Oblate Presence and Lay Empowerment at St. Joseph’s Parish
We’re pleased to share a chapter from the newly published book on the history of St. Joseph’s Parish, 100 Stories from the History of St. Joseph’s Parish, written by Terry V. Byrne and 50 authors. This particular chapter, authored by Chris Adam, Executive Director at St. Joe’s since 2012, offers a staff perspective on the pastoral leadership of the four Oblate pastors he has worked with over the past decade.
Chris reflects on how the Oblate presence has shaped the parish’s mission, highlighting a spirit of collegiality, compassion, and deep commitment to those on the margins. His firsthand insights offer a vivid and personal account of how each pastor brought their unique gifts to the life of the community.
Chris Adam
The Oblate presence at St. Joseph’s Parish has given staff, parishioners and our ministries the latitude to live our faith in daring ways — all in pursuit of a Church that serves those on the margins intentionally, seeks justice universally and promotes conscious, active lay participation fully. In my experience working alongside four pastors since becoming executive director in 2012, Oblate clergy have embraced collegiality with staff and volunteers in a manner that always seemed more natural than learned. That disposition was perhaps what drew them to be missionaries embedded deeply in the day-to-day lives of the communities they served, often doing so on Canada’s tough, remote terrain. That openness to building collegial relationships in a parish with a comparatively large, professional staff team also meant that pastors were freed from many administrative or operational tasks to pursue unique pastoral initiatives, sharing their varied gifts in our community.
Fr. Andy Boyer (2010-2015) served as pastor during a period of many transitions. Garry Byrne had died after a quarter-century as the Parish’s director, his brother Terry Byrne filled the position on an interim basis, Dan Doyle had just been hired as the new director and Fr. Richard Kelly’s emblematic eight-year term as pastor, working closely with Pastoral Associate Mary Murphy, had come to an end. Meanwhile, the Parish had committed to community discussions on a new governance model that tested the boundaries of Canon Law, eliciting constructive feedback from the prominent Oblate Canon lawyer, Fr. Frank Morrissey. In 2011, Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Financial Council were both briefly disbanded and then reconstituted. In January 2012, the newly hired director left his position after 18 months. The Parish’s long-standing Operations Manager, Melissa Sabourin, resigned two months later, followed by the Parish’s bookkeeper. While 2010 to 2012 represented a period of change, with energetic discussions around future opportunities in our Parish, stability and predictability were lacking. In August 2012, one year after I began working in a different administrative capacity and seven months after I assumed most operational tasks on an interim basis, I was hired as the new executive director.
I experienced Fr. Boyer’s extraordinary commitment to collaborative leadership with laity. He invited me, along with other pastoral staff, to accompany him to deanery meetings. These were gatherings of clergy within the Ottawa-Central Deanery of what was then the pre-amalgamation Archdiocese of Ottawa. Lay staff from St. Joseph’s and from the city’s other English Oblate parish, Holy Canadian Martyrs, were the only laity at the table. Local parishes took turns hosting these deanery meetings and in 2015, we offered to host the gathering at St. Joseph’s, with a lunch prepared by the St. Joe’s Women’s Centre. The Episcopal Vicar of the Archdiocese of Ottawa supported the idea as an opportunity for other parishes to see what is going on elsewhere. For reasons unknown, nearly all clergy declined our parish’s invitation, and the gathering proceeded with a very small handful of guests. It is reasonable to presume that longstanding discomfort in some diocesan circles with St. Joseph’s understanding of being a welcoming parish and the expanded role of laity in leadership played a role.
Healing in various forms was at the heart of Fr. Boyer’s pastoral ministry. He had received training in coaching, seeking to establish a coaching ministry. With his Métis heritage, Indigenous reconciliation was close to his heart and the late John Corston, founder of Kateri Native Ministry, was a good friend. On May 30, 2015, St. Joseph’s Parish hosted what was known as the Eucharistic Celebration for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing, marking the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s “Calls to Action.” John Corston led the entrance procession with an Eagle staff and was followed by volunteers from Oblate parishes and the Indigenous community, as well as Oblate bishops Reynald Rouleau OMI, Anthony Krotki OMI, Sylvain Lavoie OMI, and Bishop Gérard Pettipas. Bishop Lavoie presided. Fr. Boyer, while vested and playing a humble role at this celebration, was instrumental in bringing together Oblates and Indigenous, laity and clergy. The prominent role played by Corston throughout the liturgy was testimony to Fr. Boyer’s ministry. Corston performed a Purification Ceremony and offered the traditional Six Directions Prayer in place of the customary Prayers of the Faithful. Fr. Boyer created trust through his consistent building of relations between communities. This special liturgy near the end of his term served as testimony to this. Quietly, demonstrating care and humility, Fr. Boyer listened to people and offered pastoral support to those who may otherwise never have been heard within the Catholic Church.
Fr. Boyer, like each Oblate pastor over the past decade, brought his gifts to our Parish. These included his stained-glass art and his extensive Bonsai collection, which found a home during the warmer months on the rectory deck.
Fr. Richard Beaudette (2015-2019) succeeded Fr. Boyer, bringing a hands-on, particularly industrious approach to parish ministry. Many years of pastoral work in remote communities meant that Fr. Beaudette learned to fend for himself, never hesitating to get his hands dirty. He put his gardening skills to good use, helping the St. Joe’s Supper Table grow tomatoes, other vegetables and herbs. In the spring, tomato seedlings grew in rows of cups on every window ledge in the rectory. Fr. Beaudette also tended gardens at the Galilee Retreat Centre in Arnprior and a plot at a community garden in Sandy Hill. When he learned of a local international student who missed home and lived in a small apartment, he helped him get a plot at the community garden.
In addition to gardening, Fr. Beaudette became known in our Parish for his cooking skills. He frequently volunteered to cook soups and bake fresh bread for meetings, placing great value on sharing simple, hearty meals. He was a much-appreciated presence in our young adult community and affirmed the dignity of LGBTQ+ Catholics. He was a passionate proponent of opening the doors of our church to the broader community, often mentioning that St. Joseph’s was built by the people of Sandy Hill and Ottawa. As such, as a faith community that is smaller in number than it was decades ago, we should not hoard our property but make it a place of welcome for all. Fr. Beaudette revived The Spirit newsletter during the second half of his term, personally editing the publication, and his photography of the natural world adorned the walls of the rectory.
Called to serve as Vicar Provincial of OMI Lacombe Canada, the English Oblate province, Fr. Beaudette was succeeded as pastor by Fr. Jim Bleackley (2019-2022), even while he continued to preside at Mass when requested in the years to come. Fr. Bleackley’s contemplative, reflective nature defined his ministry as much as the pandemic would as well. In his homilies, offered both in person and through video recording, he shared generously of his experiences in missions, as he broke open the Word through personal stories and experiences from the Yukon and British Columbia. In May 2021, Canadian society learned of soil disturbances and the potential of over 200 unmarked graves on the site of the former Kamloops Residential School, once administered by the Oblates. Unable to gather in person due to yet another pandemic lockdown, significant consternation around the news from Kamloops swept through the Parish community, sometimes expressed forcefully in emails and phone calls to both the pastor and to myself. One day we found a reusable shopping bag bearing the parish logo in our church entrance, with the words “house of genocide” added to it. In June 2021, Fr. Bleackley used his homily at our Zoom-based Liturgy of the Word service to have a dialogue with Fr. Garry LaBoucane, an Indigenous Oblate priest, on what it meant to be Indigenous, an Oblate, and a Catholic in the shadow of Canada’s residential school system.
The challenges caused by the pandemic and anxiety in our community over historic injustices were compounded by a year-long staff vacancy in the pastoral team. Fr. Bleackley, Music Director Jamie Loback and I became more directly involved in sustaining our young adult community and Sunday evening Mass as we went through a long and difficult process of hiring a new Coordinator of Faith Formation and Young Adult Ministry. We did so against the backdrop of a labour shortage and we were mindful of finding a candidate open to both the Oblate charism of working on the margins, as well as the needs of Generation Z — particularly a growing interest in rediscovering ritual and tradition.
Fr. Bleackley was an avid camper, and he discovered in short order that I wasn’t. He had spent weeks at a time on the rugged terrain of Western Canada, hunting, fishing, and living off both land and water. In August 2020, the first pandemic summer when my European travel plans had been scuppered, I went camping — so to speak. I rented a cabin with a private lake on a hemp farm, situated on the peripheries of the City of Gatineau. When Fr. Bleackley learned that my host brought me a supply of drinking water each day and provided a gas barbecue, he never let me live down my claims of having camped. Months later, on the Feast of the Epiphany, he handed out gifts to staff. He bought me an introductory guide to camping.
Fr. Bleackley was an avid cyclist. At a couple of stressful junctures during the pandemic, he mused about getting on his bicycle and pedaling all the way home to British Columbia. He served at St. Joseph’s faithfully and with great pastoral sensitivity during an exceptionally difficult period. He sometimes referred to himself as “the masked priest,” due to the unique requirements of the pandemic. When he did fly home to the West Coast at the end of his term in August 2022, he was succeeded by Fr. Robert Laroche. Fr. Bleackley stayed in touch with me through occasional emails. In February 2025, I received an unexpected text message from his sister Pat. Fr. Bleackley wanted me to know that he had a brain tumour, which turned out to be inoperable. The St. Joseph’s Parish community prayed for him at every Sunday Mass for the next six weeks. He died on April 8, 2025. Fr. Bleackley was 77 years old.
In his first week as pastor, I learned two important things about Fr. Robert Laroche OMI. First, he would put aside any plan he may have in order to visit the sick, isolated and elderly – and he would do so on short-notice. Within his first three days as pastor, Fr. Laroche had his first home visit. Second, his passion for art, particularly calligraphy and watercolour painting, was more than a hobby. It was an integral part of his pastoral ministry. He created personalized letters, using calligraphy, and addressed them to parishioners and staff who he felt needed a boost or just an acknowledgement. His art adorned our parish’s custom-designed Christmas cards and in 2024 was featured in The Toronto Star. His watercolour classes, held on several Saturdays each year, filled to capacity with parishioners. Fr. Laroche retained a visibly joyful disposition in his ministry and understood the importance of preserving our Parish’s practice of lay leadership, inclusion and hospitality to all, while also engaging with, and welcoming a growing demographic – comprised especially of young adults – that seeks a more traditional liturgical experience and a vigorous Catholicism.
Seen from a staff perspective, our Oblate pastors have embraced the practice of lay leadership and collegiality in a manner that is unique within the Catholic context. When our pastor participates in staff meetings, he occupies a place at the table as a colleague and as a reminder that in everything we do, including the most mundane operational tasks, we must never lose sight of the dignity of those we serve and our place in the unfolding of Providence in our world.
By Chris Adam
Excerpted from the newly released book 100 Stories from the History of St. Joseph’s Parish.
