Vocations, Seminar, Priesthood - Vocations Office

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Fr. Raymond de Coccola (1912 - 1995), for 28 years a priest of St. Michael’s parish in Burnaby, was a small elderly man with a soft voice and a strong handshake. "Fr. Raymond de Coccola was born in Corsica in 1912 in the village from which his ancient family takes its name. Educated in Corsica and at a Jesuit College in France’s Haute-Savoie (bordering on Switzerland), he chose to be trained as an Oblate missionary. In 1937, at his own request, and even though he spoke no Eskimo nor English, Father de Coccola was sent to live among the Eskimos of the Canadian Central Arctic. From then, until he was invalidated out in 1949, he visited the outside world only once.
Since his recovery from the effects of twelve years in the Barren Land, Fr. de Coccola has lived in the much gentler climate of the British Columbia coast. It was as an assistant parish priest at Powell River that he met public relations man Paul King, who helped him write this book. It is to his Quebec-born wife Suzanne, that the co-authors have also dedicated this book [The Incredible Eskimo]. A contemporary of Fr. de Coccola, Paul King was born in Manchuria and educated in North China and Western Canada. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, he has been an athlete, journalist, soldier, teacher, and weekly newspaper publisher and editor. Upon leaving Powell River for the Greater Vancouver area in the mid-fifties, Fr. de Coccola was given his own parish on the border of the sprawling Burnaby Municipality and the City of New Westminster. With the enthusiastic help of many dedicated local parishioners, he was eventually successful in building two (Catholic) churches, two schools, a manse [rectory], and a nuns’ convent there. Owing to the scarcity of priests at the time, Father de Coccola was prevailed upon by his superiors to remain at St. Michael’s Parish for an additional five years after customary retirement at sixty-five. Hundreds of his parishioners honored Father Raymond at a surprise farewell gathering upon his long-awaited move to his scenic hideout on the shore of a little mountain lake in the lush Fraser Valley east of Vancouver, B.C." (Theresa Nadeau, the executrix of the late Fr. de Coccola’s estate, acting on behalf of the de Coccola family, established an bursary of $5,000 which was to initiate an annual bursary of $1000 to help vocation education in the Archdiocese. In the 1998 -1999 school year this bursary was awarded to Mr. Lawrence Travis. For the 1999 - 2000 school year this bursary was awarded to two seminarians: Mr. Anicet Pinto & Mr. Thomas Smith For the 2000 - 2001 school year this bursary was awarded to two seminarians: Deacon Mario Marin & Mr. Peter Ha For the 2001 - 2002 school year this bursary was awarded to two seminarians: Mr. Fred Buttner & Mr. Henry Yeung For the 2002 - 2003 school year this bursary was awarded to one seminarian: Mr. Noel Oco For the 2003-2004 school year this bursary was awarded to one seminarian: Mr. Pablo Santa Maria For the 2004-2005 school year this bursary was awarded to one seminarian: Mr. Noel Oco Many thanks and prayers to the de Coccola family and Theresa Nadeau for their kind and generous support of Vocations in the Archdiocese of Vancouver.) N.B. Fr. de Coccola’s book is available from the Executrix - Theresa Nadeau, Box 1314, Camrose, AB Canada T4B 1X3. (Cost: $10.00 plus shipping.) Benefactors