, he has provided a strong foundation for his successor to build upon.

Collins told The Edmonton Journal he sees himself as neither a liberal nor a conservative, but as "someone who seeks to be a faithful disciple of Jesus and a faithful bishop." He brings a high degree of intelligence, a strong intellectual and spiritual formation, and an overflowing enthusiasm to his new task. In a very real sense, he is a new Grandin for a new era in the life of the Church and society. Collins will challenge us to buy into that spirit of adventure. And to the extent that we follow that leadership, we will be richly blessed.

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