December 11, 2009 (Catholic education, Catholic schools)

Back on September 11, 2009 The Catholic Register website posted a story on the 100^th anniversary of St. Mary’s parish in Brampton, Ontario.

The story provides a fair bit of detail on the history of the Church and includes comments from a Jim Doyle. Since I discovered the story only last night I tried to send a brief comment regarding what I think is an omission of some importance. However, for the second time I have not been able to register at the site to make a comment. Each time I never receive  the link which is necessary to complete the task.

Thus I thought I would expand the piece and share it at Tomorrow’s Trust.

I originally wrote:

As a parishioner of St. Mary’s from 1939 to 1965, I too served as an altar boy for Fr. Cyril W. Sullivan and like Jim Doyle in your story was married in the present church structure in 1965. Although I live some 1750 kms from Brampton, I was fortunate enough to be in the area on September 19^th and was able to attend the 100^th anniversary mass.

Although architectural drawings of the Church were posted along the interior walls, one very important drawing from a historical perspective was missing.  The church shown in your picture was not Fr. Sullivan’s first design. That design was a very modern version of a traditional gothic style with its cruciform pattern. No one I talked to that day seemed to know of its existence.

I know for a fact Fr. Sullivan was disappointed his first design was rejected by Cardinal James McGuigan, then archbishop of Toronto . The talk was that it would have rivalled St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto. Today St. Mary’s is just another modern church with better than average stained glass windows in the Greater Toronto area.

In addition, here are a few facts that were not mentioned anywhere in the literature on that day.

I grew up being told that the first church in Brampton, was located at the site of St. Mary’s Catholic cemetery at what was then the dead end of Centre St. (It now goes under the CN tracks).   As it was told to me, the church that was built on that site was burned to the ground by the Orangemen of that time. Its replacement resulted in the church I grew up in, on John Street, currently the site of the Knights of Columbus Hall.

Catholic education in the form of a Catholic school also did not exist in Brampton until 1956. The current St, Mary’s Church is adjacent to the school and they share the same parking lot. I was a teacher at that school while the church was being built.

Catholic education during the 1940’s and early 50’s amounted to the Sisters of St. Joseph coming out to St. Mary’s Church and holding all day religion education classes in the basement during the first two weeks of July. Every once and awhile, however, some parishioner would start up a catechism class after the 9:00 A.M. mass but we never ever got much beyond chapter three before the lessons collapsed.

It may be of interest to know that parents were told not to bring children to the 11:00 A.M. mass because that one was for adults only.

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