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Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Father Normandin, Holy Priest Out in the Cold, RIP

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Father Normandin, Holy Priest Out in the Cold, RIP

I met him only once, in the Chartres Cathedral back in the late 1990s. Most amusingly at the time, he asked me how the Minnesota North Stars were doing as, aside from being a holy priest, he was also a big hockey fan.

A long time before that, Father's book "Pastor Out in the Cold" had become part of my coming of age as a Traditional Catholic. The autobiographical work details Father’s struggle to defend the Traditional Latin Mass in the turbulent days after the close of the Council—a holy cause for which Father Normandin sacrificed everything, even his pension.

By the early 1970s, he'd became an outcast from his diocese of Montreal, thus the “pastor out in the cold”, which set the precedent for many heroic priests that we recognized, even as children, as the spiritual sons of the great underground priests of the past, such as Saints Edmund Campion and Miquel Pro.

He was one of the first post-conciliar priests to put Christ, His Mass and the holy priesthood ahead of the guitars, felt banners and Modernist madness that plagued that era. Throughout the 1970s, Father Normandin was a travelling priest who brought the old Mass, sacraments and  catechism to traditional Catholic families like mine at a time when there was nothing else.

The SSPX credits Father Normandin with having laid the foundations for most of the Canadian traditional Latin Mass chapels now served by the Society of St. Pius X.

mike priest friendFather Normandin

In justice for all he did for the holy cause of Tradition back before "Tradition was cool", we owe it to Father Normandin to pray for the repose of his soul and to beg God to welcome His good and faithful servant into paradise without delay.

Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.

Father Yves Normandin, RIP.

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Last modified on Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Michael J. Matt | Editor

Michael J. Matt has been an editor of The Remnant since 1990. Since 1994, he has been the newspaper's editor. A graduate of Christendom College, Michael Matt has written hundreds of articles on the state of the Church and the modern world. He is the host of The Remnant Underground and Remnant TV's The Remnant Forum. He's been U.S. Coordinator for Notre Dame de Chrétienté in Paris--the organization responsible for the Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres, France--since 2000.  Mr. Matt has led the U.S. contingent on the Pilgrimage to Chartres for the last 24 years. He is a lecturer for the Roman Forum's Summer Symposium in Gardone Riviera, Italy. He is the author of Christian Fables, Legends of Christmas and Gods of Wasteland (Fifty Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll) and regularly delivers addresses and conferences to Catholic groups about the Mass, home-schooling, and the culture question. Together with his wife, Carol Lynn and their seven children, Mr. Matt currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.