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In 1969, diocesan chairmen from across Canada met in Pittsburgh, PA in conjunction with the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions. Prior to that time, there had been unofficial gatherings, with the Canadian network usually meeting one evening for their own needs. By 1969, London, Halifax, Sault Ste. Marie, Winnipeg, Montreal, Edmonton and Regina had excellent and active diocesan commissions.

After the establishment of the National Liturgical Office in 1969, it became clear that there were four natural divisions in the liturgical work: Western Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic area. The most suitable solution was to start three regional Anglophone sectors, and let local needs be the principal subject matter. Hence, the Western Liturgical Conference was formed in 1971. The purpose of the Conference was to promote and facilitate exchanges between its members, assume tasks requested by the Western Catholic Conference, be aware of the liturgical needs of the Church in Western Canada and communicate with other Liturgical offices. The group held bi-annual meetings until 1973, since then they have been held annually. The membership of the conference is three-fold: Diocesan Representatives, Members at Large, and Associate Members. The Diocesan Representatives are appointed by the Bishop and have voting power. Members at large are appointed based on their expertise for three years, but do not have voting rights. Associate Members are all other groups, persons, or businesses interested in liturgy, who are also not voting members.

Albert Lafreniere, OMI and Martin Brodner, OSB were the first leaders in the West, and Edmonton was the central meeting point, since it had ready access to the northern areas. There were several meetings held with the catechists and social action leaders, though the ideal of a common front never really caught fire.

The Atlantic region conducted liturgical study days every two years and drew crowds of heroic proportions. Since these “days” were held at different centers, the local or regional organizers had the experience of planning and conducting educational activities on a grand scale, and the result was positive in every way.

The Ontario region, led by London (Msgr. John O’Donnell) and Sault Ste. Marie (Fr. Jim Hutton) met annually in Toronto. Its several publications dealing with penance, death and funerals, and music, were of use to Canadians everywhere.

Three bishops oversaw the liturgy at this time: Michael C. O’Neill in the West, James Hayes in the Atlantic area, and Emmett Carter in Ontario. George Cardinal Flahiff in Winnipeg was a constant help, a person of vision and the soul of kindness.

All three areas eventually developed a strong scholastic arm: St. Paul’s University in Ottawa started a summer diploma program, followed shortly by Newman Theological College in Edmonton and the Atlantic School of Theology.

The Summer School in Liturgical Studies at Newman Theological College commenced in July 1971. The courses were based in theology and catechetics and had two routes: a thematic approach with each discipline responsible for one week out of the four, and a Graduate stream which offered two academic courses from the Newman Theology program. The Summer School offered courses until 2008. Due to decreased enrollment it was cancelled and did not continue in the summer of 2009.

The regional conference came up against the hard facts of Canadian ecclesiastical life: the problems of distance, language, clergy resignation, episcopal laissez-faire, and Roman mysteries. But the work kept going, never in a sensational way, but it kept going, nonetheless. Liturgy is hard work, and over the twenty-five years since their inception, the regions have contributed to the refinement of Vatican II ideals for the local church.

On January 28, 1946 a decree from the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments was issued to established provincial tribunals in Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Regina and Vancouver. The Vicariates of Edmonton were served by the newly erected Provincial Tribunal of Vancouver.

Prior to the establishment of the Regional Tribunals the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Edmonton was responsible for overseeing any paper work related to the declaration of nullity of marriages.

On January 7, 1956 a decree established the ecclesiastical tribunals for the Province of Edmonton. The Alberta Regional Tribunal was thus established to serve the diocese of the civil provinces of Alberta and the Northwest Territories which includes the Archdiocese of Edmonton, the Diocese of Calgary, the Diocese of St. Paul, the Archdiocese of Grouard-McLennan, the Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, and the Ukrainain Eparchy of Edmonton (under whose jurisdiction fall all the Ukrainian Catholics of Alberta).

The Archbishop of Edmonton, Most Rev. John MacDonald, was the first moderator of the new tribunal. Msgr. Donahoe was appointed as the first Officialis. He served in this capacity until 1963 when Rev. O'Reilly became the second Officialis.

On June 1, 1973 Sr. Marion Murray became the first woman canonist to join the staff of the Alberta Regional Tribunal.

A branch of the Tribunal was established in the Diocese of Calgary in 1979.

Since 1984 the Tribunal of Second Instance (also called the Canadian Appeal Tribunal) for all of Canada has been located in Ottawa.

On March 25, 1974 in a letter from Sister Yvette Herbert, SASV to Archbishop MacNeil a request was made to establish "some sort of Archdiocesan Council (or Senate) of Women Religious." Shortly after the Sisters' Council was formed.

The mission of the council was to become a representative body of institutions of women religious in the Archdiocese of Edmonton who would accept the responsibility of collaborating with the Archbishop in the mission of the Church through the discernment of, and supportive response to the resources, needs, concerns, hopes and visions of the People of God.

In 1983 a proposal was given to the Sisters' Council that a "Council of Women Religious" be formed. The council would act as a consultative body to the Archbishop with regard to matters pertaining to the Archdiocese, develop an awareness of the growing needs and challenges in the Archdiocese, respond to these by communicating and collaborating with the Archbishop, the clergy, and the greater Christian Community, to become more involved in the life od the Archdiocese, serving in an advisory capacity, working with the Archbishop and official groups to determine priorities in apostolic works and making such information available to the religious communities, and to enhance the sprit of mission as it applies to the specific areas in which the Sisters are involved.

The Council of Women Religious consisted of an administrative board comprised by an executive committee and deanery representatives. The officers of the Executive Committee are the chairman, vice-chairman, secretary and treasurer. Officers of the executive are elected by members of the council at the annual general assembly and served for a term of two years.

A General Regular Assembly was held once a year in the spring (often referred to as the Spring Assembly).

In 2007 the Council of Women Religious began discussing broadening its members to include consecrated women. On January 7, 2008 the constitution of the Council of Women Religious was amended to allow all women of different forms of consecrated life to become members of the newly re-named Council of Consecrated Women.

Despite the three name changes the council's work has remained virtually the same, to act as the voice for consecrated women in the Archdiocese of Edmonton.

On January 29, 1961 St. Angela Merici parish was officially established. Architect Eugene Olesksky was selected by the Building Committee to design the church and many men from the parish helped with construction.

A few months later on July 25, 1961 Co-adjutor-Archbishop Anthony Jordan, OMI, blessed the corner stone and construction continued. The building was eventually finished in October of 1961. Co-adjutor-Archbishop Jordan blessed and dedicated the new church on October 29, 1961. Prior to the blessing of the new church mass was held at St. Angela's School.

The first parish priest was Rev. Edmund McGrane who served the parish until 1970. Since there was no rectory in 1961 Rev. McGrane lived in the annex between the hall and Church.

Shortly after the parish was established both a Men's Club and a Women's Club were formed. These two groups helped raise funds to pay for the construction of the church as well as for other parish activities.

In August, 1961, the parish purchased the house at 13343-132nd Street. This house was to be the convent for three sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion. The sisters moved into their new home on Aug. 26th.

In 1967 the hall and rectory were built.

On May 14, 1976 the parish celebrated the final payment of their mortgage by celebrating the 25th anniversary to the priesthood of Rev. Leslie Scrive (who had been appointed pastor at St. Angela in 1971) by burning the mortgage.

In 2010 Rev. Patrick Baska was appointed parish priest of St. Angela Merici and assigned the task of preparing the parish for closure, three years later on June 30, 2013 the parish celebrated its final mass and was merged with St. Edmund Parish.

There were three major reasons for the establishment of Newman Theological College (NTC), the termination of the philosophy program at St. Joseph Seminary (SJS) in the mid-1960s, the interest of women and men religious in having a centre for theological education in Western Canada, and the desire of Archbishop Anthony Jordan, who was profoundly influenced by his time at the Second Vatican Council, to have a theological college open to lay people.

Shortly after the closure of Vatican II, Archbishop Jordan invited two Franciscan Priests to join the St. Joseph Seminary Faculty. Franciscan students, a few women religious and one lay person began studying theology and formed the first informal class. The following year, with the help of Rev. Camille Dozois and Judge Cormack, the existing Faculty of Theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary was transformed into Newman Theological College and officially established by an Act of the Alberta Legislature in 1969.

In 1970, Archbishop Jordan invited the Sisters of Charity of St. Louise to come to Newman and make D wing their formation centre. They would not only contribute professors and large numbers of students to the college, but also made several important financial donations.

For the first four years of the College the office of President of NTC and Rector of St. Joseph Seminary were joined, however in 1973 these functions were formally separated. As the years progressed, an institutional structure emerged with the President as the head of the institution with various boards, councils and committees charged with overseeing specific aspects of the college.

With the goal of educating the laity always in mind, NTC sought to legitimize itself in the eyes of both the public and the academic community during its first twenty years and began pursuing accreditation from the Association of Theological Schools, which was obtained in 1992. Since 1972 NTC has offered theology programs especially designed for teachers and has a working relationship with Catholic School Boards across Western Canada.

In 1994, Newman Theological College celebrated its 25th anniversary.

In 2007, the land shared by Newman Theological College and St. Joseph Seminary in St. Albert was purchased by the Province of Alberta to facilitate the construction of the Anthony Henday Drive. NTC and SJS then moved to its current location, on the land of the Pastoral and Administrative Offices of The Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton.

For more information, Newman Theological College maintains a comprehensive website that outlines the history and goals of the college, as well as information on accreditation and educational effectiveness that can be found at: http://www.newman.edu/

In order to facilitate communication and management of the many parishes within its boundaries, The Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton has used various models to group the geographical area of the Archdiocese into smaller regions.
In the late 1990s regional councils were established to function as an intermediary organization in the Archdiocese and were involved, on a regional basis, in decision making, coordination of services and activities, and to facilitate communication among parishes and between parishes and the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council. Each regional council was encouraged to establish its own procedures; however it was strongly encouraged that they meet at least four times a year. Members of the Conseil Regional de Pastoral Francophone d'Edmonton included St. Joachim Parish, St. Anne Parish, Immaculate Conception Parish, and St. Thomas D'Aquine Parish.

As described in Article 16, (1), Motu Proprio of Pope Paul VI issued on August 6, 1966, "the purpose and objectives of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council are to investigate everything pertaining to pastoral activities, to weigh them carefully and to set forth practical conclusions concerning them so as to promote conformity of the life and actions of the people of god within the Gospel."

In 1968 when Archbishop Jordan called for the establishment of a Diocesan Pastoral Council its aims were to "provide a unified representation of all the People of God, in justice and charity, for the effective discharge of their particular responsibilities in the total mission of the Church; to provide a representative form for the full and free discussion of all matters of pastoral concern in the diocese; to assist the Bishop in his role as shepherd through consultation and cooperation as coworkers in the mission of making Christ presents in the world; to seek and propose ways and means for the effective implementation of solutions to the problem concerning the Christian community by consulting specially qualified persons whose competency in a particular area will provide insights which may contribute to the good of the diocese; and to arrive at a true consensus in through and in action among all the People of God by serving as a free and open channel of communication at all levels.

The Diocesan Council's primary function is to advise the Bishop, and have no legal status in the church. The Bishop (or Archbishop) remains the final authority and continues to have the power to make decisions by himself.

On January 25, 1969 Archbishop Jordan issued the following decree "In accordance with the directives of Vatican II, there shall be and there is hereby declared to be a Pastoral Council in the Archdiocese of Edmonton to be knows as the Pastoral Council for the Archdiocese of Edmonton, hereafter referred to as the Council." Initially members of the Steering Committee were appointed to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council until a new council was appointed. In the early years the Council consisted of the Archbishop, the Executive Director (a priest), 3 priests (1 member of a religious order and 2 diocesan priests), 2 sisters, 1 brother, and 9 lay men and 9 lay women (3 men and 3 women over 18 and under 25, 3 men and 3 women over 25 and under 40, and 3 men and 3 women over 40). Meetings were held quarterly. Initially there were four committees: Constitutional Committee, Membership Committee, Agenda Committee, and a Publication Committee.

The Constitutional Committee's purpose was to recommend revisions to the constitution as necessary and was comprised of three members. The Membership Committee's purpose was to recommend the most democratic method of selecting the membership of the council and consisted of three members. The Agenda Committee's purpose was to report to the council all proposals received by it and to recommend the agenda for each meeting. The Publicity Committee's purpose was to recommend to the council the means whereby the council and its actions might be most effectively publicized.

In the 1980s Regional Pastoral Councils (RPCs) were established as an intermediary body between the Deaneries and the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council (APC). The Regional Pastoral Councils were as follows, Edmonton Central, Edmonton South (eventually divided in Southeast and Southwest), Edmonton Northeast, Edmonton Northwest, Edmonton Ring, Red Deer, Vegreville, Battle River, Blackgold, Camrose, Drayton Valley/Evansburg/Maryerthorp, Foothills, Fort Saskatchewan, Killiam/Daysland/Heisler, Lakeland, Lloydminster/Vermilion, Most Holy Trinity (Spruce Grove/Stony Plain), Olds/Trochu, Our Lady of Victory, Provost/Wainwright, RDIL, St. Albert, Sturgeon, Yellowhead, and Francophone.

In the early 2000s the Regional Pastoral system was discontinued as priests and lay people found they were being called to server on too many committees (Parish Pastoral Councils, Regional Pastoral Councils, Archdiocesan Pastoral Councils, Deaneries, etc.).

By the 1990s the focus of the APC was to assist in developing a pastoral vision for the church in the archdiocese of Edmonton, to help ensure the future of the church, to hold biennial APC Assembly, and to develop a set of guidelines governing the APC. An official name change took place in the 1990s and the Diocesan Pastoral Council became officially known as the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council which more actually reflected the structure and organization of the Archdiocese of Edmonton.

The Western Catholic Reporter (WCR) was founded in 1965 by Archbishop Anthony Jordan who wanted to replace the 40+ year old weekly Western Catholic with a newspaper that reflected the teaching and spirit of the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Jordan named an editor, Douglas Roche, a Canadian journalist who at that time was serving on the staff of Sign magazine in New York and had reported on Vatican II.

Roche recruited other staff and the first issue of the new weekly newspaper was published in September 1965. The archbishop also appointed a board of advisors which later became a board of directors for the newspaper. It was established as a separate corporation from the archdiocese with the archbishop holding the vast majority of the shares.
Roche served until 1972 when he was elected to the House of Commons. In the meantime, he had hired Frank Dolphin, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-TV reporter as associated editor, and Stuart Lindop as business manager of the newspaper. With Roche’s departure, Victor Misutka became the editor and Elmar Abele the general manager. Misutka was editor until returning to The Edmonton Journal in 1979.

Abele researched and established a parish assessment program in 1973 which put the newspaper on sounder financial footing and made the WCR accessible to Catholics across the archdiocese. The assessment program continued until 2003 when it was cancelled and the newspaper was again distributed by paid circulation. The paper began publishing biweekly at the beginning of 2014 with a vastly reduced circulation. Abele retired as general manager in 1988 and was replaced by Hugh McCarthy who served until 1990.

John Rasmussen became editor after Misutka left and remained in the post until April 1981. Glen Argan became his successor, serving until 1985. Other editors over the next few years were Shirley Pfister (1985-87); Frank Dolphin (1987-88); Marjorie Bentley (1989). Because of internal strife at the WCR and the rapid turnover of editors, a consultant was hired after Bentley’s departure to examine the paper’s structure. The consultant’s key recommendation was to unite the positions of editor and general manager.

The first editor-general manager was Rod Stafford-Mayer who served only a few months before being replaced by Glen Argan in January 1991. Argan served as editor until the paper’s closure in September 2016, although he lost the position of general manager in 2013 when the corporation which ran the WCR – Great Western Press Inc. – was folded into the archdiocese, and the board of directors dissolved. The WCR then became part of the archdiocesan Department of Communications.

Staff were informed of the closure of the newspaper on September 12, 2016, and a public announcement was made later that day. The six staff at the paper were laid off, while two others remained on maternity leave. The final edition of the Western Catholic Reporter was dated September 26, 2016.

St. Albert Parish was founded as a mission in 1861 by Fr. Albert Lacombe, Oblate priest and missionary and Bishop Alexandre-Antonin Taché of St. Boniface. Father Lacombe, along with the Métis community, built a wooden chapel that still stands to this day.

In 1865, Fathers Tissot and André took over the Mission when Father Lacombe left to found the St. Paul des Cris Mission. In 1868, Father Hippolyte Leduc took sole charge of the Mission. Shortly after, he received a message from Bishop Grandin, Coadjutor Bishop of St. Boniface, saying that St. Albert would be latter’s new residence. A home was quickly erected for the Bishop, in the new Vicariate Apostolic of St. Albert. By 1869, the announcement was made that St. Albert was to become a bishopric. A cathedral was built, and in 1871, St. Albert became the Episcopal See of the new Diocese of St. Albert.

On Nov. 30, 1912, the Diocese of St. Albert was raised to the status of Archdiocese of Edmonton and the Cathedral became St. Albert Parish and was eventually finished in the early 1920s.