Bathurst diocese looks to France to recruit priests
Unemployment may be high in northern New Brunswick, but a job posting in Bathurst hasn’t attracted any candidates.
The Catholic diocese has been searching for priests to serve its many francophone communities. After years of searching in Canada, no one answered the call.
Bishop Daniel Jodoin is taking his search to France to find new recruits.
“To tell them that it's a wonderful country, wonderful people, and we just need some help from them,” he said.
The Bathurst diocese has 57 parishes and only 12 priests to serve them. Jodoin says that’s a far cry from the numbers he saw in France.
“I met one community who got, this year, 26 new young men who want to become priests,” he said.
Canada is seeing seminary enrolment at an all-time low and can only pray for those kind of numbers.
Rev. Serge Comeau is one of only three priests in northern New Brunswick under 50 years of age. He says his services have been spread thin from the very beginning.
“I haven't been used to taking care of only one parish,” he said. “The first appointment I got I was responsible for four parishes in the region of Caraquet.”
Jodoin says he held funerals for four area priests in 2014, meaning the workload is only getting heavier.
Some of the French priests now in training seemed interested making the move, but it will be at least another year until they can get to New Brunswick.
