Fort Smith (May 08/06) - The Roman Catholic church in Fort Smith has lost its full-time priest.

Father Francois Cueff left town for his home country of France on May 1 after serving at St. Joseph's Cathedral since 1998.

Bishop Denis Croteau of the Diocese of Mackenzie says there is no priest available to replace Cueff, not even in southern Canada.

Father Francois Cueff recently departed Fort Smith, leaving the town without a full-time Roman Catholic priest. His departure leaves eight priests to serve the Territories. Of the few left, one is semi-retired and another is moving to the Yukon at the end of May. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo The following are the Roman Catholic priests serving in the Northwest Territories and the areas they cover: Father Bernie Black is based in Hay River and also serves Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Hay River Reserve and Kakisa; Father Joseph Daley of Yellowknife; Father Felix Labat is semi-retired in Yellowknife, where he is chaplain at Stanton Hospital, and he occasionally travels to Fort Good Hope, Tulita and other communities in the Sahtu; Father Lester Kaufmann serves the Mackenzie Delta, Paulatuk, Tuktoyaktuk and Tsiigehtchic, but will be leaving in mid-May for the Yukon; Father Matthew Ihuoma is based in Inuvik, and will likely serve the Mackenzie Delta, Paulatuk, Tuktoyaktuk and Tsiigehtchic once Father Kaufmann leaves; Father Bart Van Roijen is based in Fort Simpson and also serves the communities of Fort Providence, Fort Liard, Wrigley, Nahanni Butte, Jean Marie River and Trout Lake; Father Jean Pochat of Rae-Edzo; Father Wieslaw Szatanski serves Wha Ti, Gameti and Wekweti.

Hay River's Father Bernie Black has agreed to spend a week out of every month in Fort Smith to serve the approximately 1,500 Catholics in the community.

Aside from Hay River, Black already serves the Hay River Reserve, Fort Resolution and Kakisa.

"So he's got his hands full," Croteau says.

The bishop notes there are only eight priests in the whole of the NWT to serve 35 missions. One of those priests is semi-retired and another leaves for the Yukon at the end of May.

Croteau recalls when he arrived here from Quebec in 1960, there were 62 priests in the diocese, which includes all of the NWT and parts of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan, and western Nunavut.

According to Statistics Canada census information, about 9,300 of NWT residents consider themselves Catholic.

Croteau notes there are many priests available in Africa and India, but he and many other bishops are reluctant to bring them to Canada because they have not been totally successful in western culture.

In particular, some foreign priests have difficulty dealing with women, he notes, adding women are the backbone of the church in the North.

As for developing priests among Northerners, Croteau says, "We've been trying for 150 years."

However, in that time, there have been just two northern priests - one from Fort Chipewyan, Alta., and another from Rae.

Croteau says many men have not entered the priesthood because of the requirement for celibacy, and young people are not as religious as in years past.

The solution to the shortage is to get parishioners more involved in guiding services, he says. While lay people can perform most of the services, only a priest can consecrate the bread for Holy Communion.

Cueff, 74, first came to the North in 1963, and spent many years in Fort Chipewyan and other communities on Lake Athabasca, where he learned to speak English, Cree and Chipewyan.

While noting there is a good core of Catholics in Fort Smith, he says the number attending church has been dwindling over the years and people are less interested in religion.

"The only time the church is full is at Christmas," he says.

Cueff, who will retire to an Oblate house near Avignon, was the last priest from France to come to the North.

"It's up to Canada to provide priests for the people of Canada." he says.

Jacques van Pelt, a prominent member of the church in Fort Smith, says the community is sorry to see Cueff leave.

"I certainly feel the void," van Pelt says.

However, he believes it is a sign from the Lord that the laity have to come together and keep the church functioning.

"The Lord has never said that coming together without a priest is invalid," says van Pelt, one of six lay presiders.

Van Pelt says many parishioners see Cueff's departure as an end of an era of having a full-time priest, but he adds, "We have to learn to overcome that."

In Tuktoyaktuk, Jean Gruben and her husband Bobby are pastoral leaders at Our Lady of Graces Church. The last full-time priest there died in 1985.

She says they haven't had a priest deliver Christmas mass for five years.

"(Parishioners) get used to no priest," she said. "It never bothers them any more."