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In 1689 the Bishop of Quebec visited Placentia and founded a Recollect monastery on or near the site of the Anglican Church. In 1692 it was made a Parish. After the French left in 1714 the monastery and grounds were taken over by the Anglicans and although there was a resident Catholic priest here in 1770 there is no record of another chapel until 1785. In that year Fr. Edmund Burke, an Irish Dominican, was appointed to Placentia. It was with this appointment that Placentia became an officially established parish. Helped by the merchants Saunders and Sweetman, their Irish servants and boatkeepers, he built a small wooden chapel near this site. It served the community until 1830 and the original parish extended from Placentia to the west coast of Newfoundland.
It is worthy to note here that no freedom of religion was permitted to Roman Catholics under British law until the Proclamation of 1794 which gave the right to all British subjects to practice their own special forms of worship, providing they remained peaceful subjects of King and country. In Archbishop Howley's Ecclesiastical History of Newfoundland, published in 1887, (referred to in Bonnell's work1) the story of the Roman Catholic Church is told up to that date. He relates how difficult it was for Bishop O'Donel and his immediate successors to find priests for the Catholic communities in Newfoundland. He describes how Bishop Fleming made several trips across the Atlantic before he secured a grant of land for the site of the Cathedral. Bishop Fleming went to Kelly's Island to supervise the quarrying of stone and he helped to load the schooners that brought the freights of stone to St. John's. Bishop Fleming visited the Catholic parts of his far flung mission, often sleeping in the woods at night. He had three or four priests only, to help in the superhuman task of visiting outlying posts when Catholics had settled. Placentia was one of these distant regions to which these workers made visits but yearly. There were no roads in these days, the journey could be made only by sea.
Bishop Mullock, who succeeded Bishop Fleming at St. John's, was more fortunate in securing Irish priests to work in his diocese. From the middle of the nineteenth century onward there was a parish priest stationed at Placentia. About that time also the Presentation Sisters came to the area. Their work of training young women furnished many places in Newfoundland with teaching taught by these convent sisters.
Sources:
1E.J. Bonnell Associates (1962). Three Centuries: Two Flags. Produced for The Star of the Sea Association, Placentia.
Inscription from the 200th Anniversary Plaque
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