The Case for Fr Charles Dominic Ffrench (1775–1851)

Richard Wilbur is the author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and
H.H. Stevens, 1878–1973 and co-author of Silver Harvest. His latest
book is Horse-Drawn Carriages and Sleighs: Elegant Vehicles from New
England and New Brunswick.

This study aims to prove long after the events, that Fr Charles Dominic
Ffrench, a missionary priest who was born into a prominent Irish
Protestant family but converted to Catholicism in his late teens and
then entered the Dominican order, was wrongfully accused, much maligned,
and his long career in Canada and New England hindered by an accusation
of immorality. Significantly, the charge did not surface until after ill
health had forced him to leave the Miramichi area, where in three short
years the authors’ extensive records indicate he had been remarkably
successful and popular. It was only when he moved to New York that he
learned, through letters sent to Archbishop Plessis in Quebec, that he
was accused of having fathered the child of an Irish woman in Miramichi.
The evidence, based on rumours in the Miramichi diocese, was first
brought to Plessis’s notice by Ffrench’s successor. Soon more
stories were sent to the Bishop referring to other dalliances as well as
charges, again unsubstantiated, that Ffrench had mishandled church
funds. They were presented to Plessis by a 65-year-old Belgian Jesuit,
who had become a keen rival of Ffrench in the New York area. Later, when
Ffrench returned to the Saint John, N.B., diocese, more nasty stories
about his morality surfaced, this time in a letter sent to both Plessis
and Bishop Connolly of New Brunswick by the wife of one Richard Toole.
In 1822, Mary Toole wrote again to the two prelates, recanting and
apologizing for spreading “scandalous calumnies” about Ffrench.

In modern terms, the most significant research into this fascinating
study is contained in Chapter 8, titled “The Role of Nationalism in
the Case Against Fr Ffrench.” Citing modern Catholic scholars, the
authors outline the deep rivalry within the church between Québécois
clerics and their English-speaking Irish colleagues in both New
Brunswick and New England. They also quote extensively from a 1988 work
allocating “a certain share of the blame for these misunderstandings
to Rome itself.” They add that Ffrench himself “recognized that
there was a cultural clash in New Brunswick.” Their research
exonerates him, and with historic hindsight it seems clear that the
affable Irish priest was a victim of a rivalry still evident today in
some Catholic dioceses in New Brunswick. This is a well-told story and a
valuable addition to Canada’s cultural history.