Rev. Gerald Francis Joseph McSHANE

The Roman Catholic church numbers among its most distinguished representatives in Canada Rev. Gerald Francis Joseph McShane, pastor of St. Patrick’s church in Montreal and one of the best known lecturers and preachers in this province. He has been identified with religious activity in this city since 1900 and has since that time accomplished a great deal of constructive work here, his lectures, his eloquent preaching, his organizing and administrative activities constituting forces in the later development in Montreal of the doctrines in which he believes.

He was born in this city, December 5, 1872, and is a son of Michael and Margaret (Loftus) McShane, of Irish origin. In the acquirement of an education he attended Belmont school, the Archbishop’s Academy and Montreal College and later the Grand Seminary in that city, supplementing this by a four years’ course of study in Paris and Rome, receiving in the latter city degrees in philosophy and divinity. In 1896 he joined the Sulpician Order of this city and the same year left to complete his studies at St. Sulpice in Paris. In 1897 he was ordained priest, and three years later, in 1900, returned to Canada as curate of St. Patrick’s church, Montreal. For three years he did able work in that capacity and was then transferred to Notre Dame church in this city, where his sermons delivered in both French and English attracted much attention, they first bringing him into prominence as an orator. He has since that time become one of the most eloquent and widely known speakers in the city and is in great demand for lectures, sermons or orations of any kind. Since December, 1907, he has been pastor of St. Patrick’s church in Montreal and his address at his inaugural was regarded as more than an ordinary piece of tact and eloquence. Since that time he has carried forward a great deal of earnest and consecrated work in the management of his parish, which, being an important one, requires at its head a man of wide attainments, broad knowledge and discriminating business ability—qualities which Father McShane possesses in an unusual degree. He has been one of the greatest individual forces in the development of Catholic institutions in Montreal, having founded the Columbian Club, a social organization for Catholic students of McGill University. He is also a director and trustee of St. Patrick’s Orphanage. His congregation is one of the largest and most important in Montreal and its prestige is continually increasing as Father McShane’s ability as a pastor, a business man, an organizer and an orator becomes more widely recognized.

One of the city’s most brilliant, sincere and earnest Christian gentlemen, he occupies an enviable place in the regard of his parishioners and, indeed, of all who know him. The late Judge Curran, speaking of him, called him “a man of scholarly attainments, of fine tastes, of patriotic impulses and of considerable gifts as a speaker,” and this opinion is almost uniformly held throughout Montreal, where Father McShane has always made his home.