LITTLE CURRENT—Father Jeffrey S. Burwell SJ, the newly installed Provincial of the Jesuits in Canada dropped into visit Father Gerry McDougall SJ, the new pastor at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church and was feted with a light luncheon in the church hall.
“In every diocese and every religious order you have what they call a superior and in the Jesuits we have a provincial, not like Ontario or Quebec or Saskatchewan,” said Fr. Burwell, “for us, the Jesuits, a province is a geographic region—it’s an area, so in the United States they have four provinces, in Canada we have one, and it goes from Vancouver-Victoria, to Saint John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s my job to visit and care for each of the Jesuits all through Canada. So, I’m on basically a rotation.”
That includes every single work or place that the order is associated with. “Whether it’s a high school or a college or a retreat centre or a parish, I often meet with our collaborators in the Jesuit world.” The provincial is not just responsible for the Jesuits—he also has a care and responsibility for the people in the works that are associated with the Jesuits.
Fr. Burwell is 48 years old and an educational specialist whose doctoral research took him to the Holy Land, where he focused on Catholic schools in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. A lecturer in Catholic Studies, first St. Paul’s College at the University of Manitoba and now Campion College at the University of Regina, he balances university work with pastoral service as a chaplain to police (RCMP) and to prisoners. He dedicated his university holidays to ministering in the Dene and Cree Indigenous communities of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
He succeeds Fr. Erik Oland SJ, and assumed his responsibilities on July 31, 2024, with an inaugural mass held at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Toronto
Fr. Burwell held positions as a local superior since 2017 and a province consultor since 2021. He brings “a profound understanding of the Jesuit mission and a significant appreciation for Canada and Haiti’s diverse cultures.”
The new provincial comes in at a time when the Society of Jesus is seeking “to deepen its engagement with contemporary challenges, oriented by their Universal Apostolic Preferences: showing the way to God through the Spiritual Exercises and discernment; walking with the excluded; journeying with youth; and caring for our common home.”
Fr. Burwell reminded the parishioners of St. Bernards, whose priest is also a member of the Jesuit order, “you’re not just a little parish here onto your own because you are connected to other parishes with Jesuits. You’re connected to our retreat centers, to our universities, to Rome, Europe, Africa and Asia—to all of the Jesuit works. And there’s hundreds of thousands of people who collaborate, who work with the Jesuits, and so you’re part of a network that is really, actually quite big. That’s something to be proud of.”
Fr. Burwell explained that he was appointed to his position. “I wasn’t even nominated for the job,” he laughed. “I received a phone call from our superior in Rome, Father General, we call him, who’s my boss. He called me and said ‘congratulations, you are the new provincial of Canada. Pack up your bags and move to Montreal.’ That was actually the saddest day of my life because I was living in Regina teaching at the university.”
But an order from the order is the order of the day, so “I just started talking about my books and packing up my clothes and said goodbye to Regina. In about 48 hours I was gone.” Fr. Burwell said it’s a great honour to be in his position, however.
“The Jesuit mission is to go where you’re sent to go, where the need is greatest,” he said. “So, the Jesuits, by and large, are missionaries where we’re zealous guys who will say yes to wherever the provincial (that’s me), is going to send them. So often, guys are giving an assignment where they first think, ‘oh, I don’t know if I really want to go,’ or it might be hard, but they give themselves to the work that they’re asked to do.”
Jesuits end up in places that they didn’t expect, he said, and so the care and the love and the affection and the support that the parish offers is really important.
“On behalf of Father Gerry and the Jesuits of the region, I just want to thank you for the care you are showing to us. When I first sent Father Gerry here, my goodness, that’s a big move, asking him to leave Thunder Bay, which he loved immensely and coming here with no residence, no certainty, no understanding of the congregation, and he just said yes. It looks like it’s working out amazingly. So, know that I’m praying for you, and hopefully I’m going to be provincial for the next five years. So, when I come through next year, we can visit, check in and see how things are doing.”
Fr. McDougall had been living at the Anishinaabe Centre at Anderson Lake the past couple of months, but he is now nestled securely in the rectory across the street from St. Bernards Roman Catholic Church in Little Current and has thrown himself into the pastoral work on behalf of his new flock.
