Canada September 08, 2022
The surprising history of the first Canadian cardinal
By J.P. Sonnen – Global Pilgrim
Days after Pope Francis created 20 new cardinals for the Catholic Church during a liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica, it’s worth recalling the man remembered as Canada’s first cardinal, Elzear-Alexandre Taschereau, the former Archbishop of Quebec.
On June 7, 1886, he was created cardinal by Pope Leo XIII, along with the American James Cardinal Gibbons, the second American cardinal.
However, Cardinal Taschereau was not actually the first Canadian cardinal.
The first Canadian cardinal was a man who never saw Canada, although he held an integral position in the Canadian hierarchy for several years and so his name is held in high honour in Canadian memory.
The individual is Cardinal Thomas Weld, who before his elevation to the cardinalate was the Titular Bishop of Amycla (in Greece) and Coadjutor Bishop of Kingston, in the Province of Upper Canada, present-day Ontario.
Cardinal Weld was one of 15 children, the son of English Catholic gentry by birth and a descendent of one of the oldest Catholic families in England. His ancestral seat was Lulworth Castle in Dorsetshire, a centre of religious life for centuries.
The cardinal was born Thomas Weld in London in 1773. His family were fiercely Catholic, even amid persecutions. His father had studied under the Jesuits in Bruges, Belgium, and in 1794 had donated land and property for the Jesuits to establish Stonyhurst College in England.
The Weld family further distinguished itself by relieving the misfortunes of refugees of the French Revolution who arrived penniless in England, including monks and nuns who had escaped persecution and close martyrdom in France.
In due time Weld married in 1796, became a landowner when he inherited the family estate, and became a father in 1799 when his only child was born, a baby girl named Mary Lucy.
On the death of his wife in 1815, Weld resigned his land and estate to his brother and decided to pursue a possible calling to the priesthood. With Catholic seminaries outlawed in England, the result of anti-Catholic legislation, he looked to France.
The mourning widower, after getting his affairs in order and with no family responsibilities, was free to follow a religious vocation. He retired on a pension, moved to France, and began in earnest his studies for the priesthood in Paris.
His daughter was later wed in 1818.
In 1821, Weld was ordained priest in Paris at the hands of Bishop Hyacinthe-Louis de Quelen, the Archbishop of Paris. A year later he returned to England where he was appointed curate of a little Catholic mission at Chelsea, reminiscent of the memory of St. Thomas More, where the saint had moved with his family in 1518.
Father Weld was later transferred to Hammersmith where he ministered until 1826, when at the solicitation of Bishop Alexander MacDonell of Kingston, Upper Canada, his name was put forward to be his successor as bishop in Canada.
Bishop MacDonell, who was a Scotsman, knew Father Weld personally and held him in high esteem. Bishop MacDonell was a pioneer bishop. When he had arrived in Canada in 1804, he found three priests in Upper Canada with only three churches.
By his energy and perseverance, Bishop MacDonell induced considerable immigration into the province and established 48 churches and 30 priests as well as a new seminary and college. The next step was for the right bishop to replace him in Ontario.
At the time of his episcopal consecration in 1826, Father Weld was made Bishop of Amycia and Coadjutor Bishop with the right of succession of the newly formed Diocese of Kingston (which had already been formed as an Apostolic Vicariate since 1819).
The new bishop was eager to move to Canada and begin his episcopal ministry. At the same time unforeseen family circumstances delayed his departure. For three years he therefore remained in England.
During that time he acted as Bishop MacDonell’s representative in protracted negotiations with the British government, the direct result of the peculiar relations in those days between Church and British government in Upper Canada.
At length the bishop determined to proceed to his mission in the New World, but before doing so he embarked on a journey to Rome with his daughter, Mary Lucy, and her husband.
His daughter, who was in failing health, had married Lord Hugh Clifford and subsequently had eight children. Their son, William Clifford, born in 1823, was later ordained priest in 1850 and ordained bishop in 1857.
His episcopal consecration was by Pope Pius IX in the Sistine Chapel at the remarkable age of 33, a rare and distinct honour. He was the youngest English bishop since the Reformation.
Like his grandfather bishop before him, he had a meteoric rise in the Catholic hierarchy. He went on to be the third Bishop of Clifton from 1857-1893 and a participant at Vatican Council I, making him one of the most influential Catholic prelates in all of England.
Bishop Weld and his daughter and son-in-law arrived in Rome to celebrate Lenten exercises in the Eternal City. Meanwhile it was felt the climate would be better for his daughter’s health.
Much to his surprise, it was there that Bishop Weld was notified by Cardinal Alboni that Pope Pius VIII had decided to call him to the Sacred College of Cardinals.
Accordingly, on March 15, 1830, Bishop Weld was proclaimed Cardinal-Priest of the Holy Roman Church, with the title of San Marcello al Corso, a church in downtown Rome.
Then, and not until that point, did the Bishop’s connection with the Church in Canada terminate.
The interesting point is that he was Coadjutor Bishop of Kingston, with right of succession, when his elevation was proclaimed. Hence, he became legitimately the first Canadian Cardinal although he did not succeed to the See.
He went on to live in Rome as a Cardinal, a Prince of the Church at the Palazzo Odescalchi. His daughter died near Rome in 1830, living near the sea for health reasons. The Cardinal died in Rome in 1837, greatly mourned by the poor of the city, who were the beneficiaries of his generosity, as told by Cardinal Wiseman in his funeral oration.
Bishop MacDonell, still the founding Bishop of Kingston, outlived the Cardinal and passed away in Scotland in 1840.
The cardinal was buried at the church of Santa Maria in Aquiro, very near the Pantheon, where his tomb can still be visited to this day by pilgrims and Canadian history buffs who visit the Eternal City.
While there are many interesting particulars of the life of Cardinal Weld related to his benefactions to the Catholic Church in Canada, little of it is talked about today.
Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the Catholic presence and leadership in Canada was always of a global nature. The original hierarchy came from France, Ireland, and Scotland – countries that each had an important role in the origin of the faith in Canada.
In the case of Cardinal Weld, England is also included, a nation with a proud Catholic history going back to Roman times, making a contribution to the evangelization of Canada through a man whose memory lives on today.