Wilfrid Emmett Doyle

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Styles of Wilfrid Emmett Doyle


Reference style	The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Monsignor
Posthumous style	none

Wilfrid Emmett Doyle (February 18, 1913—September 14, 2003) was a Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Nelson from 1958 to 1989.

[edit] Biography

Wilfrid Doyle was born Calgary, Alberta, as one of twleve children; his ancestors had immigrated to Canada from County Wexford in Ireland. He attended Sacred Heart School and St. Joseph's High School in Edmonton, and the University of Alberta, from where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1935. He also studied theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in Edmonton. Doyle was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop John MacDonald on June 5, 1938, and continued his studies at St. Paul's University Seminary in Ottawa, earning his doctorate in canon law in 1949. He later became chancellor of the Archdiocese of Edmonton.

On November 9, 1958, Doyle was appointed the third Bishop of Nelson, British Columbia, by Pope John XXIII. Doyle received his episcopal consecration on the following December 3 from Archbishop Giovanni Panico, with Archbishop Michael O'Neill and Bishop Francis Allen serving as co-consecrators.

A leading figure in Canadian catechetics, he taught the Come to the Father catechetical series and was named head of the Canadian Bishops' Office for Religious Education when the series was expanded; he later stated, "My spiritual life began when I started teaching the Come to the Father series". Doyle also served as national director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (1962-1986), President of the then Office for Religious Education (1966-1970), director of the National Office of Religious Education (1966-1967), and Chairman of the Episcopal Commission for Religious Education (1966-1969).

He attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. In 1976, he appointed Sr. Katherine Meagher as the chancellor of his diocese, making her the first woman to hold that post in Canada^[1].

He later retired as Bishop on November 6, 1989, after nearly thirty-one years of service. Doyle then did work in the Diocese of Kamloops before moving in 2001 to St. Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer in Kelowna, which he had established during his tenure as Bishop and where he and others were later forced to evacuate when forest fires threatened to consume the residence.

Doyle died in his sleep in Kelowna, at age 90. He is buried in Nelson.