For Romeo Roy Blanchette, the date Sept. 5, 1937, marked what would be the most joyous homecoming of his young life.

On that Sunday, at the old stone parish church in the tiny Kankakee County village of St. George, he would celebrate his first Mass as a priest of the Catholic Church. The 24-year-old Blanchette had been ordained the preceding day at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Ill., one of a class of 37 new priests joining the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Filling the St. George Church for the 11 a.m. Mass were fellow priests, nuns, friends, neighbors and Blanchette relatives. After the Mass, a dinner was held in the parish hall for the immediate family and intimate friends of the young priest, while a public reception was held in the evening at the home of his parents.

Romeo Roy Blanchette was born Jan. 6, 1913, at the family’s farm home near St. George, the third of five children of Oscar and Josephine (Langlois) Blanchette. He had two older brothers, Francis and Achille, and two younger sisters, Rita and Anita. The Blanchette children attended the St. George Parish grammar school, located next to the church. Romeo graduated from eighth grade in 1927; then enrolled as a high school student at Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago.

Following his 1931 graduation from Quigley, he continued along his path to priesthood at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in north-suburban Mundelein. After completing his studies at St. Mary’s and his ordination, Father Blanchette embarked upon a two-year course of study at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. There, he earned a bachelor of canon law degree.

<strong>START OF A CAREER</strong>

After returning to the United States, he was appointed in 1940 as an assistant at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. It was Father Blanchette’s first post in what would become a nearly 40-year career in church administration, first in the Archdiocese of Chicago, then in a newly formed diocese at Joliet.

The Joliet Diocese, created on Dec. 11, 1948, by Pope Pius XII, was established in response to the huge population growth of suburban counties west and south of Chicago following World War II. Making up the new diocese were seven counties: DuPage, Will, Kankakee, and Grundy from the Chicago Archdiocese; Ford and Iroquois from the Peoria Diocese, and Kendall from the Rockford Diocese.

The Pope appointed Martin D. McNamara, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Wilmette, as the first bishop of the Joliet Diocese. Bishop McNamara would be the spiritual leader of 90,544 Catholics; they formed one-fourth of all the residents in the seven counties. Today, the total population of the diocese is nearly 2 million; the Catholic population is more than 520,000.

Bishop McNamara selected Father Blanchette for the important task of organizing and administering the Chancery Office of the Diocese of Joliet. The chancery office is the administrative headquarters, responsible for all the written documents used in the official governing of the diocese. In 1950, he was named Vicar General, whose responsibilities involve assisting the bishop in the administration and pastoral care of the diocese. In the absence of the bishop, the Vicar General represents and acts in his place.

On Feb. 8, 1965, Pope Paul VI appointed Father Romeo Blanchette as an auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Church; on April 3, he was formally consecrated as the first auxiliary bishop of the Joliet Diocese. As an auxiliary bishop, he assisted Bishop McNamara in administrative and pastoral tasks — an important responsibility, since the elder bishop was in poor health.

<strong>THE NEXT BISHOP</strong>

When Bishop McNamara died on May 23, 1966, Bishop Blanchette was named to serve as administrator until the Pope selected a new leader for the Joliet Diocese. Only two months passed before Romeo Roy Blanchette learned, on July 27, 1966, that he would become the second bishop of the Joliet Diocese.

“We are very happy at the appointment,” Blanchette’s youngest sister, Anita, told the Kankakee Daily Journal. “We weren’t expecting it, but we were hoping he would be the new bishop.”

The newspaper also quoted the newly appointed leader of the diocese: “It is with joy and gladness, together with a sense of humility, that I have accepted my nomination to the office of Bishop of the Diocese of Joliet,” he said. “I am very happy to be able to stay in this area, in which I labored for over 17 years, since the very beginning of this diocese.”

Bishop Blanchette was formally installed the afternoon of Aug. 31, 1966, in ceremonies at St. Raymond Nonnatus Cathedral in Joliet. The installation was held on the feast day of the cathedral’s patron saint, a 13th Century Spanish monk. The new diocesan leader was joined by 13 additional Catholic clergymen in a concelebrated Mass.

Among the celebrants were Archbishop John Cody of the Chicago Archdiocese and the bishops of the Rockford, Peoria, Springfield and Belleville dioceses. Blanchette’s father, Oscar, participated in the ceremonies as a bearer of offertory gifts.

After nearly 13 years as Bishop of the Joliet Diocese, Romeo Blanchette resigned his position when he was diagnosed in January 1979, with an incurable nerve disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Also known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease,” ALS affects the body’s motor nerves, leading to complete paralysis and finally, death.

“I am spending my days preparing for a long journey,” he told a Daily Journal reporter. “I am packing my bags, my spiritual bags, and I am packing my material bags.”

In October 1979, he received a telephone call from Pope John Paul II, who was visiting Chicago. The newspaper noted that, “Prior to that telephone call, Bishop Blanchette had lost most of the use of his voice. But in talking to the Pope, his voice returned, and he spoke in English, French, and Italian.”

On Jan. 10, 1982, Romeo Roy Blanchette — the St. George farm boy who became a Catholic Bishop — died at the age of 69. His body would lie in state at the Joliet cathedral prior to a funeral Mass on Thursday, Jan. 14. Presiding at the funeral Mass was Blanchette’s successor, Joseph Imesch, who became the third bishop of the Joliet Diocese on Aug. 28, 1979.

The village of St. George was also known to its French-Canadian settlers by another name. What was it?

<strong>Answer:</strong> Les Petit Isles (“the little islands”). It gained that name because of the low ground adjoining Exline Creek, which often flooded after heavy rains. As the flood waters slowly receded, high spots of ground emerged, looking like small islands. One of those “islands” became the site where the first St. George Church was built in 1848.