P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F T H E R E G I O N O F P E E L A R C H I V E S , W I L L I A M P E R K I N S B U L L F O N D S 1 9 9 1 . 0 4 5 .
K E N
W E B E R ’ S
H I S T O R I C
‘Father Mac’
the Miracle Man
BY KEN WEB ER
rchbishop John Walsh spent much
of August 19, 1895, nervously peering out the window of his office on
Bond Street in Toronto. The leader of
Ontario’s largest Roman Catholic diocese was awaiting a telegram from St.
Patrick’s in Wildfield where, just three
days before, the parish had buried its
beloved pastor, Father Francis McSpiritt.
A sad event for the archbishop, losing a
priest, and it meant he would now have
to go through the delicate politics of
choosing a new pastor for the parish. It
was a different matter, however, that
was making him anxious.
He was well aware that “Father Mac”,
as parishioners called him, had been
extremely popular. Still, the number of
mourners at the funeral had been
mind-boggling. Not only did Gore
Township turn out, and a good part of
Albion and Adjala, there were large delegations from Brampton, Caledon East,
Mono Road, Streetsville, even Dufferin
County, a good many of whom he knew
were stalwarts of the Orange Lodge.
One group had come all the way from
Kleinburg on foot. The passenger train
from Niagara Falls had to put on an
extra car! The archbishop had rarely
seen such an outpouring of affection for
a simple parish priest. But in truth,
“simple parish priest” didn’t quite
describe Father Mac.
Francis McSpiritt was born in
County Cavan, Ireland, in 1830, and
came to Canada about 1855. He was
ordained in Toronto ten years later and
sent as curate to what many still called
The Gore Mission: St. Patrick’s in
Wildfield.
A
The position was a bit of a plum for
a young priest, for St. Patrick’s was the
second oldest parish in the archdiocese
of Toronto. Almost immediately, though,
he was sent farther west in Peel, to be
pastor of St. Cornelius in Silver Creek,
and then in 1869, was transferred to
Niagara Falls. Here, in the premier
tourist hot spot of North America,
Father McSpiritt became known as a
maker of miracle cures. Shortly after his
arrival, word spread like wildfire
through southern Ontario and New
York State that this impatient, blunt but
friendly priest had cured a Canadian
girl of St. Vitus Dance (a form of chorea)
and an American man of blindness.
Archbishop Walsh’s predecessor, J.J.
Lynch, had at first been unimpressed by
this phenomenon, then embarrassed,
and finally, angry. Lynch felt that one of
his primary and most delicate tasks was
to keep the Roman church safely and
independently afloat in what was pretty
much a Protestant – and Orange – sea
in Ontario. It was enough that he had
his hands full trying to suppress the
Fenians, without having to deal with a
priest whom people believed had a
direct channel to God. The archbishop
warned Father McSpiritt that charges of
charlatanry could be brought against
him, and begged that he give no more
“thaumaturgic exhibitions.” But with the
stubbornness that marked his character,
the priest carried on, explaining that he
was only a divine instrument, used by
The Master to relieve human misery.
“It is between the afflicted and God,”
Father Mac always insisted, “I know
nothing of it.”
H I L L S
The archbishop’s response was a
time-honoured one. In 1875, he lifted
Father Mac out of the high-profile
Niagara posting and set him down in
remote rural Ontario. St. James’ parish
in Adjala Township had bad roads, no
rail line and no large towns. Better yet,
with the exception of pockets in Albion
to the south, it was surrounded by a
population that was solidly Protestant.
But if the plan was to contain this
bumptious Irish priest, it didn’t work.
For the next 12 years, Father McSpiritt
thrived at St. James’ and word of even
more miracles flowed south to the
chancery office in Toronto. A similar
buzz continued from St. Patrick’s in
Wildfield, after he had returned at his
own request in 1887. In both parishes,
even his Protestant neighbours were
known to turn to him in times of stress
– even though Father Mac emphatically
pointed out that he didn’t think his
powers would work on Protestants. Still,
several supplicants allegedly were
tossed out of their local Orange Lodge
for crossing the line.
Peel historian Perkins Bull has recorded more than a dozen of Father Mac’s
miracles in considerable detail. A typical
case involved the Bradley family of
Palgrave, whose young son had epilepsy.
As Protestants, the desperate family had
turned to Father McSpiritt reluctantly.
After spending a very short time with
their child, Father Mac told the Bradleys
they might see one more seizure but that
would be all. As if on cue, the boy had
an episode on the way home to Palgrave
but never suffered one again. He died
years later from diphtheria.
An important feature of the priest’s
reputation as a healer was his low-key
style. Apparently, Father Mac never
indulged in anything more dramatic
than making the sign of the cross.
Often, he would just tell the supplicant
to go home and pray, and everything
would be all right. However his instructions for giving thanks after a cure
sometimes raised eyebrows. Two of his
favourites were to tell women not to
comb their hair on Fridays and to tell
men to refrain from shaving on
Sundays. On other occasions, the rigidly teetotalling priest revealed an
extraordinary level of empathy by
directing grateful pilgrims to limit
themselves to only two drinks a day.
Fortunately for those who sought his
ministrations, after the move to Adjala,
there were no more official warnings to
stop. This somewhat uncharacteristic
sensitivity on the part of the church
hierarchy may have been because this
humble priest sought nothing for himself. He ate sparingly; his cassock was
shabby; his buggy rattled and fell apart
regularly. Had it not been for an informal committee of parishioners who
stoked his fires in winter and kept up
his woodpile, he might have frozen to
death. His only vanity was a monstrous
stovepipe hat said to have come with
him from Ireland.
It is possible, too, that the hierarchy
may have been slightly intimidated by
the overwhelming response to Father
McSpiritt. Pilgrims sought him out from
across Ontario, from the northeastern
U.S., and even from England, and built
his reputation with tales of cure upon
miraculous cure. Although epilepsy
seems to have been somewhat of a specialty, belief in Father Mac’s powers covered all forms of affliction. Following a
blessing by Father McSpiritt, for example, a woman from New York recovered
from life-threatening gunshot wounds.
In gratitude, she later built a grotto
beside his grave at Wildfield.
It was this depth of belief in the
priest’s powers and the extent of his reputation that made Archbishop Walsh so
uneasy that Father Mac’s funeral might
kick off a wave of miracle mania. Thus,
when the telegram finally arrived that
August day, he was greatly relieved to
learn that neither the Bolton Enterprise
nor the Brampton Conservator had
mentioned miracles in their respective
obituaries. What did bring a frown to his
face – and he read it twice to be sure –
was the news that people were scooping
handfuls of earth from the grave. Not
quite mania, thankfully, but an indication that not even death could diminish
belief in the miraculous powers of Father
Mac. Although Archbishop Walsh
wouldn’t know it, for he died only three
years later, the practice of taking earth
from Father McSpiritt’s grave at St.
Patrick’s in Wildfield would continue for
decades. Caledon writer Ken Weber is the author
of several best-selling books. His most
recent title is The Armchair Detective.
Sainthood for ‘Father Mac’?
Not likely. The modern day canonization process is tightly controlled by the Vatican
and requirements of proof for the kind of cures attributed to Father McSpiritt are
extremely rigorous. Although the sheer number of miraculous remissions credited to
him forces the conclusion that there was indeed something most extraordinary
about this priest, there is apparently no scientific documentation of the type that
would pass the test. As well, it seems that no one in the archdiocese of Toronto has
ever come forward to champion the cause, an essential requirement to get the
Vatican’s attention in the first place.
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