nearly 100 orphans at the time. 49

During the 1920s a crying need was felt by people all across the diocese for a home for the poor and elderly. Eventually Bishop O‘Leary made known his intention of converting the old hospital into such a home which would be placed under the care of the Sisters of St. Martha and renamed the “Sacred Heart Home.” In 1925 it opened its doors and within months was filled to capacity with 110 residents. This large building became available when earlier that same year a splendid new brick three-storey hospital was opened. 50

In 1929 the Diocese of Charlottetown celebrated its centennial year. One of the major events was the consecration of the cathedral and raising it to the rank of a minor basilica. Among the distin— guished guests were the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Cassulo, Archbishop Henry O'Leary of Edmonton and Monsignor James Charles McGuigan, an Island native then Vicar General in Edmonton who would soon be named archbishop of Regina. 51

Another important milestone of the centennial year was the arrival in the diocese of the Redemptorist Fathers, members of a religious order of men founded in Italy in 1732 by St. Alphonsus Ligouri. This answered a double need, that of opening a new parish in the west end of the city and also of introducing into the diocese an order of religious priests. Father Joseph McGreel from the Redemptorist parish in St. John was appointed the first pastor of this new Charlottetown parish which was sliced off from the basil- ica territory to take in the area west of Elm (University) Avenue and north of Euston Street. Following a house-to-house census it was found that approximately 250 families were living within its con— fines. Before long ground was broken for a new church, named "Mission Church of the Most Holy Redeemer", on a site presently occupied by St. Jean Elementary School on Queen Street. The new church was opened with Christmas Midnight Mass, 1929, with the Vicar General, Msgr. MacLean of Souris, as celebrant. Although only a basement church it was well finished and capable of accom-

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