Two French-speaking Catholic parishes made the front page of this past Saturday’s Ottawa Citizen, as City officials move ahead with plans to designate Saint-François-d’Assise Parish in Hintonburg and Saint-Joseph Parish in Orleans heritage buildings. The municipal government’s committee charged with safeguarding Ottawa’s built heritage accepted a recommendation from city staff to apply designation to the two churches. While such protection is often a relief to neighbours and local history enthusiasts, it can result in increased maintenance costs and greater bureaucratic hurdles in the case of renovations. That’s why both parish communities and the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall opposed heritage designation.
Yet Kitchissippi ward Councillor Jeff Leiper, where Saint-François-d’Assise is located, had this to say to the Citizen’s Aedan Helmer:
“This has been a months-long consultation, and I’m reasonably certain (the archdiocese) had ample opportunity to lodge their objections and work through those objections with city staff to get to this point…What will resonate with most residents is the beauty of the building … the impressive architecture, the big, welcoming staircase. Its relationship to the street is iconic and it is an iconic building within the community…Hintonburg developed as a francophone community and this is a really important example of preserving that history, which is disappearing.”
The Archdiocese requested that the process be delayed, in order to allow for further study into the implications of designation. Meanwhile, Saint-Joseph Parish in Orleans submitted a petition to Council including 665 signatures, in opposition to the designation. The petition noted that the Parish had not been invited to the table during deliberations, adding that “with a designation, it becomes more difficult to modify or redesign the premises to meet the needs of our community today and in the future.”
And therein lies the tension between non-parishioners concerned with preserving a historic church that serves as a landmark in a neighbourhood and the parishioners, donors, volunteers, and clergy tasked with the day-to-day challenges and pragmatic considerations of maintaining a building that serves the needs of a living community.
The original Saint Francis of Assisi Church opened in 1891, constructed in just six months by the Capuchins. The second church was built over two years, between 1913 and 1915. The imposing structure has two asymmetrical bell towers, designed by architect Charles Brodeur of Hull, Quebec, in the Romanesque Revival style. Former Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier was present for the inaugural Mass on June 14, 1915. In its early years, the Parish served as the spiritual home to 200 Francophone families. While numbers have dwindled in the past decades, the church is now shared with Korean Catholics, who celebrate their liturgies here, alongside the Francophone congregation.
Saint-Joseph Parish Orleans, Ottawa’s east-end suburb, dates back to 1885, when the first church was built on this site. The current church was completed in 1922 and was monumental in design, incorporating neo-Gothic elements. It served both Francophone and Anglophone Catholics until 1970. After that time, with the construction of an English-language church, Saint-Joseph continued to serve Franco-Ontarians. The church’s interior was badly damaged by fire and was reconstructed in various stages mostly recently through a major capital campaign that wrapped up in 2022. Orleans remains a predominantly Franco-Ontarian suburb of Ottawa and Saint-Joseph is at the heart of its Francophone community and liturgical life.