Column from the Rochester paper about two elderly brother priests

Bernard, 84, and Tom, 78, both joined the Oblates Order of Mary Immaculate and became Roman Catholic priests — Bernard in 1948, Tom in 1955.

"I don’t know how, but even as a child, I wanted to go north," Bernard says. So he accepted an assignment to build a mission in Colville Lake, 35 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Canada’s Northwest Territory. When he arrived 57 years ago, "there was just one Catholic family," he says. "Today, there are 120 people" in the mission community known as Our Lady of the Snows.

In 1949, Tom hired on as a stevedore on a missionary supply ship to visit Bernard up north. It was not for him. "After seeing it, he gave his verdict," Bernard says. "Negative."

Tom did follow Bernard to ordination, but opted to work in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where he is pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians Parish — with 50,000 Catholics, more than the total population of the Northwest Territories.

How do you handle a parish of 50,000? I ask. "They handle me," he says with a grin.

Tom prefers the warm climate and the warmth of the Brazilian people. Bernard likes the quiet of the Arctic and the stoicism of the Eskimo people.

Bernard’s story is particularly interesting.