Diocese of Antigonish Dioecesis Antigonicensis | |
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Location | |
Country | ![]() |
Ecclesiastical province | Halifax |
Statistics | |
Area | 18,800 km2 (7,300 sq mi) |
Population - Total - Catholics | (as of 2020)![]() ![]() ![]() |
Information | |
Denomination | Catholic Church |
Sui iuris church | Latin Church |
Rite | Roman Rite |
Established | August 23, 1886 |
Cathedral | St. Ninian's Cathedral |
Secular priests | 74 |
Current leadership | |
Pope | Francis |
Bishop | Wayne Joseph Kirkpatrick |
Metropolitan Archbishop | Archbishop of Halifax-Yarmouth |
Website | |
www |
The Diocese of Antigonish (Latin : Dioecesis Antigonicensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Catholic Church in Nova Scotia, Canada. Its current diocesan ordinary is Wayne Joseph Kirkpatrick.
The Diocese was established on 22 September 1844, under the name of the Diocese of Arichat, on territory split off from the Diocese of Halifax. Its proto-cathedral (now Église Notre Dame de l’Assomption) was located on Cape Breton Island, in the port town of Arichat.
In both Scottish and Canadian folklore, the first ordinary of the Diocese, Bishop William Fraser of Strathglass, is a folk hero. He is said to have been a man of enormous physical strength and to have been able to break steel horseshoes with his bare hands. On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, many legends have been collected of the Bishop's exploits. [1]
On 23 August 1886, the diocese was renamed the Diocese of Antigonish, and its episcopal see moved to St. Ninian's Cathedral, on the Nova Scotia mainland in the town of Antigonish.
Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, the highly influential Antigonish Movement, which combined adult education, co-operatives, microfinance and rural community development to help small, resource-based villages throughout the Maritimes to improve their economic and social circumstances, was largely founded and led by a small group of Diocesan priests: Father James Tompkins, Father Moses Coady, and Fr. Hugh MacPherson.
In 1946, Scottish nationalist, folklorist, and scholar of Scottish Gaelic literature John Lorne Campbell was received into the Roman Catholic Church inside St. Ninian's Cathedral in Antigonish. [2] Campbell, along with his American-born musicologist wife, Margaret Fay Shaw, had previously collected much folklore and traditional music from Diocesan Catholics in both Canadian Gaelic and the indigenous Mi'kmaq language, which was recorded onto Ediphone wax cylinders. [3]
On August 7, 2009, Bishop Raymond Lahey announced that the Diocese of Antigonish had reached a $15 million settlement in a class action lawsuit filed by 125 victims of sexual abuse by Hugh Vincent MacDonald and other diocese priests dating from 1950 to 2009. [4] On September 26, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Bishop Raymond Lahey, one day after a warrant was issued for his arrest by the Ottawa Police Service relating to child pornography charges (cf. sexual abuse scandal in Antigonish diocese). [5] The bishop pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and was jailed. [6]
Archbishop Anthony Mancini of the Archdiocese of Halifax was named the Apostolic Administrator effective September 26, 2009, and remained in that position until the installation of Brian Dunn on January 25, 2010. [7]
The Diocese of Antigonish covers 18,800 square kilometers, comprising the counties of Pictou, Antigonish, Guysborough, Inverness, Victoria, Richmond and Cape Breton.
As of 2006, the diocese contained 123 parishes, 119 active diocesan priests, 8 religious priests, and 129,905 Catholics. It also has 290 women religious, 12 religious brothers and 1 permanent deacon. In 2012 in order to satisfy its legal obligations to pay out $15 million to the victims of sexual abuse, the diocese had to sell a large number of its lands and properties, liquidating the bank accounts of many of its churches, and borrowing $6.5 million from private lenders to make the payout. [8] [4] [9]
Until 2015, the Bishop of Antigonish served ex officio as Chancellor of St. Francis Xavier University.
Antigonish is a town in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia, Canada. The town is home to St. Francis Xavier University and the oldest continuous Highland games outside Scotland. It is approximately 160 kilometres northeast of Halifax, the provincial capital.
James John "Jimmy" Tompkins was a Roman Catholic priest who founded the Antigonish Movement, a progressive effort that incorporated adult education, cooperatives and rural community development to aid the fishing and mining communities of northern and eastern Nova Scotia, Canada. The Antigonish Movement later evolved into the Extension Department of St. Francis Xavier University.
Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic, often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada.
Mabou is an unincorporated settlement in the Municipality of the County of Inverness on the west coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. The population in 2011 was 1,207 residents. It is the site of The Red Shoe pub, Beinn Mhàbu, the An Drochaid Museum, and Glenora Distillers.
James Morrison was the longest-serving bishop of the Diocese of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. Although one of the last powerful and austere Roman Catholic bishops in Canada, Morrison presided over a diocese that created one of the most successful Catholic social movements in Canada.
The Diocese of Peterborough is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Ontario, Canada. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario.
Rémi Gaulin was a Roman Catholic priest and bishop who spent time in the service of Bishop Joseph-Octave Plessis. Plessis ordained Gaulin in 1811 and appointed him curate to Alexander MacDonell in Upper Canada. In 1815 he became a missioner in Nova Scotia. In 1840 he succeeded Macdonnell as bishop of the Diocese of Kingston.
Angus Bernard MacEachern was a Scottish bishop in the Roman Catholic Church who rose to become the first bishop of the newly formed Diocese of Charlottetown following its separation from the Archdiocese of Quebec on August 11, 1829.
Christmas Island, Nova Scotia is a Canadian community of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. It has a post office, a firehall and a very small population. It has a beach with access to the Bras d'Or Lake. A small island just off shore, also named Christmas Island, encloses Christmas Island Pond, a pond that runs into the lake.
Bohuntine is a settlement located close to Roybridge, in Lochaber, within the Scottish Highlands, and is in the Highland Council area.
Colin Francis MacKinnon was a Canadian Roman Catholic Archbishop and founder of St. Francis Xavier University and Saint Ninian's Cathedral.
William Fraser was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest and the first Bishop of Halifax in Nova Scotia from 1842 until the splitting of the diocese into two dioceses effective September 22, 1844, when William Walsh took formal possession of the Diocese of Halifax. Bishop Fraser, however, remains a celebrated figure in the Canadian Gaelic Bardic poetry composed in his Diocese and is still remembered as a legendary strongman in both his native district of Scotland and in Nova Scotia. In both countries, many tales have been collected of his exploits.
Alexander MacDonald was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest, educator, author, and Bishop of Victoria, British Columbia.
Raymond John Lahey was a Canadian bishop of the Catholic Church. He was Bishop of the Diocese of Antigonish, Nova Scotia from 2003 to 2009. Lahey was charged in 2009 with the importation of child pornography. He was suspended from the exercise of his priestly and sacramental functions, resigned as bishop in 2009, and was laicized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
The Bishop's Man is a novel by Canadian writer Linden MacIntyre, published in August 2009. The story follows a Roman Catholic priest and former fixer for the Diocese of Antigonish named Fr. Duncan MacAskill. After years of quietly resolving potential scandals involving the misdeeds of Diocesan priests, Fr. MacAskill has been assigned by his Bishop to a remote parish on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia and ordered to maintain a low profile. MacIntyre, a native of Cape Breton, released the novel amidst the ongoing sexual abuse scandal in Antigonish diocese in Nova Scotia. The book was awarded the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Canadian Booksellers Association's Fiction Book of the Year. Critics gave positive reviews, especially noting MacIntyre's complex and successful character development.
There have been various cases of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Antigonish on the part of Roman Catholic clergy.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Halifax–Yarmouth is a Latin Church archdiocese that includes part of the civil province of Nova Scotia.
Rev. James Drummond MacGregor was an author of Christian poetry in both Scottish and Canadian Gaelic, an abolitionist and Presbyterian minister in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Antigonish County is a historical county and census division of Nova Scotia, Canada. Local government is provided by the Municipality of the County of Antigonish, the Town of Antigonish, and by two reserves: Pomquet and Afton 23, and Summerside 38.
Allan The Ridge MacDonald was a bard, traditional singer, and seanchaidh who emigrated from the Gàidhealtachd of Scotland to Nova Scotia in 1816. He continued to compose Gaelic poetry on his two separate homesteads in Canada and remains a highly important figure in both Scottish Gaelic literature and in that of Canadian Gaelic. He is also, along with John The Bard MacLean, one of only two 19th-century North American Gaelic poets from whom a sizeable repertoire survives.
MacDonald, Alexander (1907). Catholic Encyclopedia . Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
. In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).