In 1964, the parish sold their Faillon street property to the Montreal Chinese Hospital. For the next 14 months, the parish functioned in temporary quarters, with Sunday mass celebrated in the school hall.
By then, the Second Vatican Council was in full swing and so were the discussions on designing the church interior. The Vatican hadn’t yet issued the norms for constructing new churches, but Fr. Baxter anticipated some of the changes that would be made, such as no Communion rail. When the curate proposed that suggestion among others to his pastor, Fr. Sutton “may have had some reservations, but he always permitted it,” Fr. Baxter recalled with a fond, appreciative smile.
The ground-breaking ceremony took place in October 1964, and the completed church was blessed by Cardinal Léger on Aug. 29, 1965.
The church had a full basement with a durable terrazzo floor. It was an ideal setting for Fr. Baxter to inaugurate a regular sports program in tandem with parish activities.
The parish boys would play floor hockey on Friday nights, but “the deal was, we play sports together and then come and serve mass together,” he underlined. And they showed up en masse for the 10:30 a.m. Sunday mass, sometimes numbering nearly 100. Combined with the well-established Men and Boys Choir, Sunday liturgies at Holy Family were on par with basilica standards.
The estimated cost of building the church, according to the 1961 plans, was $400,000. But Cardinal Léger had flatly refused, setting the ceiling for construction at $300,000. Once again, “downtown” – as the Chancery was known – was right in scaling back the project. No sooner had the church been built than all the winning factors took a downturn.