By Andrew Macdonald
MacPolitics: ‘Father Andy’: When A Catholic Priest could be an MP
In my chat and news article on Alfie MacLeod’s ambition to become a Cape Breton-Canso MP, MacLeod mentions the seat was once held in the 1970s by Father Andy Hogan, a Roman Catholic priest.
Hogan, who died in 2002, after a stroke long left him in a vegetable state, became the first Catholic priest to become an MP in Ottawa.
“He was the first Roman Catholic priest to be elected to the House of Commons of Canada. He was known more commonly by his informal name: Father Andy”, says his wiki bio.
“Born in Glace Bay, Rev. Hogan received a bachelor’s degree from St. Francis Xavier University (St. F.X.), where he became involved in the co-operative movement. St. F.X. was the home of theAntigonish Movement, started byFather Jimmy Tompkins and Rev. Dr. Moses Coady, that put theRochdale Principles of Co-operationinto action in theMaritimesby starting building co-ops, credit unions, co-op farms, etc..”, says his bio.
“Being in the heartland of the co-op movement deeply affected his political views, which eventually led him to the New Democratic Party”.
He studied theology at Holy Heart Seminary and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1949.
“As a member of the New Democratic Party, he was elected to the House of Commons from Cape Breton—East Richmond in the 1974 federal election. He was re-elected in 1979. Hogan was defeated in the 1980 federal election, losing to David Dingwall by 294 votes”, adds wiki.
“After the defeat, he never ran for public office again”.
He died in a Cole Harbour nursing home in 2002, age 78.
When he died, the Canadian Press ran an obit, with this headline: “Priest-MP championed workers”.
The 1980 vote that Hogan faced for the third time, was a nasty and bitter affair, as the ambitious David Dingwall forces orchestrated a whisper campaign that Hogan during that election was in a rehab house for an alcohol problem.
It’s true Hogan did not campaign for much of that election, and it is true he battled the bottle.
After he lost the 1980 vote, which saw Pierre Trudeau & Allan J. MacEachen defeat the nine-month old Tory Joe Clark government, Rome declared priests could no longer serve as politicians.
I met Hogan in the late 1970s, I was a little kid, and he came to my cottage in Antigonish, to visit my road building dad.
As I stood on the cottage deck, and Hogan on the lawn, he looked at me, pointed his finger, and told me: “Don’t let them call you Andy”, and so I am ‘Andrew’.
