Collins receives call to Toronto

Archbishop will now head Canada's largest diocese; installation date still to be set

- WCR photo by Ramon Gonzalez Archbishop Thomas Collins reflects momentarily during a farewell talk to staff at the Catholic Pastoral Centre Dec. 18.

By GLEN ARGAN
WCR Editor
Edmonton

Archbishop Thomas Collins, archbishop of Edmonton for the past seven and a half years, has been named head of the Toronto Archdiocese, Canada's largest diocese.

Pope Benedict appointed Collins to head the Toronto see Dec. 16, a month before the archbishop turns 60.

The former Edmonton archbishop will take over in Toronto from Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic, 76, who has been archbishop there since 1990.

"I'm very honoured that the holy father has called me to be the bishop of a large diocese that is very central in the life of the Church in Canada," Collins said in a Dec. 16 interview.

He learned of his appointment in a phone call from the papal nuncio Dec. 11.

"I just picked up the phone. It was the nuncio and boom! you're gone," he said. "You're a feather on the breath of God."

"I've really appreciated being bishop here. It's a wonderful diocese, the same with St. Paul. There's real life and joy," he said during an emotional interview.

Collins was born in Guelph, Ont., Jan. 16, 1947. He was ordained a priest for the Hamilton Diocese in 1973 and was a Scripture professor at St. Peter's Seminary from 1978 to 1997.

He was rector of the seminary the last two years he was there before becoming coadjutor bishop of St. Paul in May 1997. Six weeks later he became bishop of the diocese replacing retiring Bishop Raymond Roy.

In February 1999, he was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Edmonton and became archbishop on June 7, 1999, replacing the retiring Archbishop Joseph MacNeil.

As the WCR went to press, no date had been set for Collins' installation in Toronto. The event will take likely place in late January.

Collins said he did not expect it to take a long time for the pope to appoint his successor in Edmonton.

During his term as archbishop in Edmonton, he strongly promoted vocations to the priestly and consecrated life and saw the number of ordinations and seminarians climb significantly.

Collins launched numerous pastoral programs, including a training program for permanent deacons, perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a chapel in a downtown shopping centre, an annual Corpus Christi procession and a monthly Lectio Divina at St. Joseph's Basilica.

He led a restructuring of the archdiocesan administration, contributed numerous articles to the WCR and brought in several priests from overseas to serve local parishes.

The pilgrimage of the World Youth Day cross through the archdiocese in 2001 prior to the 2002 WYD in Toronto was "a focal point," he said.

He brought the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to the archdiocese as a vehicle for parishioners to work with the poor. "I thought it would be important to encourage that," he said. "I'm amazed at the way it has just taken off."

At the monthly Lectio Divina, hundreds of people come to reflect on Scripture with the archbishop. He found his own participation in that to be "a real experience of prayer."

As for the downtown St. Benedict's Chapel, which opened last month, he is happy to see the large crowds of people who drop in or attend Mass. "It is already fulfilling the need I hoped it would play."

Engaging speaker

Collins will probably be best remembered as an engaging public speaker who was able to educate and entertain his audiences at the same time.

At World Youth Day in Rome in 2000, he told a group of young people that Sts. Peter and Paul "weren't perfect people. (Jesus) didn't pick perfect people to follow him - he picked wishy-washy Jello type people, someone like Peter."

Launching a retreat, the archbishop said, "The only three questions are the basic ones asked by Immigration: Who are you? Where are you going? Where do you come from?"

And in a reflection on the terrorist events of 9/11, he encouraged people to replace evil with good by saying, "As a wise spiritual teacher once said, if a box is full of salt, it cannot also be full of pepper."

In his Dec. 16 interview with the WCR, he said, "People talk about the burdens of being a bishop. But if you follow a bishop in his day-to-day work, you have a chance to see so many good people."

People had sometimes speculated that he might be named to succeed Ambrozic in Toronto. "I had heard people sometimes say that, but I didn't really know what to think."

Now, in Toronto, he will be closer to his two sisters in Guelph and to many friends he had before he came West.

While he visited Toronto as a child many times, he has only been in the archdiocesan chancery office once. Now he will be head of the archdiocese with its 1.6 million Catholics, 833 priests, 111 permanent deacons, 715 religious brothers and sisters, and three auxiliary bishops.

Although he made his ad limina visit to Rome and met with the pope in September, he said he had no idea the appointment was coming.

Looking forward, he said, "You always miss the people you leave behind but you also look forward to the people you're going to serve."

Part of the priestly life is that one becomes close to the people he serves and then has to move on. "It's good to love the people you're with. But the key is that we're servants.

"Priests come and go; bishops come and go; popes come and go. It's Christ that is the centre."

With the pope's announcement, Collins becomes administrator of the Edmonton Archdiocese and archbishop-designate of Toronto. He must "take possession" of his new see within two months of the announcement.

Once Collins becomes archbishop of Toronto, the priest consultors of the Edmonton Archdiocese will elect an archdiocesan administrator who will oversee the archdiocese until a new archbishop takes over.

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