Leon Levasseur, a former priest and Thompson’s first resident pastor at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in November 1960, has died in North Bay, Ontario at the age of 90

Leon Levasseur, a former Oblate priest, who was appointed Thompson’s first resident pastor for St. Lawrence Catholic Church in November 1960, died in North Bay, Ontario at Cassellholme East Nipissing District Home for the Aged Sept. 26 at the age of 90, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He lived in Thompson from 1960 to 1969.

Levasseur was born in scenic Matane, Québec on the Gaspé Peninsula, located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, 400 kilometres northeast of Québec City, but he was raised in Manitoba by his foster mother Delia Pearson following the death of his birth mother at a young age.

After graduating from the University of Ottawa, Levasseur was ordained in 1953 and spent 16 years pastoring in Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. He arrived in the brand-new mining town of Thompson, Manitoba on Nov. 26, 1960, three days after his pastoral appointment here. In 1969, he was voluntarily laicized as he withdrew from the clerical state and married his wife Eileen, a laywoman from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Cathedral choir in The Pas, who survives him. The couple left Thompson and moved of Winnipeg in 1969. Laicization is a process which takes from a priest or other cleric the licit use of his powers, rights, and authority, rendering him for ecclesiastical purposes the equivalent of a layman, although he still remains a priest.

Levasseur, who remained a Catholic, spent the remainder of his life and career living in Winnipeg and North Bay, where he was a passionate advocate for social housing. A memorial service was celebrated for him at St. Peter the Apostle Church in North Bay Oct. 3.

He is also survived by two children, Treasa and Kelly. Treasa is a noted rhythm and blues/folk artist who kicked off the second Home Routes concert series season here on Oct. 3, 2010.Treasa was born in Winnipeg, raised in North Bay and now lives in Toronto.

Father Levasseur, as he then was, had many irons in the fire when it came to civic involvement in Thompson’s early days. As chair of the Thompson Religious Council’ s organizing committee, he was in charge of an Oct. 15, 1967 survey the council took upon itself most years during the 1960s to conduct its own door-to-door survey of religious denominational affiliation in Thompson.

A year earlier in 1966, Levasseur had chaired the “Thompson Interested Voters Committee,” which drummed up enthusiasm for the first municipal election here, capped off by an all-candidates forum at the old Brad Theatre on Selkirk Avenue, as the townsite transitioned from being governed by the Local Government District (LGD) of Mystery Lake, to status as a town with an elected council.

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Not for the faint of heart: Father Subhash Joseph to transfer from St. Lawrence Church to the Church of St. Gertrude in Pelican Narrows and the Church of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Sandy Bay, both in remote northeastern Saskatchewan

Days after he began what was originally expected to be a second three-year appointment as co-pastor of St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church here in Thompson, Manitoba, Father Subhash Joseph, a missionary priest from India, said July 18 he is being transferred to the repair-challenged Church of St. Gertrude in Pelican Narrows, Saskatchewan, located 120 kilometres northwest of Flin Flon; 388 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert and 525 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, and the Church of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Sandy Bay, at road’s end for the gravel winding road, 72 kilometres north of Pelican Narrows. The transfer, requested by Father Joseph, as he is known, and approved by Archbishop Murray Chatlain, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas, will probably take place in October. He will serve in Pelican Narrows and Sandy Bay by himself, replacing  Father Susai Jesu, an Oblate, also from India.

Father Joseph, along with Father Guna Pothula, his co-pastor at St. Lawrence Church in Thompson, are both from India and members of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, founded by Father Peter Marie Mermier from Vouray in the parish of Chaumont en Genevois and the Diocese of Annecy in the Savoy region of France in October 1838 for parish mission, foreign mission and youth education. They are also known as the Fransalians. Pope Pius XI proclaimed St. Francis de Sales in 1923 as the patron saint of writers and journalists. Francis de Sales was born in France and lived at the time of the Protestant Reformation, becoming Bishop of Geneva. He had lots of exposure to Calvinism and predestination and was noted for his diplomacy in the volatile, heated religious climate of the day in Switzerland. He’s honored as one of the doctors of the Catholic Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The missionary order allows it priests to live abroad for up to 10 years. Father Joseph and Father Guna arrived in Thompson together three years ago in July 2012. Their requests to have their terms extended for a further three years were approved earlier this year by the provincial superior of their missionary order in India and the local archdiocese here. Father Guna, who will be staying on at St. Lawrence in Thompson, will now be joined in due course by another priest, likely from Andhra Pradesh in southeastern India where he is from, and also a member of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales.

In Cree, Pelican Narrows  is called Opawikoscikcan, which means “The Narrows of Fear.” The community consists of the Northern Village of Pelican Narrows and Pelican Narrows 184B Indian Reserve, the administrative centre of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation. The combined population is about 2,700, with more than two-thirds of the population – about, 1,900 of the 2,700 residents – living on the reserve. Sandy Bay’s name in Cree is Wapaskokimawn, meaning “okimaw,” which is “boss” in Cree, or “non-native agent.” With a combined population of about 1,200, the community, like Pelican Narrows,  is also split into two parts: the Northern Village of Sandy Bay and  Wapaskokimaw Indian Reserve No. 202, with about one quarter of Sandy Bay’s combined population being members of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation.

Major businesses and industry in Pelican Narrows consist of the Co-op Fisheries and Fish Plant, The Northern Store, Mum’s Restaurant, Charles Confectionery, PBCN Band Store, Pearson Enterprises, Nikatosik Forestry and Pelican Narrows Air Services.

In 1876, Father Étienne Bonnald, a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), often known simply as Oblates, and also a missionary order, sought to establish a Catholic presence within the Village of Pelican Narrows, which had started out as a Protestant community. St. Gertrude was erected two years later in 1878.

The Church of St. Gertrude in Pelican Narrows, where 90 per cent of the parishioners are Cree, had fallen into such a state of disrepair in recent years, Catholic Missions In Canada identified it as a mission church it was going to help fund repairs for.  St. Joseph’s Catholic Parish Social Justice Committee in Moose Jaw, at the suggestion of Catholic Missions In Canada, began helping with repairs through its “St. Gertrude’s Project” in 2010. You can watch a short YouTube video on the project here at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeLwJCejEJQ

Les Oblats de Marie Immaculée, or The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), established the first mission at Ile-À-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan in 1860.

Another Oblate priest, Father Ovide Charlebois, arrived as pastor of St. Gertrude in 1900. While in Pelican Narrows, he constructed a new church with a bell, and a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected. Ten years later,  on March 4, 1910 when the Vicariate Apostolic of Keewatin, forerunner to today’s Metropolitan Archdiocese of Keewatin Le Pas, was created from territory of the Diocese of Prince Albert, and Charlebois, elevated to bishop, was appointed as its first ordinary on Aug. 8, 1910 and installed as vicar apostolic on March 7, 1911.

The Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas takes in some 430,000 square kilometres and stretches across the northern parts of three provinces – Saskatchewan, Manitoba and a small portion of Northwestern Ontario.

The farthest point west is La Loche, Saskatchewan., near the Alberta border. The farthest point north is Lac Brochet here in Manitoba. The distance from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Cathedral in The Pas, which serves as the archdiocesan seat, to La Loche by car, is 850 kilometres – an 8 1/2 -hour drive – and the archbishop, as shepherd of the flock, has to travel through the Diocese of Prince Albert in Saskatchewan to reach La Loche in his own archdiocese on travelling pastoral visits.

The farthest point east travelled is Sandy Lake, Ont., a fly-in and Northern Ontario Winter Road Network-only remote Oji-Cree First Nations community in Northwestern Ontario, 450 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg and 600 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay.

The distance from The Pas to Sandy Lake is a combined six-hour drive to Winnipeg, followed by a one-hour plane ride.

Lac Brochet is reached by a four-hour drive from The Pas to Thompson and then an hour flight from Thompson to Lac Brochet. En route to Lac Brochet, the archbishop sometimes stays at the rectory at St. Lawrence Church on Cree Road in Thompson overnight waiting to catch a flight.

The Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales has long had a presence in India, dating back to 1846.  The Visakhapatnam Province of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales in India also has missions in Trinidad and Papua New Guinea, as well as the Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas here in Canada.

Father Joseph joined the seminary at the age of 16 in 1998 and was ordained a priest in 2010. He is from Therthally in Kerala on the Malabar Coast in southwestern India, which dates back  some 20 centuries to the Christians of St. Thomas, named for Saint Thomas the Apostle, also known as “Doubting Thomas,” who is believed in apocryphal literature to have arrived in India around 52AD, seeking converts to Christianity. He was martyred, it is believed, about 20 year later in 72AD, near Mylapore, India, lanced by a spear as he prayed kneeling on a stone.

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