Welcome to the site of the TransCanada Province of the Spiritans. We are a Roman Catholic Religious Congregation of over three thousand members, founded in 1703. Our missions are spread worldwide. While we may be found involved in many diverse ministries, we have dedicated ourselves to working with the poor and in those situations where the Church has difficulty in finding ministers. We hope you enjoy your visit to our site and that while browsing you will keep us in your prayers. May God bless you.

Today's Spiritans - Priests, Brothers and Lay Associates owe their origin to a young French nobleman, Claude Poullart des Places, who gave up the practice of law to study for the priesthood. His apostolate began among the chimney sweeps of Paris, and his small seminary, founded in 1703 and dedicated to the Holy Ghost, marked the beginning of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. Before long, the Spiritans, as they came to be called, were actively engaged in apostolic work throughout Europe, India, Africa, North and South America.

Diminished by the French Revolution, the Congregation was renewed in 1848 when Fr. Francis Libermann , the son of a Jewish rabbi, joined his new Congregation of the Holy Heart of Mary to the Holy Ghost Fathers, bringing with him a number of priests and seminarians dedicated to the poor and underprivileged. It is the writings and the example of Fr. Francis Libermann that set the tone for today's Spiritans as they follow an apostolate dedicated to, and guided by, the Holy Spirit.


Fr. Claude Poullart des Places


Claude Poullart des Places, our first founder grew up as the eldest son of a wealthy lawyer in Rennes, Brittany. Having finished high school at fifteen, he then graduated top of his class at college. He would surely fulfill his father's ambition and become a distinguished lawyer.
Claude was ambitious -- but for something else. During a retreat he knew he wanted to become a priest and use his public speaking skills to convert thousands to Christ. Although this decision deeply upset his father, he knew he could not keep his son at home. Claude left for Paris to study theology at the Jesuit seminary.
Child labour was a common sight in Paris in pre-French Revolution days. Illiterate, homeless chimney sweeps from rural France hired themselves out for a few cents a day. Claude became aware of how exploited they were. His heart went out to them and he fed, housed and gave them some basic religious education.
Then he saw how many of the other seminarians were living a hand-to-mouth existence. He gave them his meals and lived on the leftovers of the Jesuits for his own food. But his social conscience told him handouts were not enough, so on Pentecost Sunday, 1703, he opened a hostel for four or five of these poor students. Unknown to Claude, the future Holy Ghost Congregation had been born.
The priests he trained began to work among the poor in the French countryside and in parishes no other priest would choose, living like those they ministered to. Claude was 24 years old when he opened the Holy Spirit community house. In 1707 he became a priest. Two years later he got pleurisy and died. The talented firstborn son of wealthy parents was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in Paris. Spiritans celebrate the life and death of des Places every October 2nd.

Click here for the spirituality of Fr. des Places

Fr. Francis Libermann


Francis Libermann, the son of a Jewish rabbi, was born in Saverne in Alsace (France) in 1802. He was converted and was baptized a Catholic in 1826. He then entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. When he suffered his first epileptic seizure a year later, it was the beginning of twelve years of obscurity. In retrospect, these years would better be described as "the making of an apostle" for they were prologue to a creative outburst that took everyone by surprise. Founder of a missionary congregation, Superior General, renowned spiritual director, confidant of government officials Libermann had discovered his missionary vocation to the most abandoned. He was to revitalize the African missions.

He died in 1852 but he is still a source of strength and encouragement for Spiritans and for many others. For Libermann, the great enemy in the Christian life is discouragement. When he suffered his first serious epileptic seizure, he refused to be downcast. His hopes of ordination to the priesthood were dashed. Because of his illness no planning for the future was possible, everything was tentative. Constantly vulnerable, he accepted his nervous fragility and came to terms with uncertainty. In accomplishing this there were some dark moments and once he was tempted to suicide as he crossed a bridge in Paris. He tells us that he overcame the temptation by turning his attention to Christ, the living witness to the Father's love. Francis' conviction of Christ's living and compassionate presence gave birth to a deep inner peace, that remained unshakable throughout his troubled life. It was not some sort of acquired calm but God's gift: "the peace of God that surpasses all understanding".

When we turn to Libermann from the midst of the tensions and pressures of the modern world, we should first of all learn from his painful struggle for self-acceptance. Out of suffering came peace. Our suffering may be a physical illness or a nervous disorder. It may be the painful effort to accept the consequences of some undeserved misfortune. We turn to Libermann because he has travelled this road and for him it became the road to peace. Only by the grateful acceptance of ourselves and of our present situation can we follow in his footsteps. As we fight against discouragement and feelings of revolt, Christ holds out his hand to us. And when we take his hand in ours, he gives us his peace, peace that no one can take from us.

Famous Spiritans

Fr. Jacques Laval
The Apostle of Mauritius


When he died in Mauritius in 1864, there were 40,000 people at his funeral. In the crowds who continually throng to pray at his tomb, Catholics brush shoulders with Moslems, Hindus and Buddhists. In 1977, the government of Mauritius made 9th September, the anniversary of his death, a national holiday. April 24th, 1979 is the date of the ceremony of his beatification in Rome. Jacques Laval is the first Holy Ghost Father to be so honoured.

Jacques was born in Normandy (France) in 1803. His father was a prosperous farmer. His mother died when he was 7, but not before she had given him striking example of generosity to the poor. In his later missionary work in Mauritius, Jacques was guided by the formula: "Succeed in having good parents and you will have good children." From his own parents, he inherited a vigorous Christianity that was direct and daring. As a boy, he said he would like to be a priest or a doctor. In Paris in 1830, he qualified as a doctor.

When he returned to Normandy to set up medical practise, there was a noticeable change in his behaviour. Handsome, successful, a skilled horseman, he was much in demand at fashionable gatherings. He became immersed in the social scene and abandoned the practise of his religion. A series of events culminating in a brush with death when he fell from his horse led him to completely re-examine his life. A few months later, he entered the seminary and within four years he was ordained a priest. After two years as a parish priest in Normandy, he handed over all his possessions to Francis Libermann, leader of the missionary Society of the Holy Heart of Mary (which fused with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost in 1848) and left for Mauritius.

In Mauritius, the slaves had recently been liberated. Among them Jacques was to spend the last 23 years of his life without ever seeing his native France again. He immediately set up a Mission for the Blacks. His heart went out to these people, now free but still treated as inferior. To get to know them, he learned their language. To be like them, he fasted every day and slept on a bed made from a wooden packing case. He refused to accept the common opinion that regarded them with contempt. He tried to awaken them to their personal worth by telling them of God's great love for each of them. He made considerable demands on them. He tested them and then he trusted them. He gave them responsibility for the animation and instruction of small groups. What started in the city of Port Louis spread across the island. A new enthusiasm for the Church was underway.

As a doctor, Jacques was known as a friend of the poor. At the seminary, he became a man of prayer. Now he had become one of the poor. In long hours of prayer, God came close to him. He guided and strengthened him, He gave him the courage to continue to trust the people and so become the "Apostle of Mauritius".
(Click here for more on Fr. Laval).

Fr. Daniel Brottier

 Daniel Brottier was born on 7 September 1876 in Ferte-Saint-Cyr in the diocese of Blois, northern France. Quite early on he showed an interest in religious things.
Not surprisingly, he entered the seminary and was ordained a priest on 22 October 1899. However, not content with working for the Catholics of France, he decided to give his life to bringing the gospel to unbelievers. With this in mind he entered the congregation of the Holy Ghost Fathers. He was sent as a missionary to Senegal, W. Africa where he worked with great drive and commitment in the parish of St. Louis. (For an African perspective on Brottier, click here.)

He was recalled to France in 1911 and became involved in raising funds for the cathedral of Dakar, capital city of Senegal. The First World War intervened. He was enlisted in the French forces and worked in the Red Cross with the function of chaplain. He took part in this capacity in the battles of Lorraine, the Somme, Verdun and Flanders. One of the fortunate few to survive the war, he founded the National Union of Ex-Servicemen shortly after leaving the French forces.

In 1923, he was named by Cardinal Dubois as director of an institute which provides accommodation and education for orphans, known in French as L'Oeuvre d'Auteuil. Daniel Brottier had an enormous faith in the intercession of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, the Little Flower. Trusting in her intercession he succeeded in expanding the work of Auteuil many times over in the course of 12 years.

He died exhausted by his efforts on 28 February 1936 leaving behind the reputation of a man of God and a great Christian. Fr. Brottier's body was exhumed in 1962 with a view to his beatification. It was found perfectly preserved, 26 years after his death.

Daniel Brottier was declared "Blessed" by our Holy Father in Rome on November 25th, 1984.

Prayer
O GOD, you filled the heart of your servant Daniel with a great spirit of charity. You drove him forward into doing great things, to relieve the unhappiness of many of your children. He worked, we know, for your glory as well as the well being of those he served. Grant us now, we ask you the gift of living that same life of generosity and caring charity to help our fellow brothers and sisters in distress. And we pray you to honour your servant, Daniel, here on earth by granting us the graces which we so much need. (Here name your intention). Amen.

Bishop Joseph Shanahan
Of Southern Nigeria

He was given a second burial. The solemn but joyous ceremony was performed for every qualified elder (men) of the Igbos, to ensure that their names are entered into the canon of ancestors and ancestresses. Bishop Shanahan (1871 - 1943) of Southern Nigeria was the only non-Igbo to be afforded this honour. His bones were disinterred and in 1955 were laid to rest in Onitsha cathedral in the heart of the land of the Igbos. Who was this man so beloved and honoured?
Joseph Shanahan was born, the third of ten children of a poor farm labourer in Co. Tipperary, Ireland. His uncle, Pat Walsh, who lived with the Shanahans, left the home in Gortnalaura in 1875 to join the congregation of the Holy Ghost, now called the Spiritans. It was an old French religious order recently given a new lease of life by the dynamic Francis Libermann, a convert from Judaism whose special ambition was to bring the good news of Christ to the peoples of Equatorial Africa.
In 1886 young Joe followed his uncle to France where he joined the Spiritans and began his studies for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest in 1900. In October 1902 his life's dream was fulfilled. He was on a boat bound for Nigeria. Thirty five days later he arrived in Onitsha, a name that would be forever linked with his own.
Shanahan joined a group of French Spiritans who had arrived in Eastern Nigeria seventeen years previously.
From the very beginning Shanahan made a big impact. He was big, strong, handsome. He was friendly, kind, energetic. The Igbo people couldn't but admire and love him. And he served them with every ounce of his being until he returned in 1932. He had served for thirty years, twenty five as leader of the mission. Few Europeans could survive more than a decade in Nigeria where conditions were often harsh at that time.
His life is one of the great success stories of missionary history. He was a truly charismatic figure, a man of exceptional courage and vision. He travelled the country on foot, by bicycle, by canoe. He walked boldly in areas where no white man had set toot before. He saw the importance of education and built up a huge network of schools.
He recruited missionary priests, brothers, sisters and lay persons for Southern Nigeria. He founded one religious order and was the inspiration behind the setting up of five others.
As is the case for all saints, he suffered greatly. He was rejected by some of his own fellow missionaries and forced into an unwanted and early retirement. He was rejected by a missionary order of sisters he founded in Ireland. He spent his final years in exile from his beloved Igbos, years of frustration false accusations and loneliness.
Today he is seen as a luminary of the Church and of the Spiritans, a wonderful model for all who are called to be missionaries. The Cause of his Canonization was introduced in Rome in 1997. Another St. Joseph may yet be added to the Church's litany of saints.