Pubdate: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2012 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Shelley Page Jean-Claude Proulx 1939-2012 PRIEST WHO TOOK ON THE DRUG TRADE Career Took Him From Saving Addicts to Scouts Chaplain, but He Was Always Happiest on the Streets While he was training to be a priest in the 1960s, Jean-Claude Proulx bristled at the monastic life. It was too quiet, too rule-bound, too confining. He was a non-conformist who wanted to shake things up. And so, a few years after leaving the Major Seminary on Kilborn Avenue, he took on the drug trade of Vanier, standing in steely defiance against the dealers who were defiling the community. He was determined to be a saviour of the many young addicts, pulling them off the streets to dry them out, help them find work or return to school. This put the young priest's life in constant jeopardy. Late one Christmas Eve, Proulx heard a knock at his door. He recognized a couple of "shady guys" from a local gang. "They kidnapped him," says longtime friend Andre Vinette. Proulx feared a local drug syndicate was finally going to make good on threats to end his life. He was shoved in a car, and taken to their club house. They didn't want to do him harm. Instead, they wanted him to perform mass and take confession. The gang even had the sacramental bread so Proulx could give communion. "You'd assume these guys weren't into Christianity. But he talked with them all night," relates Vinette. The next morning the gang members brought Proulx home. The priest, who died on Jan. 10 at age 72, was happiest on the streets, helping the disadvantaged and downtrodden. Father Andre Brossard, who entered the priesthood with Proulx, said his longtime friend was "a disturber." "Some called him a modern prophet, because he'd ask questions about difficult topics and force people to be more caring, more spiritual and to look after the under privileged, and those who are cast away." Family and friends gathered to recall his remarkable life earlier this week after a funeral mass at Notre Dame Cathedral. Proulx was the eldest of a sprawling francophone family that grew to number eight boys and two girls. They called Loretta Street, west of Centretown, home. The focus of their life was St. Gerard's Parish, where he served mass as an altar boy in the local Catholic church. His mother, Aurore, had been a "very bright student" who quit school at 16 when her mother died to raise a family of nine. Then, after having 11 children, her husband died and she raised them alone. Proulx's brother Andre, a photographer, said his mother "possessed an amazing emotional intelligence" that meant there were few fights at the dinner table and most set backs were teachable moments. "Live and learn," she said. "Our mom was courageous and outspoken." She also stressed the importance of education to all of her children. "When I was in grade school every time I opened a new book, she would write a little thought for me, often from the Bible, but always inspirational," says Guy, another of Proulx's brothers, who is a neuropsychologist in Toronto. "She would get us excited about the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil." The children spoke impeccable French, excellent English. And then the Italian immigrants came, they learned Italian to communicate with the newcomers. This would serve Proulx well years later, when he went to study at the Vatican in Rome. The surest way to get an education if you were from a large francophone family, particularly without a patriarch, was to enter the seminary. Proulx studied at the St. Alphonse Seminary in Sainte-Anne de Beaupre, near Quebec City. Then, from 1960 to 1964, Proulx studied at the Major Seminary in Ottawa on Kilborn Avenue. Afterward, he was assigned to be the vicar at St. Charles Parish in Vanier for two years. Then, for six years, he served as a vicar at Notre Dame Cathedral. In 1967, the Ottawa Archdiocese appointed Proulx to be the chaplain for the francophone Scouts of Ottawa. For the next 40 years, he devoted his free time, not just to serving mass and leading jamborees, but to establishing the organization. Proulx met with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Finance Minister Marc Lalonde to secure funding so francophone Scouts could have their own federation. Proulx became the provincial president and then the national president of L'Association Des Scouts Du Canada. "They picked the right guy for the Scouts," says Suzanne Legault, acting director general for Les Scouts de l'Est de l'Ontario, and a longtime friend. "He was an amazing storyteller. He had a way of capturing kids attention. No one fidgeted when he said Mass." In 1986, the Ottawa branch of Les Scouts wrote to the Archdiocese to ask them to honour Proulx by making him a Monsignor. His supporters said he had married Scouts, baptized their children, and helped them discover God in nature. He was also "the only priest in the world," says Legault, to earn the top title of Leader and Trainer and be granted all four leather beads that are part of the prestigious Wood Badge, which Proulx wore around his neck. Instead of being named a Monsignor, Proulx received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, or Cross of Honour, the Pope's top award for service to the church. Proulx would also be honoured by the Pope for his work combating drug addiction. Fellow priest Andre Brossard says that Proulx was drawn to help the derelicts, drunks and drug addicts who populated the ByWard Market, and increasingly Vanier, in the early 1970s. He became the founder and director of the Vanier Youth Centre, in partnership with the Club Richelieu Vanier. "He told me this story about a man and a woman, both addicts. They were sick as dogs, and he stayed with them so they wouldn't die," recalls Vinette, a former school principal who now teaches at the University of Ottawa. Proulx rescued the couple, they got married. He baptized their first child. But the gangs that ran the drug trade took offence to his efforts. "The criminal syndicate didn't like that because he was taking way their customers," says Vinette. "He had a few threats against his life. He was being followed, and he was under the protection of the RCMP." To save his life, Proulx left for Haiti. During his two years there, working among the poor, he learned Creole. Upon his return, he once again took up his work among the francophone parishes of Ottawa. He also served as Chaplain at the former Cartier High School and moral counsellor to the Catholic sector of the French-language School Board for 12 years. Andre Cadieux, head guidance counsellor at Cartier High School and also Scout leader, said of his friend, "He was a damn good counsellor. He spoke the language of the kids." Eventually Proulx went to Rome to study at the Vatican. Upon his return, he taught sociology at Saint Paul University. In the final few years of his life, he developed Alzheimer's disease. His decline was quick. His brother Guy, the neuropsychiatrist who specializes in memory disorders, says that "dementia doesn't have to be a tragedy if the person is surrounded by supportive friends and family." And Proulx was. During his life, he learned to speak seven languages, including Italian, Creole and even some Vietnamese. He, too, spoke the language of drugs, addiction and rehabilitation before almost anyone else in the city. He could also tie a bowline, clove hitch, square and slip knot. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom