Update on New Church

As you are aware, the St. Andrew Community has been waiting for a land purchase for many years, while the growth of the Barrhaven and Ottawa South area has far exceeded expectations. What was once open countryside 20 years ago is now built up. If we consider the Barrhaven and Ottawa South area, 20% of the 160,000 people living there are Catholic. On any given weekend, many of the churches in our area are filled to capacity, and new Masses have been added to address the needs of the Catholic community. At the same time, our retiring priests outnumber the new men getting ordained, and it’s unrealistic to expect individual priests to celebrate 8 Masses per day in a parish that holds 250 people. A large 1000 seat capacity church would only require 2 Masses to accommodate the same number of people. If 160,000 is a realistic number of the people currently living in the Barrhaven/Ottawa South area and 20% are Catholic, that means that roughly 32,000 Catholics live in the area. If 10% of Catholics are attending Mass, that means we have 3200 people attending our parishes every week. Having a new regional church built on our new River Rd. property does not mean that the active parishes in the area will close. On the contrary, having a regional church will ease the burden of all the parishes in the area, while encouraging a greater number of new Catholics moving into our area from around the world.

During the summer of 2025, the Archdiocese purchased a 9-acre parcel of land in Ottawa South (located about a kilometer south of the Vimy Memorial Bridge at 838 River Rd., close to Nichols Island Rd.). The goal of this land purchase was to finally establish a foothold on which a large capacity regional Catholic Church can be built. By December 2025, environmental assessments for animals and trees were done, trees were cleared and a temporary road access was created (photos of the work will be on our new parish website). Two wells have also been dug, and monitoring of the spring water levels will be studied. While the city services are not yet on site, they are getting closer every month.

Early last week, the ‘New Parish Building’ group got together to discuss the various skill sets needed and a strong governance model as we move forward. At the present time, the people in the group includes skillsets in the area of contract law, construction, engineering, project management, and procurement. We have also had a couple of representatives from the Archdiocese and clergy from St. Monica, St. Andrew and St. Leonard present.

While we don’t have signage on the land yet, we have permission from the Archdiocese to have a “future home of a Catholic Church” sign put on the property. When the snow disappears and the weather warms up, I think it would be good idea to celebrate a community Mass on the property with food and fun activities.
While God has answered our prayers for land, we’re still at the early stages of planning for a new church. The most important thing we can do now is to re-direct our prayer for revitalizing our local parishes and seeing more parishioners stepping up to build the community spirit!

Yours in Christ,
Fr. Pierre