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In
Calgary, Antonella Fanella notes that the community
worshiped at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Mary's and
St. Joseph's Parish when Italian priests were
available. In 1963, Monsignor Angelo Sacchi, the first
permanent Scalabrinian came and said Mass at St. Paul's
Parish in Italian. Working with the community, an old
Presbyterian Church in Inglewood became La Parrocchia di
Sant'Andrea [St. Andrew's Parish]. Fanella writes:
In
comparison to the pre-war migrants, who were sporadic in
church attendance, the post-war immigrants became closely
attached to St. Andrew's. While they claim to have
felt comfortable in the 'English' church, the immigrants
needed their own church. Only an Italian parish
could accommodate their special cultural traditions such as
compareggio (godparenthood), le feste dei santi (festivals
of patron saints), first communion, weddings, or a special
mass for a deceased relative in Italy.1
The priests had worked in Italian
communities in the US and eastern Canada and understood the
need to create vehicles for social interaction that would
make the church the centre of community life. They,
thus, ministered not only to souls but also bodies.
The church hall became the location for much interaction
including meetings of societies as well as weddings,
anniversaries and the range of social interaction. A
key society in Edmonton was the Santa Maria Goretti Youth
Group. This allowed young people to meet without
parental supervision and was the means for many couples
falling in love and marrying. The priests understood
that the family had to be connected to the church so that
religious faith and traditions would continue from one
generation to the next.
The Scalibrini order in 2002 made the
decision to leave Santa Maria Goretti Parish in Edmonton and
hand over the Church to the Archdiocese of Edmonton.
It's priests are aging and their founding mission is no
longer relevants. In fact, their contemporary focus is
on needy parishes in Latin America. The impact on
Edmonton's Italian community, if an Italian priest cannot be
found, could be significant. But this is the challenge
that established ethnocultural communities face. How
can religion, customs and traditions be kept relevant when
the impetus to bring people together for reasons of being
alien in a strange land no longer exist. As well, the
general movement away from religious worship to
secularization impacts on Italian parishes. Many
Italian-Canadians only go to Mass at Christmas and Easter
when the church is packed. The rest of the time, it is
the elderly who populate the pews.
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