After this article was published it was brought to our attention that it failed to mention Bishop De Roo’s accepting in the Diocese of Victoria a priest with allegations of sexual misconduct in Columbus, Ohio. While in the Diocese of Victoria from 1997 to 2002 the priest sexually touched a boy, despite being under supervision by a committee of church officials. The priest was convicted in 2013 of sexually touching a young person while in a position of trust. Bishop De Roo’s role in granting faculties to the priest who then served under him for several years was inadvertently left out of the article. It was a significant incident in the bishop’s life and should have been included.

Bishop Remi J. De Roo, the last surviving Canadian, English-speaking bishop to take part in the Second Vatican Council more than 50 years ago, has died at the age of 97.


The former bishop of Victoria died Tuesday and is remembered as a longtime proponent of social justice issues and an outspoken advocate of subjects that could make popes and prime ministers uncomfortable, from the celibate priesthood to unbridled capitalism.

When he retired in 1999 at the age of 75, Bishop De Roo was Canada’s longest-serving bishop, having shepherded Victoria since 1962.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller said Bishop De Roo “will long be remembered as one of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, an ecclesial event that was a great grace for the Church.”

Victoria Bishop Gary Gordon likewise said the bishop emeritus “was able to bring the first-hand experience of Vatican II into the lived experience of our diocese, and continued in ministry up until well into his 90s.”

Bishop Gordon said one of the enduring gifts the late bishop brought to the diocese and the Church in Canada was his passion for promoting “the council’s desire for the Church to grow into the fulness of the people of God in dialogue with the world, especially in the realm of the social teachings of the Church.”

Born in 1924 in the farming community of Swan Lake, Man., Bishop De Roo was the second of eight children, with a sister who was an Ursuline nun and a younger brother who was a priest. He studied for the priesthood at St. Boniface seminary in Manitoba and was ordained June 8, 1950.

After ordination Father De Roo went to Rome for further studies and received his Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum University in 1952. He served as a pastor in Victoria, where he was a priest-consultor and secretary for the Manitoba Bishops Conference.

Undated photo of Bishop Remi de R00, who died Feb. 1. (Archdiocese of Vancouver Archives)

He was named bishop of Victoria by Pope John XXIII in October 1962, making him the 13th bishop of the diocese, succeeding Bishop James D. Hill, who died in March 1962. At the age of 38, Bishop De Roo was the world’s youngest bishop and the first western-born Bishop of Victoria.

His consecration as Bishop of Victoria took place Dec. 14, 1962, at St. Boniface Cathedral under Archbishop Maurice Baudoux. He was installed in Victoria’s St. Andrew’s Cathedral Dec. 20 by Vancouver Archbishop W. M. Duke.

Bishop De Roo had a dramatic arrival in the diocese with a solemn tribal ceremony re-enacting the arrival of Bishop Modeste Demers, the first bishop of Victoria, 117 years earlier.

A B.C. Catholic article (below) recounted how the new bishop arrived by canoe at the Tsalout Reserve near Victoria and was greeted by 11 war canoes that escorted him to the shore.

There he was made an honorary chief and bestowed with the name Siem Le Pleet Schoo-Kun, roughly translated as “High Priest Swan” and a reference to a Coast Indian tradition of launching canoes and heading out to sea in spring at the sight of the first swan seen flying overhead.

One of the early tasks Bishop De Roo set for himself was to visit as many of the Indigenous people of his diocese as possible, and he maintained a close relationship with them for the rest of his life.  

A B.C. Catholic article describes Bishop De Roo’s arrival by canoe in his new diocese. 

He attended sessions of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, where he and other Canadian bishops criticized a proposed document on the lay apostolate in the modern world, saying it failed to set forth the essential principles of the movement.

After returning from the council his enthusiasm for embracing progressive ideas quickly took root in Victoria, where he told a lay apostolate workshop that new pastoral patterns were needed in the Church, with the laity planning, organizing, and carrying out programs with the spiritual guidance of priests and in co-operation with the hierarchy.

He spoke of his frustration over what he saw as entrenched attitudes among the laity that blocked efforts to breathe life into Vatican II’s documents. He cited for example the faithful’s tendency to look to clergy for answers to all moral and religious questions. He also complained of bishops who were “far too engrossed in administration” and too little concerned with pastoral problems. He was also a promoter of the permanent diaconate and the role of the laity as being “more than a secondary one of assistance to the clergy.”

A strong advocate for social justice, Bishop De Roo served as chair of the Canadian bishops’ social justice committee and frequently called for economic justice in public policy making. 

Undated photo of Bishop Remi de R00 meeting Pope John XXIII. (Archdiocese of Vancouver Archives)

In 1968 he made a presentation to a federal committee considering abortion law reforms and called on the committee to show “respect for life. We are much concerned that a too-open health clause may result in widespread disrespect for and assault on the life of the unborn child.”

But he continually drew the ire of traditional and conservative Catholics with his support for married and female priests. He was a frequent guest at conferences sponsored by Call to Action, an organization that advocated for contraception and for married and female priests.

In 1992 he co-authored a controversial book In the Eye of the Catholic Storm with former nun Mary Jo Leddy. The refusal by The B.C. Catholic and The Catholic Register to publish ads for the book became a national news story highlighting tensions between conservative and liberal Catholics.

In 1999, months after his retirement, the Vatican instructed Bishop De Roo not to speak at a conference of married Catholic priests.

At the time of his retirement at the age of 75, Bishop De Roo was Canada’s longest-serving bishop, having shepherded Victoria since 1962.

He was replaced as bishop by Raymond Roussin, SM, who quickly discovered that a number of poor investments made under Bishop De Roo’s administration had left the diocese $17 million in debt. The diocesan financial crisis resulted in the sale of millions of dollars in diocesan assets and the launch of a bond drive to borrow money from parishioners.

Undated photo of Bishop Remi de R00, who died Feb. 1. (Archdiocese of Vancouver Archives)

Bishop De Roo issued a public apology, taking full responsibility for the series of poor investment decisions made over a period of years during the 1980s and ’90s.

After some initial reluctance, Vancouver Island Catholics enthusiastically bought up all the bonds and contributed an additional million dollars in donations.

Three years later when the debentures expired and it came time for more than 2,000 debenture holders to renew them, they did so eagerly, with some even donating their bonds or interest to the diocese.

A three-person inquiry appointed by Bishop Roussin found Bishop De Roo had broken canon law in the handling of funds.


Victoria Bishop Emeritus Remi De Roo in 2016 at St. Mark’s College, where he spoke about his experiences at the Second Vatican Council.  (B.C. Catholic file photo)

In 2010, a decade after Bishop De Roo’s retirement, The Vancouver Sun named him B.C.’s fourth most influential spiritual leader of the century. It cited his provoking a national debate in 1984 “when he accused Pierre Trudeau of exacerbating the “moral crisis” of unemployment” and for “encouraging his diocese’s 70,000 Catholics to experiment in worship styles and enhance the role of women.”


Bishop De Roo and the Winnipeg Statement

Bishop Remi De Roo entered the international spotlight in 1968 following the release of Pope Paul’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, which had declared the unacceptability of contraception. When the Canadian bishops issued their pastoral response to the encyclical with a document that became known as the Winnipeg Statement, it fell to Bishop De Roo to become its chief advocate.

Drafted at Winnipeg’s Fort Gary Hotel, the Canadian bishops’ statement acknowledged Humane Vitae’s teaching on contraception but included several paragraphs in which the bishops addressed a pastoral response appropriate to couples who might find it “either extremely difficult or even impossible to make their own all elements of this doctrine.”

The statement quoted Vatican II documents on the need for Catholics to follow their conscience faithfully and noted “this does not exempt a man from the responsibility of forming his conscience according to truly Christian values and principles.”

However, the statement said, “We must appreciate the difficulty experienced by contemporary man in understanding and appropriating some of the points of this encyclical.”

The bishops added that since the faithful “are not denying any point of divine and Catholic faith nor rejecting the teaching authority of the Church, these Catholics should not be considered, or consider themselves, shut off from the body of the faithful.”

Undated photo of Bishop Remi de R00. (Archdiocese of Vancouver Archives)

In a sentence that came to define the Winnipeg Statement, the Canadian bishops wrote, “In accord with accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with given directives, they may be safely assured that whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.”

Bishop De Roo became the leading voice for the statement and the promotion of conscience of the individual over the letter of the law.   

In response, Vancouver Bishop James Carney, then auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Martin Johnson, cautioned against any attempt to construe the statement as “watering down” either the doctrines contained in Pope Paul's encyclical “or our obligation to assent to them.”

Writing in The B.C. Catholic, he said, “I join with the bishops of the world in reaffirming my own unequivocal assent of mind and will to the doctrines contained in the encyclical Humanae Vitae.”

Bishop Carney pointed out the weaknesses of the Winnipeg Statement, saying it was “not precisely an explanation of the encyclical,” but rather “an essay on conscience and an application of theological principles to problems of conscience, with particular reference to morality in marriage.” He said it had been “hurriedly prepared” in an “almost incredibly short time” by some 80 bishops of English and French language groups.

He noted the statement expressed “respect and admiration for married couples trying to live a Christian life in a secularized environment,” reflecting “the compassion of Pope Paul, and his plea to priests that they manifest the charity of Christ.”

But if more time had been available “a more precise and complete document would have resulted. However, I am confident that particularly in the field of pastoral guidance, there will be further clarification to assist confessors and others having a responsibility for counselling.”

Photo caption corrected Feb. 4 to identify Pope John XXIII as meeting Bishop De Roo.