Vancouver, Archdiocese of

VANCOUVER, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - City and archdiocese in the western part of continental Canadian Colombia (Canada).

It has an area of 119,439 sq km with a population of 650,000 inhabitants, of whom 82,847 are Catholics distributed in 61 parishes with 60 diocesan priests and 70 regulars. It has a major and a minor seminary; 17 male religious communities and 39 female (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 442).

In all likelihood, Christianity appeared there with the establishment of the Spanish Franciscans on the nearby island of V., toward the end of the 18th century, but nothing precise is known of their apostolate on the continent. On Nov. 24, 1838, the priests of Québec, M.-Fr. Blanchet and M. Demers arrived at Fort V., then an important center of the fur trade. They remained there until Oct. 1839, when they went to Oregon. In the following years the region was from time to time evangelized by M. Demers, by Fr. De Smet, a Jesuit, in May 1842, and by Fr. Giovanni Nobili, also a Jesuit, for some time a missionary in the territory then called New Caledonia. On Sept. 13, 1860, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate settled in the new city of New Westminster and became the only missionaries in the entire present territory of the archdiocese. On Dec. 14, 1863, the apostolic vicariate of (Canadian) British Columbia was erected and entrusted to Msgr. L.-J. d'Herbomez. In the city of V. itself, the first church was opened in 1886 under the title of Notre-Dame du St-Rosaire. On Sept. 2, 1890, Leo XIII created the diocese of New Westminster, and Blessed Pius X on Sept. 19, 1908, elevated V. to an archdiocese, it having become more important than Victoria. The current suffragans are Victoria, Nelson and Kamloops, and the apostolic vicariates of Prince Rupert and Whitehorse. The holders of the see of V., under its various transformations, were Msgr. L.-J. d'Herbomez (1864-90); P. Durieu (1890-1899), Agostino Dontenwill (1899-1908), Neil McNeill (1910-12), Timothy Casey (1912-31) and William Mark Duke (1931), still in office (1953).

Germano Lesage