The Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie is visiting North Bay this week.
Bishop Thomas Dowd is meeting and learning more about all areas of the community through his parish pastoral visitation.
“This is a very old experience in the Catholic Church that I’m trying to revive, whereby a Bishop goes and spends an extended time in a community,” he says.
On the weekend Dowd celebrated all of the masses locally and then met with Mayor Al McDonald on Monday to get to know the city better.
Along with learning that the North Bay has a ski hill, he says they discussed challenges around population decline, the opioid crisis and homelessness.
Dowd says he asked how the church can help contribute to the people of North Bay.
“(Mayor McDonald) said that if the church could help find a way to deal with problems such as those then we would be able to have a good impact,” he says. “That’s something I’m going to want to bring up with the people of our city and the Catholics of our city, particularly.”
Dowd is also visiting local schools, the city’s mosque and synagogue this week, too.
He says his visit is about meeting with the broader community.
“I’m just hoping to connect with people and so if you see me in a restaurant or see me walking on the street, although with the snow there may be less of that, please stop and say ‘hi’. I look forward to chatting with you, whoever you may be,” Dowd says.
With Reconciliation, Dowd is looking forward to the Pope’s visit to Canada next year, but also says it is a journey.
“I’m 51 and Bishops retire at 75 so I expect to be here for 24 more years and I hope that the journey can continue as long as it needs to,” he says. “I’m doing some personal investment in that. I just finished up my first set of language lessons in Ojibway and now comes the time to create my flashcards and learn some vocabulary. Little steps along the way that I hope our communities can respond to.”
Dowd also plans to visit a number of pow wows next summer.
