VICTORIA—The head of the Vatican’s department responsible for justice, peace, and care of creation remembered Bishop Remi De Roo, in all his strengths and faults, for his commitment to promoting social justice at the late bishop’s funeral Mass Saturday.
Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, who Pope Francis in December appointed interim prefect of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, delivered the homily at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, where Bishop De Roo served as prelate for the diocese for 36 years, from 1962 to 1999. He died Feb. 1 at the age of 97.
Cardinal Czerny brought the Pope’s blessing and greetings to the hundreds in attendance, which was limited to half the church’s capacity due to B.C. government restrictions.
The cardinal told the clergy and laity, including Jewish, Anglican, Muslim, and Indigenous representatives, that Bishop De Roo “inspired and challenged” him in the decades they got to know each other after the Second Vatican Council.
The late bishop “came across as decisive, frank and even abrasive at times,” Cardinal Czerny admitted. “He was also complex, controversial, and faithful to his convictions until the end.”
Above all, he said, Bishop De Roo “was a Council Father who dedicated the subsequent 55 years to continually rediscovering what it means to live as a Council Christian and as a Council Church … and now indeed as a Synodal Church,” referring to the current Synod for Bishops on Synodality.
So “decisively” did Vatican II shape Bishop De Roo’s “unwavering vision and his lifelong mission” that he described himself as “a pilgrim of the Second Vatican Council.”
The cardinal listed several areas that were fundamental to the ministry of his “admired friend,” including:
- His friendships with Indigenous communities of his diocese;
- His commitment to social justice and challenge of “the political world about its social policies and the business community about its responsibilities;”
- His encouraging lay people in their dignity as baptized persons with responsibilities in the Church “as protagonists of the apostolate, not merely as recipients of the proclamation.”
- His promoting the role of women and rejecting “patriarchal models that confine them to subordinate positions and offend their human and baptismal dignity.”
- His concern for laicized clergy and their stigmatization, in which he “manifested a Church that knows how to be ‘mother’ to all.”
The late bishop believed the Church in Canada needed to overcome its “instinctual suspicion” of the modern world and instead “seek to dialogue with contemporary culture, to accompany the path of ongoing cultural and social transformation, and to enlighten society with the living substance of the Gospel.
“Bishop De Roo’s progressive stances and apostolic service were greatly appreciated by some and greatly disparaged by others,” said Cardinal Czerny. “He remained constant in spite of a degree of marginalization and hostility, even within the Church.”
In the spirit of his late friend, the Montreal-born cardinal warned against ending up “far from the people of God” and outside the Church “if we affiliate with elites instead of trusting in the Lord and opting for the poor … if we huddle for assurance within our own closed groups instead of going out to the existential peripheries.”
Bishop De Roo’s “conciliar conscience found expression in various directions,” said Cardinal Czerny, particularly in “proximity and closeness, encounter and engagement.”
Pope Francis may have had the late bishop in mind, said Cardinal Czerny, when he spoke to lay catechists recently and called them to value others’ talents, “walk the paths of the people of our time, stooping to tend to those on the margins,” welcome strangers and “fearlessly engage in dialogue with those with different ideas,” and “approach those wounded by life (and) bind their wounds with compassion.”
Saying farewell to Bishop De Roo, he said, was an opportunity to reflect on “our adherence to the Lord Jesus who said, ‘When I was hungry you gave me to eat.’ We mustn’t just sit here. Let us review our lives on both the individual and ecclesial levels. Let us give thanks for Vatican II and align with its mission of evangelization.”
Mass was celebrated by Victoria Bishop Gary Gordon, who offered his appreciation for all those gathered in the cathedral. “And so we are here, some of us walking a few miles with our brother, many having walked many miles with our brother, and we are filled with gratitude …”
Among those attending were Winnipeg Archbishop Richard Gagnon, who was bishop of Victoria from 2004 to 2014, Kamloops Bishop Joseph Nguyen, and former Canadian Senator Douglas Roche, a friend of Bishop De Roo for 60 years.
The funeral can be watched on YouTube.
