He's A Travelling
p. 89 · Read in the full issue
Priest
FATHER LEMAY is one of the most active and best known priests in the South Pacific, for although he did not reach the Pacific until 1950, he has travelled widely and continuously as Pro vincial of the Marist Missions in the Islands.
Descended from a French - Canadian family, he was born at Lawrence, near Boston, Mass. He was baptised Leo Louis Lemay, but his friends know him as “Steve”. His schooling was at Lawrence, Philadelphia and Washington DC. He obtained his MA at Boston College, and his Doctorate of Sacred Theology at Rome, where he was ordained in April, 1933. when he was 23. For the next 17 years, while hoping to get to the Pacific Islands, he was a Professor at the Marist College and Seminary at Bedford and at Framing ham, Mass., where he was finally Rector.
In 1950, Father Lemay went to Bougain ville to help Bishop Wade with the Native Seminary at Torokina, where five priests were ordained in 1953. Four of these were the first ordained from New Britain and Bougainville, while the fifth was from Papua.
The Very Reverend Father Lemay does not use the title of Provincial of Marist Missionaries in the South Pacific, nor is he very often at his headquarters at Hunter’s Hill, Sydney. Nearly all his time is spent visiting the Mission stations in the Islands. His care also extends to the native students and priests in New Zea land and Australia. During his first year he visited the South Solomons. Fiji and Samoa, Hawaii and the USA. and Europe and Rome, where he attended the General Chapter.
For the last five years Father Lemay has been several times to New Caledonia, Loyalties, Isle of Pines and Belep; Fiji and Rotuma; Samoa and the Tokelaus: Niue; Tonga, and the New Hebrides. He has also visited Wallis and Futuna twice, and even Tin Can Island (Nlua Fo’ou) which is now being resettled by Tongans, who are producing a lot of copra from the devastated volcanic Island.
Father Lemay Is at present working his way up through the New Hebrides and South Solomons to Bougainville. At the end of this year he will finish his job as travelling caretaker, and hopes to return to Bougainville to assist Bishop Wade in
the Northern Solomons.-