Roman Catholics on the Island had double cause for celebration last weekend when they commemorated 50 years of service from a worldwide order of priests based in Canada, and a new book about the history of the church in Bermuda.

For the past 50 years, the Waterloo, Ontario, province of the Congregation of the Resurrection has provided the Island with priests. And last Sunday at St. Theresa's Cathedral in Hamilton, representatives from the order from around the world gathered to celebrate the anniversary.

The previous night, Resurrectionist priest Fr. James Wahl, who served in Bermuda from 1978 to 1981, launched his history of the Catholic Church on the Island entitled 'Planting the Banner of Christ on the Isle of the Devils'.

The book picks up on Fr. John McCarthy's 'Bermuda's Priests', which was published in 1954, and takes the story up to the death of Bishop Brian L. Hennessy in 1997. At the mass on Sunday, Catholics from all the Island's parishes joined together to celebrate the 50 years of service from the Congregation of the Resurrection. The order's Econom General, the Very Rev. Terrance McGuire, based in Rome, was joined by representatives from Ontario, Krakow, Poland, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Chicago, Boston and Gdansk, Poland. The church is hoping Deacon Joseph Morley will become the Island's first Bermudian priest since Fr. Glen Baptiste.

A cheque for $23,000 (Canadian) was presented to Dr. Michael Higgins, the President of St. Jerome's University in Waterloo - which was founded by the Resurrectionists - for a Bermudian student to attend the university. Bishop of Bermuda Robert Kurtz said: "It was a wonderful and joyous event for our local church and our religious congregation. It was a very religious and uplifting occasion and something occurred that day that was greater than anyone could have planned for."