Newfoundland Boy
Newfoundland Boy is about the Canadian province of Newfoundland. There's a new episode every Saturday, available (usually with transcript) wherever you get podcasts. || Logo art: Untitled painting by Wayne Jones || Music by Andrii Poradovskyi, INPLUSMUSIC, via Pixabay || © 2026 by Wayne Jones
Newfoundland Boy
Feeding the Hungry, Tending to the Dead
SHOW NOTES
Caring for the living and the dead in Flatrock, Newfoundland
| Sources |
– Government of Canada, Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, CCCA Records, “Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John,” modified May 24, 2022, https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-superintendent-bankruptcy/en/ccaa-records-list/ccaa-records-roman-catholic-episcopal-corporation-st-john–
– Ify Chiwetelu and Trevor Dineen, “This N.L. Town Could Have Lost Its Cemetery Forever. Now, It’s the Heart of the Community,” Now or Never, CBC Radio, December 15, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-150-now-or-never/clip/16187739-this-n.l.-town-lost-its-cemetery-forever.-now–
– Jessica Singer, “This N.L. Town Could Have Lost Its Cemetery Forever. Now, It’s the Heart of the Community,” CBC News, December 15, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/radio/nowornever/this-n-l-town-could-have-lost-its-cemetery-forever-now-it-s-the-heart-of-the-community-9.7013757
Hi, I’m Wayne Jones. Welcome to Newfoundland Boy, a podcast about the Canadian province of Newfoundland. This is episode 59: Feeding the Hungry, Tending to the Dead.
I read a news story earlier this week about the town of Flatrock, located on the northeast of the Avalon Peninsula, only about 20 km north of where I live, in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It’s one of the many towns and cities on the Avalon and Burin peninsulas where the Catholic churches, parish halls, rectories, cemeteries, and other properties and land are owned by the Archdiocese of St. John’s. With exception of the cemeteries, these are the “assets” that have almost all now been sold so that money can be raised to pay for the legal judgment which awarded about $120 million to the victims of the sexual abuse scandal at the Mount Cashel Orphanage—boys only, by the way—run by a so-called “congregation” within the Catholic Church called the Christian Brothers.
The Town of Flatrock bought both the church and the cemetery early on. Flatrock is a small town with a population of less than 2,000 people and the vast majority are Roman Catholics. There are three Catholic sites in the town that are owned and managed differently. The Town itself owns and manages the church (St. Michael’s). It no longer functions as an active church. The reason mostly is that the congregation and the Town don’t have the money to keep the church running, and in any case attendance at the church and the population of the town are both declining. It’s currently being rented to the Northeast Avalon Food Bank. Flatrock residents who attend Mass do so in nearby communities such as Torbay and Pouch Cove. The Town also owns the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto next to the church, and so has taken on the general and financial responsibility for managing both the church and the grotto.
That news story I read focused on the cemetery, which has a different story behind it. It was originally purchased by the Town but is now officially owned by a non-profit organization, consisting of resident volunteers from both Flatrock and nearby Pouch Cove, called the Northeast Avalon Memorial Gardens. These residents put a lot of time, effort, and money into maintaining both cemeteries. A CBC reporter writes that the charity members
… dedicate much of their lives to restoring, reviving and developing what they describe as a crucial part of their community’s history and future … The group has trimmed tall trees and bushes to make room for parking and more gravestones, they’ve created a roadway so people can drive their cars directly up to the cemetery entrance, and they’ve built a large, red altar—the same colour as their former church—so they have a place to pray … Maintaining the cemetery requires manual labour and fundraising … Right now, the Flatrock cemetery committee is raising money to purchase and construct a columbarium, a costly structure designed to hold urns.
None of these are bad or useless activities, but as I read more about the activities of the volunteers, I was struck by what is to me a blatant irony. There’s a lot of time and money going to maintaining a garden where people are dead, while literally just nearby there is a food bank that’s trying to feed people who are at least for now still alive. Yes, I do understand the drive and the importance of maintaining cemeteries. Whenever I visit my hometown of Corner Brook, on the west coast of Newfoundland, I make a visit to see the grave of my maternal grandfather, whom I was very close to before he died in 1996.
But the situation in Flatrock is in my view an overbalance on the side of the dead. A cemetery can be maintained respectfully without the overwork of building an altar and going way beyond simply tending to the grass. Isn’t it more important to help the poor and hungry? Wouldn’t it be better to donate to the food bank rather than saving up for a thing to put urns in?
The other fact that seems to be forgotten is why the church and cemetery and grotto were for sale in the first place. Brothers and other clerics of the Roman Catholic Church which they have supported and believed in for generations sexually and physically abused not only young boys, but young boys who were orphans for fuck sake. And as it has done many times in many countries around the world, the administration of the Church did the best it could to cover things up, until the perpetrators were ultimately caught, and they and the Diocese were brought to justice. Christian Brothers went to prison. The Diocese was compelled by the court to pay compensation to the victims, money which it is hoped will help them with the trauma they have endured. Compared to that, a lost church building and an unkempt cemetery seem like very petty hardships.
The other thing that stands out for me from the story is the absence of any deep soul-searching on the part of the residents and volunteers. You’d think that before they started spending all that time in what they now call the garden, raising money to keep it pretty, even constructing a kind of mini version of the church in the middle of it—before that, they might have wondered about the Catholic organization and faith they are a part of. Should I continue to believe in this Church? Perhaps I should spend some of my time not on my knees in the garden or in the pew of a church in another town, but instead reflecting on the atrocious breach of trust and disdain for care that initiated this whole change?
Maybe some of them did. I don’t know of course. But I say to everyone in the town: yes, respect your deceased ancestors, but don’t forget the living people who have to rely on a food bank to feed themselves and their families.
And that’s all for this episode. You can find Newfoundland Boy wherever you get your podcasts, including on YouTube. Thanks for listening, and please join me again next Saturday.
