Sister
Lucille Durocher (formerly C.S.J.) founded St. Joseph’s
Workers for Life and Family in 1993, in Ottawa. Before beginning
St. Joseph’s Workers, she had a long history of serving
the pro-life/family movement, the Church, and Our Lord.
In
1948, at the age of 22, Lucille Durocher entered the Sisters
of St. Joseph’s in Pembroke, Ontario. Through the
years she studied music. Following her final vows, Sister
Lucille taught music for 24 years, with many of her students
going on to the Royal Conservatory of Music.
In 1972, Sister Lucille became aware of
the serious drug problems among the youth. She left her
teaching of music and became the Pastoral Animator for a
Catholic high school in the Montreal area. There she began
to deal with the drug problems that affected some of the
students. By encouraging the students to be active in the
community, Sister Lucille and her students made regular
weekend visits to the elderly and sick.
It was in 1984, Sister Lucille began to
have trouble with her role as Pastoral Animator. She was
disturbed by the liberal attitude in her Catholic high school
to pre-marital sex, in which the school nurse was promoting
and supplying contraceptives and counseling girls for abortions.
Sister decided to invite Father Paul Marx of Human Life
International, to speak to the students on chastity.
Fr. Marx spoke to the students and showed
a video on the evils of abortion. The principal of the Catholic
high school became so angry at Sister Lucille, (even though
he gave her permission to invite Fr. Marx) that he forbade
her to speak out against abortion ever again to the students
in his school.
Unwilling
to compromise on matters of principle, she resigned her
position as Pastoral Animator from the school board and
began her pro-life missionary work. With the help of Fr.
Marx, Sister Lucille founded Human Life International Canada.
For the next eight years, as Human Life International Canada’s
President, she published newsletters, gave lectures and
ran conferences throughout Canada.
In 1993, Sister Lucille stepped down as
President of Human Life International Canada, to begin two
new organizations. The first was St. Joseph’s Workers
for Life and Family, an organization to support and promote
life and family issues. The other organization, was to be
a religious order, and was to be called St. Joseph’s
Religious for Life. At the same time, she had decided to
leave the Sisters of St. Joseph’s, and proclaim her
new vows of chastity with Bishop Torres of Puerto Rico.
During her time at St. Joseph’s
Workers for Life and Family, she oversaw the successful
conference “The Family - A Gift to Society”
in 1994 here in Ottawa. In 1998 during the annual March
for Life, she organized on the front lawns of Parliament
Hill here in Ottawa, the Precious Life Quilts campaign.
Hundreds of quilts displayed on the lawns, with each square
representing a baby killed by abortion in Canada. It drew
much attention to the terrible situation of abortion in
Canada.
On September 22, 2003, Lucille Durocher
passed away after a long period of illness. She was laid
to rest among the Sisters of Our Lady Immaculate grave site
in Cambridge, Ontario.
