Fr. Sutton knew the community from its earliest days, having served as a curate at various times under four of the five pastors who preceded him. He was known to reassure concerned parishioners who moved out of the parish that they had not ceased to be Holy Family parishioners, rather the parish boundaries have simply expanded, recalled Lois McCaffery, whose family had moved to Rosemont.
Little did Fr. Sutton realize that his affirming invitation would become a pillar of Holy Family’s century-long existence.
In his memoirs, Bishop Carter recalled proposing Fr. Sutton, one of his curates, as his successor to Cardinal Léger, explaining: “Your Eminence, I was the head of Holy Family but Father Sutton was the heart. I may have directed the parish, but he was the one who was beloved by the parishioners in a special way.”
The transition was seamless. Fr. Sutton moved immediately to obtain diocesan permission to build the long-anticipated parish church.
Within nine months of his pastorate, the Fabrique had received diocesan approval to build – not an upper church but a new church. Rather than erect a superstructure over the basement church, they decided to relocate both as a cost-saving measure and a practical adaptation. The upper church, for example, had been designed to accommodate 800 people; the parish now needed only half that seating capacity.
Eighteen months later, on Sept. 29, 1960 the archbishop approved the purchase of a commercial property directly across from Holy Family School as the site for the new church as well as a loan of $40,000 for the down payment.
Although Fr. Sutton is lauded for building the church, his most endearing qualities were etched into his pastoral demeanour.
“The rectory was not treated as a private, unapproachable office, but rather as a home with an open door,” Fr. Baxter, his former curate, recalled. “To Father Sutton, Christ was present in every visitor, and no one was ever turned away or treated as an outsider.”
“His ministry was defined by a profound simplicity: if it helped people connect with God, he was for it,” his young curate not only observed but made it a hallmark of his own priestly ministry.