Michael Power: The Struggle to Build the Catholic Church on the Canadian Frontier

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

Five years after he became the first bishop of the Toronto diocese,
Michael Power was martyred, at age 42, while ministering to victims of
the typhus epidemic that swept Toronto in 1847. Born in 1804 in Halifax,
the future bishop was educated in Montreal, ordained in 1827, and then
appointed missionary at Drummondville (1827–31). Subsequently he
served as pastor at Montebello in the Ottawa Valley (1831–33), at
Sainte-Martine, near Salaberry-de-Valleyfield (1833–39), and finally
at La Prairie (1839–42) before the appointment that took him to
Toronto.

To date there has been no scholarly biography of Power. Part of the
reason Power has been so long neglected is the apparent scarcity of
sources. It is one of the great strengths of this book is that McGowan,
now principal of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto,
has scoured the known universe for evidence and has come up material
never before used. The result is that many of the gaps in Power’s life
are now filled.

In the book, McGowan succeeds in explaining why Power matters in
Canadian history. As bishop, Power was caught up in the ultramontane
revolution of his day, and deliberately set out to strengthen the powers
and influence of the local bishop, establishing a firm base upon which
his successors could build. In the process, he may not always have been
the most tactful or gentle of souls, but McGowan is not in the business
of cover-up and lets the facts speak for themselves.

McGowan is a literary historian whose evocative writing makes not only
Power but his surroundings come alive. Further, he has the helpful habit
of setting up the three or four points he wants to discuss in a section
and then proceeding to the discussion, so that the reader never loses
sight of the forest for the trees. The end result is one of the finest
biographies it has been my good fortune to read.