236 THEISLAND ACADIANS

CHANGES IN THE CHURCH

The Acadian community on the Island has always been concerned with the absence of French-language priests in the Acadian and franco- phone areas. The bishop was petitioned on this matter on four different occasions between 1946 and 1965”. In each case, he was requested to remedy numerous distressing injustices which included: a lack of religious services in French in parishes with a large number of Acadians; unilingual English-language priests serving in Acadian parishes; Acadian priests appointed to totally English-language parishes; and the virtual absence of Acadian priests in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In the memorandum of 1954, the bishop was informed that the presence of priests who could only speak English was having a harmful effect on the religious instruction of the Acadians:

...there are many mothers of families in several of the parishes of the Diocese for whom a sermon or an instruction in English means very little. Many of these women have learned their catechism and their prayers in French. Even for well-educated people it becomes very difficult to use another language than their own mother tongue in the performance of their religious devotions. Many Acadian mothers find themselves handicapped in their efforts to train their children in their religious duties. We can assure Your Excellency that there are a great many such cases in several Acadian parishes.”°

Although the situation did improve somewhat over the years, it must be said that even in 1965 the Acadians still had many justifiable complaints. In the parishes with a majority or a high concentration of Acadians, the number of priests who only spoke English was still just as high. The Saint Thomas Aquinas Society met with the bishop of Charlottetown in 1965 to present a memorandum containing virtu- ally the same grievances and requests that had been made in the past. The prelate was reminded of the fact that, since its foundation, the Saint Thomas Aquinas Society had helped sponsor eighteen priests, nine of whom were attached to the diocese of Charlottetown, but that it was not always Acadians who benefited from their ministry. The situation is described in the following passage from the memoran- dum:

Although the aim of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Society was to create an Acadian clergy that would be called upon to minister to Acadian parishes, its members