As I am sure many of you know better than I do, the Paulist Fathers ,who served this parish for more than one hundred years, were founded in 1858 by Father Isaac Hecker. Father Hecker was a convert to the Catholic Faith and was not baptized until he was 25 years old. He was first ordained a priest as a member of the Redemptorist Missionary Priests, but later founded the Paulist Fathers with the particular mission of bringing the Good News to those who had not yet heard it. Most of the priests who joined this new community were men who had converted from other Protestant denominations. The Paulist Fathers were the first religious order that was founded in the United States and one of their community’s main charisms was to attempt to bring the Catholic Faith to the mainly Protestant population of the United States of America in a way that was both exciting and new by using new methods of communication and focusing their preaching on the Bible. After the Second Vatican Council, which took place in the early 1960’s, the mission of the Paulist Fathers centred more specifically on evangelizing all people and using the modern methods of communication to do so. The Paulist Fathers came to Toronto in 1914 at the invitation of Archbishop Neil MacNeil and began their work here at St. Peter’s Parish and at the Paulist Centre. Other then their parish in Rome, this parish was their only house outside of the United States. Continue reading →