EDITORIAL
Father Dominique De Vriendt

It has been now 25 years, since the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X became established in Canada. Thanks to the dedication of a group of the faithful, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of our Society and of the seminary of Ecône in Switzerland, was able to purchase, at Shawinigan, in Quebec, the former novitiate of the Society of African Missions of Lyon. It was March 19, 1977, on the feast of Saint Joseph, patron of the universal Church and patron of Canada!

In founding this first priory of the Society in Canada, Archbishop Lefebvre responded with the charity of a true shepherd to the call of so many souls, wounded and bewildered by the revolution in the Church since the Second Vatican Council, and abandoned by the conciliar clergy.

From the beginning, the Priory of Saint Pius X was a house for spiritual retreats for numerous groups of faithful, at first only in French, and then also in English. Father Ludovic Barrielle, spiritual director of the seminary of Ecône, preached the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius for the first time at Shawinigan in the summer of 1977. This work of retreats has continued each year without interruption for the last 25 years.

The priests who reside at the priory, since Father Edmond Samson who was its first prior, set out on week-ends to serve Mass centers which have become more and more numerous and also more and more remote. Father Samson and Father Vignalou, the second prior, at first developed the apostolate in Quebec, and then Father Jacques Emily took up the conquest of Western Canada: Ontario, Manitoba, and a little later Alberta and British Colombia.

Twenty-five years after the first foundation, the Society of Saint Pius X has in Canada six priories which have 14 priests who serve more than 32 Mass centers, from New Brunswick to the isle of Vancouver. To this was added the important apostolate of the education of youth, especially in our two schools of the Society, Holy Family School at Levis, and Saint John Bosco Academy at Calgary, each one offering a truly Catholic education to about one hundred students.

Twenty-five years, it is already history! A history of special graces from Almighty God, and also of trials which have been a purification. The geographical expansion of the Society gives only one aspect, that which is more material. But the most important, the only one which really matters, cannot be seen directly. It is the sanctification of souls, through the faith and the traditional liturgy.

In our thanksgiving, it is only fair to remember also the heroic resistance to the conciliar modernism of the elder Canadian priests of the old school who have been the first to establish Mass centers in the country, where more and more of the faithful came to drink from the sources of grace in the traditional Mass. Read the résumé of their epic in this issue (page 11). Without them, the Society of Saint Pius X surely would not have experienced such rapid and extraordinary development in 25 years.

As Father Jacques Emily wrote, on the 20^th anniversary of the Society in Canada: “... We know that the history of the Society of Saint Pius X is indubitably inscribed in the History of the Church. The Society of Saint Pius X was a work of the Church, founded in the Church and for the Church, and has lived from its foundation and continues to live only for the goals and the interests of the Church, which are none other than the goals and the interests of Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, namely, the glory of His Father and the salvation of souls. ‘In God’s infinite Wisdom’, said Archbishop Lefebvre, ‘Providence has created a work of restoration of the Catholic priesthood, in order to preserve the treasures that Jesus Christ has confided to His Church: the faith in its integrity, the divine grace through His Sacrifice and His Sacraments, and the ministers destined for the dispensation of these treasures of divine life’.”

May this 25^th anniversary of the Society in Canada give to us a new enthusiasm for the cause of Jesus Christ, our God and our King, a more profound love of the Church, a stronger attachment to Tradition, a greater zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Let us be missionaries, let us recruit new families. Let us make known to those around us, by our charity and our good example, by our words or by our writings, the wonders of the love of God who has given Himself to us in the holy Mass of all times.