HISTORY
French-Speaking Marists were Essential to Development of the Northeast Dioceses
Following decades of violent anti-Church oppression, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign in France, the gathering roots of the Society of Mary took shape in Lyons, amid the burned embers of the French Revolution.
 Founder,
Society of Mary Fr. Jean-Claude Colin, SM |
Under the direction of founder, Fr. Jean-Claude Colin, S.M., the Marists exercised their ministry at forming and sending missionary bands throughout France to help rebuild its shattered and broken Church. This method of seeking and serving those least capable of helping themselves became a Marist trait that came to help characterize the Society as it grew into a global missionary force centered in Marian spirituality.
By the 1880s, so many Marists had arrived in the United States that Pope Leo XIII gave the Society permission to establish an American Province in 1889. This happened to coincide with a steady influx of French-Canadian immigrants into the New England states, who had come to farm the land, mostly in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, and to earn wages in the thriving mills and factories throughout the region, with strong presences in Massachusetts, within the Merrimack Valley (Lowell and Lawrence) and south coast (Fall River and New Bedford).
French Marists responded in droves to help serve the burgeoning francophone body of faithful who were settling into New England; some Marists came from their first U.S. missions in Louisiana, others from Canada and France. The French identity within the New England Marist ministries became so strong at one point that there were only two Marist foundations in New England where Marists who knew little or no French could render effective service (St. Mary’s College in Van Buren, Maine, and the Immaculate Conception Parish in Westerly, Rhode Island). Over time, Marist service to French-speaking Catholics blossomed throughout New England, from the far reaches of northern Maine, in Van Buren, where many vowed Marists were born and raised, to Providence, Rhode Island, from where several future Marists hailed.
 St. Anne's Church, Lawrence, MA |
It is generally agreed that St. Anne’s Parish in Lawrence was the “Mother Parish” of all Marist-operated parishes in New England. Founded in 1882, some 40 years after the City of Lawrence was planned, St. Anne’s was followed by the establishment of Marist-run missions that became four French-speaking parishes in the Greater Lawrence area: Sacred Heart (Marist-operated for 101 years), St. Joseph (85 years); and in Methuen, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (78 years) and St. Theresa (61 years). Outside these key centers, the Marists served in and established several strong French-speaking parishes throughout New England. In some cases, they built and maintained these parishes for over a century before passing them over to the New England (arch)dioceses. St. Anne’s in Lawrence closed in 1991.
If St. Anne’s Parish was the mother of Marist New England parishes, Our Lady of Victories in Boston is certainly its crown jewel. The oldest Marist establishment in the former Boston Province, Our Lady of Victories began as a chapel near the State House on Beacon Hill before the Marists purchased land at its present location and constructed the first French Roman Catholic parish in the city.
Located at the corners of Boston’s Back Bay, Bay Village and South End, the parish opened its doors in 1886 to serve the people of its immediate area, and those living in Brookline, Dorchester and Roxbury, where a considerable number of French-speaking families had settled. Unlike the French-speaking immigrants in Merrimack Valley and Maine, these families were not just Canadian, but also French, Belgian, and Swiss — all sharing the common denominators of their Catholic faith and French language.
Today, for its proximity to numerous Boston hotels and a bustling business area, Our Lady of Victories has become a center of worship for a small group of neighbors and many workday commuters, tourists and business travelers, who bring a variety of native tongues and traditions into the church, yet share their devotion to God and an appreciation for the parish’s splendid history, architecture, stained-glass and glorious music, each of which transcends all languages.
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