The PME Fathers, Pt 2

The Canadian missionaries took over the Davao mission from the Jesuits in December 1939, and started opening new parishes. That same year, Fr. Cote opened the Kingking (Pantukan) parish. To the south, new parishes were also formed. Fr. Poirier founded the Saint Joseph Parish of Santa Cruz in 1941, with Fr. Leblanc as his assistant.

The last delegation of PME padres arrived in November 1941 shortly before Davao was dragged into the war. The newcomers were Fathers Alfred Tremblay, Octave Rheaume, and Julien Vezina. In reaching the islands, they had to navigate a circuitous route to avoid the conflict.

War intervened the parochial activities after Davao was bombed by the Japanese on December 8, 1941, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. All clerical engagements stopped, and the priests, after securing their parishioners, had to find secure shelters. Of the twenty-three PME fathers in Davao, seven escaped to live with the indigenous communities on the eastern seaboard. The remainder were sent to concentration camps in Manila and Los Baños, Laguna.

During the war, the challenges faced by the missionaries were ambivalent. Coming from a country associated with the Allied nations which were deemed Japan’s enemies, the priests were also considered adversaries. Many of them were taken prisoners while a few died brutally in the hands of the Japanese Army.

The priests also suffered different fates. Fr. Lemay succumbed to malaria while assigned at San Pedro Church while Fr. Desjardins disappeared while negotiating his way from Manay to Caraga, most likely by drowning. Fathers Poirier and Leblanc, meanwhile, were brought to Pikit, North Cotabato as prisoners and were killed by the Japanese.

After the conflict had died down and Davao was freed from the enemy, the PME Fathers returned to Davao and resumed pastoral work by reorganizing the parishes. Fathers Thibault and Gerard Campagna were the first to return. Those who survived the war were sent home for a sabbatical but returned in 1946 with a new batch of new missionaries.

The return of the PME Fathers was a pivotal point in the expansion of the Church in Mindanao. While they bolstered the Order’s mission, the Davao generalate registered a milestone after Fr. Clovis J. Thibault, PME, a member of the first batch, was appointed bishop of the Davao.

Born on March 13, 1910 in Danville, Canada, Msgr. Clovis Joseph Thibault, PME, D.D., was ordained priest on June 24, 1934, after earning a degree in Bachelor of Arts. After a two-year stint in his home country, he moved to the Philippines. Decades earlier, in 1916, he enrolled at the Académie Masson, an elementary school run by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart.

His first assignment in Davao was as assistant priest of San Pedro Parish and, in concurrent capacity, as director of St. Peter’s Elementary School. Two years later, he assumed as parish priest and held the position until 1946.

After a brief furlough to Canada after the war, he returned to Davao in 1948 as the regional superior of the PME Fathers. On Dec. 29, 1954, he became administrator of the prelature nullius of Davao and titular bishop of Canatha, in the process becoming the second priest from his congregtion to become a prelate. He was consecrated on Feb. 11, 1955, in solemn rites held at the San Pedro Prelatic Church with Msgr. James G. T. Hayes, S.J., archbishop of Cagayan de Oro, officiating. He was, at the time, 44 years old.

On July 11, 1966, he became bishop of the diocese of Davao, and on June 29, 1970, archbishop of Davao. Due to health issues, he resigned on December 9, 1972, and given the title of archbishop emeritus. Three years later, on April 20, 1975, he passed away. His remains are buried at the underground crypt of the San Pedro Cathedral in Davao City. He was 65 years old.