[2]: 99 In the summer of 1898, Father Delaere was recruited as one of three Belgian Redemptorist monks by French-Canadian Archbishop Langevin who visited the Provincial Superior of the Belgian Redemptorist province at Brussels asking for help with the large immigrant population from Eastern Europe arriving on the Canadian Prairies.

Delaere himself was stunned by the amount of work required and reported that the territory was actually half the size of Belgium with only thirty to forty English families and was entirely neglected by any other Catholic clergy since the Oblates had moved out.

Delaere immediately begged for help, encouraged French Canadian seminarians to study different languages, and brought in Father Kryzhanowsky, a Basilian monk, to help him in the various colonies.

Delaere had learned to read mass in Old Church Slavonic and he dressed according to Greek ritual, but he delivered his sermons in Polish."

As for his language skills and his knowledge of the Eastern rite, his closest associates declared that he never learned French properly and at best was mediocre in Ukrainian, but his zeal and his capacity for work made him indispensable to his superiors even though they did not care for his rustic ways.

In 1911, at Delaere's urging, Archbishop Langevin finally submitted to the idea of the appointment of a Ukrainian Catholic bishop, and informed the Vatican of his change of heart.

"In May 1912, Delaere was summoned to confer with Pius X, and on July 15, after consulting the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy in Galicia, Rome appointed Fr.

There were moments of doubt, when Delaere was disconcerted by Budka's "cold neutrality", and counselled by those around him to abandon the Ukrainians in Canada, but he remained steadfast.