Our parish

The founding Catholic parish of Fredericton — first cathedral of New Brunswick.

Founded in 1827, St. Dunstan's Church serves the community of Fredericton, New Brunswick. It is part of Diocese of Saint John · St. Mary Magdalene Parish.

St. Dunstan's is today the principal church of St. Mary Magdalene Parish, a united parish that also includes St. Columba at Fredericton Junction and Sts. John and Paul at New Maryland. Pastor: Rev. Peter Osborne; Bishop of Saint John: Most Rev. Christian Riesbeck, C.C. Parish mail is sent to PO Box 187, Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 4Y9. A resident priest has served here ever since Fr. Michael McSweeney arrived in 1827, and the church built under Bishop William Dollard in the decade after 1840 was the first Roman Catholic cathedral in New Brunswick — Dollard was consecrated in it on 11 June 1843. When the Great Fire of 11 November 1850 consumed more than three hundred buildings in Fredericton, St. Dunstan's remained among the few churches left standing; parishioners are said to have held the roof against the embers with their own bodies. The present church, with its ninety-two foot tower, was consecrated on 15 August 1965. This parish sustained the French-speaking Catholics of Fredericton for sixteen years — French Mass twice a month from 1965, then a curate of St. Dunstan's assigned to them from 1978 — until Sainte-Anne-des-Pays-Bas was erected as a parish in its own right on 2 September 1981.

This page presents the parish. For the full history, biographies of the priests and the history of the church, visit the parish's official site: stmarymagdaleneparish.ca