1 Bishop Michael Power

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Michael Power (1804-47) was a Roman Catholic priest and Bishop in Upper Canada/Canada West (Ontario). Ordained in 1827, he served as a missionary in the Archdiocese of Québec and the Diocese of Montréal. When the Bishop of Kingston, Rémi Gaulin (1787-1857), wanted to divide his vast diocese into manageable areas in 1841, he chose Power to serve as Bishop in the newly created Upper Canada portion. Gaulin felt that Power, due to his own Irish ancestry, would be able to reach the large numbers of Irish immigrants arriving in Upper Canada in the 1840s. As Bishop of Toronto, Power began construction on St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto in 1845. He also actively promoted the expansion of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Canada West, encouraging Jesuit priests to oversee missions in First Nations communities in his diocese. With the onset of the Great Famine in Ireland (1845-49), Power campaigned for relief funds from his congregations, drawing massive crowds to St. Paul’s Church in Toronto. In 1847, Power travelled to Europe to raise funds and recruit new priests for the missions in Canada, and saw first-hand the effects of famine in Dublin. Upon his return to Toronto, Power ministered daily to the large influx of Irish immigrants, despite outbreaks of typhus. Power cemented his reputation as an “Irish bishop,” despite being born in Halifax, when he defended the immigrants from civic officials seeking a scapegoat for the typhus epidemic. His testimony of seeing healthy Irish board ships in Dublin only to arrive sickly after spending weeks cramped onboard, redirected municipal energies toward combating typhus and creating employment for the immigrants. In 1847, Power died of typhus while ministering to the sick in Toronto.

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