Father Joseph Hattie, OMI, former Vancouver Marriage and Family Director, dies at 88

Updated on Sept. 11: A vigil wake for Father Joseph Hattie will take place on Friday, Sept. 13, at 7 p.m. at Holy Canadian Martyrs Church, 100 Main St., Ottawa. The funeral Mass is Saturday, Sept. 14, at 11 a.m., also at Holy Canadian Martyrs.

Father Joseph Hattie, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate who spent 12 years directing the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s Office of Marriage and Family Formation, died on Sept. 8, the Nativity of Mary. He was 88.

It was also the 60th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, said Ottawa Archbishop Emeritus Terrence Prendergast, who said Father Hattie died with a copy of the iBreviary in his hands at the Oblates’ residence in Ottawa.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been made, he said.

Father Hattie was a well known and strong promoter of life, family, marriage, and natural family planning. In a 2004 interview with The B.C. Catholic, he spoke about his calling to the priesthood while living in his hometown of Digby, N.S., where the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate had been a strong influence on him at St. Patrick’s Parish. He decided to live out his vocation with the priestly order.

“The seed was certainly nourished by my parents and their faith life,” said Father Hattie, “but it was also from the opportunity of seeing the Oblates in action at St. Pat’s Parish in Digby.”

After his ordination, Father Hattie was sent to Ottawa to teach at St. Patrick’s High School before being assigned as chaplain at Dalhousie University. There he enjoyed talking with students, especially those in their last years of study, and helping to form them for marriage and family.

After nine years in Halifax, he went to Rome and obtained his PhD in the theology of marriage and family.

In 1978, he met Lou Specken, a Vancouver nurse who, along with her husband Art, had trained in the Billings natural family planning method developed by Australian doctors John and Evelyn Billings. Father Hattie became a strong proponent of her organization, WOOMB (World Organisation Ovulation Method Billings) B.C. and was spiritual adviser to WOOMB International. The method became part of Vancouver’s marriage preparation courses, which Father Hattie led through the 1990s.

Assigned to St. Peter’s in New Westminster, he also served over the years as chaplain to Catholic Family Services, the Catholic Physicians Guild, and as the Archbishop’s liaison with the Engaged and Marriage Encounter movements. He was a representative on the ethics committee of Saint Mary’s Hospital in New Westminster and a board member of the Catholic Health Association of B.C.

In 1990, he was called to bless a house that has just become available adjacent to a Vancouver abortion clinic. The home was purchased by Sissy von Dehn, a mother of six and head of Nurses for Life, who turned it into a support centre for women facing crisis pregnancies.

Father Hattie led pro-lifers through the newly christened Gianna House, praying the Rosary and blessing each room so the house would “help those caught up in emotional crisis so that their hearts may be touched to embrace You, the Source of life, and Your Son, Who is life.”

In 1993 he published Totally Yours, a compilation of articles he wrote for Our Family magazine that examined Humanae Vitae, focusing on the circumstances of its composition, its reception, and the reasons for its endurance.

When 1994 was declared the International Year of the Family by the United Nations, Pope John Paul II asked the universal Church to take part in the observance. In Vancouver, that became Father Hattie’s mission.

He chaired a committee to coordinate archdiocesan events that he said should have two aims: to acknowledge the importance of the family in society and to highlight the need for strong family support systems. He led a pilgrimage of over 20 Vancouver pilgrims to Rome for Pope John Paul II's Oct. 9 Meeting With Families.

Support for the family was a message he brought to House of Commons subcommittee on Tax Equity for Canadian Families with Dependent Children, which held hearings in Vancouver in 1999. Addressing the committee, Father Hattie urged it to promote a tax system that was fair to all parents.

“Real tax fairness presumes that whatever choices parents make with respect to the care of their dependent children, they should neither be privileged nor penalized by the income tax structure,” he told the committee.

He said his experience speaking with couples was that they almost universally wanted one parent to stay at home to raise their children. “The present system,” said Father Hattie, “undermines the freedom of choice that parents should have in choosing to be the primary caregivers for their dependent children.”

He suggested a system of income sharing, structured so that the working spouse could pay a stay-at-home spouse the government rate for day care and would reduce unemployment.

Father Hattie was reassigned by the Oblates to Halifax in 1999, and asked by the bishops of Nova Scotia to introduce his pre-marriage course, which focused on the “Maker’s Instructions for Marriage.”

As an Oblate of Mary Immaculate who was ordained on Mary’s birthday, he had a warm devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and when he entered the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, it was with an enriched devotion to the Virgin Mary. He had worked for five months at the Marian Shrine in Lourdes, where the Oblates had administrative and spiritual responsibility for pilgrims. He found it a major boost to his personal faith journey.

“It was a very rich atmosphere of Eucharistic and Marian spirituality,” he said. “It was a privilege hearing confessions of the pilgrims and being a witness to the miracles of grace Mary would obtain for them in coming to confession.”

He returned to Halifax to continue in the familiar role of running marriage preparation courses, giving talks, workshops, and retreats, and promoting natural family planning

From 2011 to 2020, he was an adjunct faculty member and a chaplain at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Barry’s Bay, Ont., before returning to Ottawa.

He performed his sacramental ministry “with great zeal,” said the college in announcing his death. “He had a great gift for spiritual direction, and students flocked to him for advice on both daily struggles and larger questions like vocation discernment.”

He always addressed his “fellow workers in the Lord’s vineyard” with cheerfulness and optimism, inspiring in members of the college community trust in providence and confidence in God’s loving-kindness. As an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, he had, and encouraged in others, a great devotion to Our Lady, whom he considered his “Boss.”

He retired in 2020, but the college continued to have a close connection with him, and many alumni, staff, and faculty kept in touch with him and sought his advice. In 2022, the college awarded Father Hattie the Catholic Culture Award for his lifelong commitment to life, marriage, and family, and for his exemplary service to the college.

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