Born: Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Lower Canada, August 13, 1807
Priestly ordination: Montreal, February 3, 1833
Took the habit: Longueuil, October 15, 1842
Vows: Longueuil, October 16, 1843 (No. 113)
Expulsion and dispensation from vows: 1848-1849
Died: Saint-Hyacinthe, Canada, April 20, 1879.
Eusèbe Durocher was born in Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, then in the diocese of Quebec, on August 13, 1807. His parents were Olivier and Geneviève Durocher. He studied in the seminaries of Saint-Hyacinthe and Montreal and was ordained to the priesthood in Montreal on February 3, 1833.
After some years of ministry as assistant priest in Saint-Hyacinthe and in the parish of Notre-Dame in Montreal and then as pastor in Saint-Valentin (1836) and Iberville (1836-1842), he entered the Oblate novitiate in Longueuil on October 15, 1842 and took vows there on October 16, 1843, The ceremony took place in the parish church of Longueuil in the presence of two bishops (Bishop Ignace Bourget and Norbert Provencher) and a large number of priests and faithful. During his novitiate he held the position of treasurer in a house where the superior, Father Honorat, was unceasingly demolishing and rebuilding to such an extent that the novice expressed his feelings: “I do not know if I will have the courage to make my profession after all that I have seen” (letter of Bishop de Mazenod to Father Honorat, November 26, 1843).
As an Oblate, Father Durocher exercised his ministry in the loggers’ camps of the Ottawa and Gatineau (1843-1845), in the Amerindian missions of Témiscamingue and Abitibi (1848-1849), and in the Saguenay district and on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River (1846-1849).
On March 28, 1848, on the recommendation of Bishop Guigues, the Oblate superior in Canada, the members of the general council unanimously to expel from the Congregation this priest “who seemed to have little virtue and quite a bad temperament, as may be judged from the trouble he has given to his superiors since he was admitted. Far from correcting his faults, he is getting worse from day to day to the point where he is a danger to weaker brethren whom he tries to win over to his side.”
It seems that Father Eusèbe spent the winter of 1848-1849 in Longueuil. Because they were discontent with the appointment of Father Guigues as bishop of Bytown, the local Oblates and the diocesan priests criticised the French Oblates. A priest wrote to Father Alexandre Taché: “Good Father Durocher spent the winter drying out in his room… If he had been left in the loggers’ camps, I believe that would have remained healthy, but given his reputation and because he has the misfortune to be Canadian, he was hastily withdrawn” (Letter of Bishop de Mazenod to Bishop Bourget, May 10, 1849).
Having been dispensed from his vows in 1849, he was appointed assistant priest (1849-1852) and then pastor of Beloeil (1852-1862). After a period of rest, he was appointed pastor of Iberville (1866-1867) and he then retired to the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Saint-Hyacinthe, where he died on April 20, 1879.
Yvon Beaudoin
and Gaston Carrière, o.m.i.
