Mass in ruins of first English Catholic church in Ontario.

St. Raphael's, ON -- Cardinal Mare Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec City and Primate of Canada, celebrated Mass in the ruins of St. Raphael's Church, twenty miles northeast of Cornwall Ontario. It commemorated the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Alexander Macdonell, in 1804, who was to become the first anglophone bishop of the Canadian Catholic Church.

A legendary figure, Macdonell secured work for many of his destitute Scottish Highlanders in the mills of Glasgow, raised a regiment of "Glengarry Fencibles" to fight in the Napoleonic Wars and acted as its chaplain, secured the grant of a tract of land in Glengarry County, Upper Canada when the regiment disbanded, and brought many of his former soldiers and others as immigrants to the new world.

He was largely responsible for the building of St. Raphael's Church, big enough to hold a thousand people. It was consecrated in 1821. A fire gutted it in 1970, but its walls and large circular altar were left standing. In 1974 its ruins were designated a provincial historical landmark, and in 1999 they were declared a national historical site.

The federal and provincial governments have contributed $1.5 million towards preservation of the site, but the Friends of the Ruins of St. Raphael's are seeking to raise the rest of the funds required to stabilize the church's walls and foundation. They want to ensure that the site is preserved as a permanent memorial to one of the founding settlements of Canada.

In his homily during the commemorative Mass, Cardinal Ouellet praised Macdonell as "a man celebrated in his own time for being unfailingly courteous and respectful of the dignity of others;" as a visionary; and also as a man of deep faith and conviction.

Kingston Archbishop Anthony Meagher, Macdonell's successor, said that the Mass provided an opportunity for people to appreciate the area's heritage. "The faith that we have today was won by people who've gone before us," he said. They "suffered a lot so that we can have this faith today" (Prairie Messenger, July 28, 2004).