Father Joe LeClair, a beloved Ottawa priest, has died at the age of 68.
The Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall confirmed to the Ottawa Citizen that LeClair died on Oct. 8, remembering him as a “dedicated and compassionate man who had a strong sense of community…(and) known to be a very engaging homilist.”
A longtime priest known for turning a previously struggling Blessed Sacrament Parish in the Glebe into a vibrant religious community, LeClair made headlines after being convicted of stealing money from the coffers of his church.
In April 2011, an Ottawa Citizen story exposed LeClair’s gambling habits, large credit card debts, limited financial controls at Blessed Sacrament and the existence of an internal audit that raised questions about the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cheques issued to LeClair from church accounts between 2016 and 2010.
In January 2014, LeClair pleaded guilty to theft and fraud, and the court heard that he wrote cheques to himself from church accounts, overcharged for his personal expenses, dipped his hand into Sunday collections and redirected fees for marriage preparation courses to his own account.
Most of the money he took from the church went to repaying his gambling debts, the court heard at the time.
“I now better understand that my addictions to alcohol and gambling contributed to my thoughtless and irrational behaviour,” LeClair told court on the last day of his sentencing hearing in 2014. “At the time, I must confess, I did not ever really turn my mind to the gravity of my conduct.”
He was sentenced to a year in jail and released in January 2014. After his release, he spent time at a church in Moncton, before being moved to Guelph, Ont.
In 2018, LeClair returned to Ottawa and remained on call to fill in for priests to say mass, conduct funerals and visit the sick in local hospitals.
‘He had his demons and his challenges’
Even amid the controversy, many of LeClair’s devoted parishioners continued to show unwavering support for their beloved priest.
The Ottawa Citizen ran several letters to the editor as the story developed between 2011 and 2014, as many residents weighed in on LeClair’s proceedings and shared their personal encounters with the priest.
“I was taught to forgive and I have absolutely no problem in forgiving Father Joe LeClair as he is a good person who might have made some mistakes,” Manotick resident Linda Bekkers wrote to the Ottawa Citizen on July 10, 2012.
“While I do not dismiss in any way the seriousness of the crime committed, I think it needs repeating what an incredible human being this man is. He gave without hesitation to others — the church, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and others in need,” Gloucester resident Dave Carriere wrote on Jan. 22, 2014, in the wake of LeClair’s guilty plea.
While growing up in Manotick, Kevin Cahill remembers always looking forward to outdoor mass as a student at St. Mark High School, where LeClair was the parish priest in the late 1990s.
“It would have been so easy for students to skip and not go (to mass), and you would think that they would not go, but they would, and they would be captivated by his message, and I haven’t met many people like that since,” Cahill told the Ottawa Citizen .
Even as he learned of LeClair’s death almost 30 years later, Cahill could still remember some of the stories LeClair shared with the high school student body, which he said the P.E.I-born priest shared with a signature “East-Coast delivery.”
For Ottawa resident Randy Fitzpatrick, LeClair’s Sunday evening services at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral brought him back to the church.
“It was enlightening when he read the Scripture,” Fitzpatrick said. “He brought it to something that mattered today, whether it be a news story or a story of his life or a story of someone else in the neighbourhood, and the fact that he was able to bring everything back to something you could understand and appreciate, that’s what made him stand out.
“Everybody’s allowed to have a vice of some sort or another, whether they want to admit it or not, and he fell to his, and it was sad that it happened.”
And while many members of his Ottawa congregation lost touch with the priest after he stepped away from Blessed Sacrament, Cahill said a chance encounter along the river path in Guelph in 2014 brought the two of them back together. They met for coffee several times and reconnected.
“I know he had his demons and his challenges, but no matter his own personal struggles, he never let that interfere with his ability to love, to share, to inspire, and it’s unfortunate some of the things that did happen,” said Cahill, who now lives in Guelph with his family.
And just like his time in Ottawa, St. Joseph’s Parish in Guelph was always “bursting at the seams” during LeClair’s time as assistant pastor, Cahill said.
“There was just that unknown energy attraction that people just wanted to be there, and that’s rare for a Catholic Church in this millennium where churches are sitting half-empty and they’re closing,” he said.
After being released from jail, LeClair continued to battle addiction and in August 2016, he pleaded guilty to impaired driving after being stopped with more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system. He lost his license and was fined $1,000.
After returning to Ottawa in 2018, LeClair ended up back at St. Leonard Parish, where he was helping out with masses and pastoral care, according to the church’s website.
Funeral arrangements are still being made, according to the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall.
