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"Often people call me and need legal advice, not for canon law, but for civil law. When my friends call me, they always joke and say either, 'It is the priest I want to speak with,' or 'It is the lawyer I want to speak with.'" Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints while living in Rome from 1997 to 1999. He was living at the Eternal City's Canadian Pontifical College and taking the equivalent of a master's degree, along with 119 other people from around the world, in canon law — the legal code and principles of legal interpretation that guide the governance and operations of the Catholic Church. Jean-Claude Turcotte, cardinal and archbishop of Montreal and chancellor of the Montreal diocese, wanted him to combine his civil law training with canon law — both have their roots in Roman law, he notes, and get a taste of the world. "I had no obligation to take that course [at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints]. I did not know what to do with my after- noons and you see how it served me," says Boyer with a gleam, one of many as he describes both his legal and spiritual calling, along with another much earlier happenstance involving Brother André. As a boy, Boyer was a member of the Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, a boys' choir that performs at St. Joseph's Oratory, the Montreal landmark. The oratory grew out of a tiny, roofless cha- pel Brother André built in 1904 across from the Collège Notre-Dame, where the Petits Chanteurs, founded in 1956, study. Brother André was beatified in 1982 while Boyer was still singing with the choir. Beatification follows recogni- tion for one miracle since the candidate's death, but in order to achieve sainthood there must be a second miracle inves- tigated and certified after the beatifica- tion. "There is a very serious investiga- tion," says Boyer of the tribunal he oversaw. During a period of about two weeks it heard 15 witnesses and pro- duced a 1,400-page document that was then signed, sealed, and sent to the Vatican. During the proceedings, there was constant questioning by a so-called promoter of justice, originally known as the devil's advocate. "When there is a presumed miracle, a tribunal is constituted — officially it is called an inquiry on healing with intercession — and this tribunal receives doctors . . . who won't come to say if it is a miracle or not, but come to state that in the eyes of science, it is impossible to explain the healing. The second thing that must be ascertained is if someone prayed to the person (in this case Brother André). So people must come and state that they prayed to that person. "I can't give details because the fam- ily [of the boy hit by the car] asked for anonymity, but imagine the doctor says there is nothing more that can be done," recounts Boyer. "There are people in the family who decided to pray to Brother André and, inexplicably, in the space of 24 hours the child's situation began to improve. Today this person is an adult bursting with health." With the Montreal tribunal's report in hand, the lengthy process that followed at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints called for a medical commission in Rome to further examine the scien- tific impossibility of the cure, a theo- logical commission, and then consider- ation by its 15-member Commission of Cardinals. The final decision rests with the Pope. "It was a very touching experi- ence, very moving," says Boyer. "I was simply a witness to the extraordinary testimony of people." The lawyer and priest brims with conviction and emotion again when he speaks of stints of community involve- ment working with hospital patients with mental-health issues — "they taught me how to live and love" — and his tenure as a judge for the ecclesiastical regional tribunal operated for about four million people in 11 Quebec dioceses. The tribu- nal mostly handles marriage annulments once the person has obtained a divorce in a civil law court. "It is a nice ministry," says Boyer. "Love is the most important thing in life — that is what motivates a human being. When people come to the tribunal what they want is to heal their heart and we help them to move on." Boyer learned about the human con- dition early on. He grew up in Montreal's working class neighbourhood of Ville- Émard — where he still acts as an elect- ed board member for the local credit union — and as early as age five was helping his father, then president of the charitable organization Société Saint- Vincent de Paul, dispense meals to the homeless at its soup kitchen. While he always finds time for volunteer work in parishes on weekends, and occasionally still judges at the ecclesiastical tribunal, these days most of Boyer's time as vice chancellor of the archdiocese is spent acting as a legal adviser in canon law for the church's business affairs, often in real estate matters. "There is a whole section of canon law about who has the right to sell a church and there are norms to pre- serve the rights of the baptized," he says. "What is specific about Quebec that does not exist in common law provinces is that parishes are independent corpo- rations under the law [so] there is a lot of advice that involves civil law. "Often people call me and need legal advice, not for canon law, but for civil law," he adds. "When my friends call me, they always joke and say either, 'It is the priest I want to speak with,' or 'It is the lawyer I want to speak with.' "Our passion is to serve people," Boyer says. "How can you not be happy? My job is to bring comfort and a bit of love. I don't earn millions but I have the best job in the world." With "a lot of cases underway" for the cause of others who may eventually be declared saints, there is also always the possibility of looking close-up at another miracle. www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com A PRIL 2011 27