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CHOISEUL CATHOLIC CHURCH
There was really one driving force behind the construction of the Choiseul Catholic Church and his name was Father Peirre Prudent Rene, known lovingly as Father Roger. He was born in the Parish of Bournezeau, France on the 6th of March, 1867. He entered the seminary of Chavagnes in October 1879 as pupil of the F.M.I. Fathers and was ordained priest in 1890.
In May 1893, he pronounced his perpetual vows as an F.M.I. Having expressed his will to be a missionary, he was accepted and sent to St. Lucia in November 1892 and was appointed Assistant Parish Priest of Soufriere, where he remained for 14 months. In May 1893, he pronounced his perpetual vows as an F.M.I. In 1894, eve of the Epiphany of our Lord, he was put in charge of Choiseul where he would exercise his apostolic right for a record 65 years, 56 of which were as Parish Priest.
Father Roger had always dreamed of building a new Church in Choiseul so he set about making this dream reality. He went slowly about it, with dogged determination. It was not easy obtaining the necessary funds in a parish where the ordinary revenue was frequently below £200 a year (about $800).
He began as early as 1898 to collect money for the project and the fund increased slowly but steadily, totaling £601 by 1904. Father Roger received good co-operation from his vestry and parishioners. In 1905 he began collecting materials such as cement and white lime. On May 24, 1906, Ascension Day, the Corner Stone was solemnly blessed and laid by Fr. Tapion, in the presence of eleven priests and a large concourse of people. By 1909 the outer walls were completed.
Early in 1910 the wooden columns supporting the clerestory were erected. When Archbishop Dowling visited the parish later that year the roof was covered only with boards and for the Confirmation ceremonies people had to stand or kneel on the sand among heaps of materials. Early in 1911 the flooring was completed and the Church was blessed and Archbishop Dowling allowed that the Church be dedicated henceforth to Our Lady of Lourdes. Father Roger estimated the cost of the Church at £2,410 (about $9,640) in 1914. Over the years, new altar-rails and side altars were made and a new sacristy was built.
Father Roger was a very sincere, pious and straightforward man, very humble and unassuming, a man of sound judgment and good counsel. From the Castries Catholic Chronicle of April 2, 1959 it reads, “Choiseul is a hilly, scattered parish, one where many hamlets are far from easy to reach. But Father Roger went everywhere, day and night, in good weather and bad weather, whenever duty called him.” Father Roger was a fine horseman, had to be in fact, as there were no roads in his time. He was still visiting his parishioners on horseback at more than eighty years of age! He was good to others, but hard to himself. During the Second World War, he would think of nothing of going up to Castries by “canot” during the night and then saying Mass on his arrival in the capital.
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CHOISEUL CHURCH |
