DULUTH, MINNESOTA –100 years

A celebration commemorating the Centennial of the arrival of the Oblates in the Diocese of Duluth was held at Holy Family Church, Duluth, on June 15, 2003. Oblates and  parishioners joined Duluth Bishop Dennis M. Schnurr in a concelebrated Mass with Archbishop Roger Schwietz, OMI, of Anchorage, Alaska, as guest homilist. 

First Missionaries

In the winter of 1853, the great missionary Father Frederick Baraga, traveled by snowshoes, to bring the Good News of Salvation to the Ojibwa Indians gathered on the shores of Lake Superior.  He was followed in 1866 by Oblate Frs. Albert LACOMBE and Laurent Simonet, who, while on their way to the Western Canadian Provinces, gathered the Catholics of Duluth for Mass. From 1873 to 1882 Fr. Jean-Baptiste Genin, OMI, worked among the French-Canadians who met for worship at the future Sacred-Heart Cathedral.

Permanent Oblate establishment

When Duluth became a Diocese in 1889, Bishop James McGolrick, aware of the great accomplishments the Oblates were making in the Red River Valley and solicitous of the spiritual needs of the French-Canadians, desired a religious community of French speaking priests to take over the pastoral care of St. Jean-Baptiste church, home to the French Canadians since 1885.

The Oblate Provincial of St. Boniface, Manitoba, Prisque MAGNAN acquiesced and on March 13, 1903, Oblate Fathers Didace Guillet, Zachary Lacasse and Scholastic Brother Omer Robillard arrived in Duluth to begin the first Oblate foundation in the State of Minnesota. Father Guillet was appointed pastor and first Oblate Superior in Duluth. 

The Manitoba Oblate Province

The Canadian Oblates immediately set out to construct a new St. Jean-Baptiste church, improve parish organizations and bring their administrative and preaching skills to the attention of their French congregation. The Provincial, on a visit to his Oblate confreres, sought and obtained incorporation of the Oblate Congregation in the State of Minnesota on May 9, 1903. The Congregation was indeed well established and would assign a total of fifty-eight men from Canada to extend its compassion to the poor and abandoned of rural Northern Minnesota. Among the most notable Canadian Oblates to minister in Minnesota was Fr. Omer Robillard, who served the longest, a total of thirty-three years in Duluth. 

The Central U.S. Province

By mutual agreement between the Oblate Provincials of Manitoba and the United States, all Oblate mission sites in the North Central States were turned over to the Central U.S. Province in 1958. American Oblates continued their rural ministry as well as taking on various prison, hospital and Neumann Center chaplaincies. In 1953 Polish Oblates had taken over the care of Sts. Peter & Paul parish which served the Polish community of Duluth’s west end. In 1972, a team ministry approach was instituted and the Oblates assumed pastoral care for St. Clement's, an Irish/German parish, which eventually merged with St. Jean-Baptiste. In 1985, aware of the need to “pool their resources” in a fast changing society, the Oblates petitioned Bishop Brom to “merge” the three west-end parishes under their care. The Oblates worked diligently to bring the various ethnic cultures of the west-end into a new parish community known as Holy Family.

The Oblate mission continues

Since the take over by the U.S. Central Province in 1958, a total of one-hundred Oblate priests and brothers from the new U.S. Province have served in the many mission posts of rural Northern Minnesota.  Nine Oblates are currently serving in Duluth, International Falls, Cook, Garrison and Sandstone, Minnesota. Oblates continue to make up the majority of the religious clergy of the Diocese of Duluth. Archbishop Roger Schwietz, OMI, a native of Minnesota, was Bishop of Duluth prior to his appointment to Anchorage.

The current Oblate community at Holy Family is made up of Frs. Tony Wroblewski and James Datko.  (Submitted by Bro. Richard P. Coté, OMI, to OMI INFORMATION.)

Current Holy  Family  Pastor, Tony Wroblewski, OMI

Sanctuary of the New Holy Family Church, Duluth, MN.