Corneille, Roland de, 1927-2014 : Rev. Roland de Corneille, born in Switzerland in 1927, was one of the most influential figures in the Christian-Jewish Dialogue movement in Canada in the 1960's and 1970's and one of Israel's strongest advocates in Parliament. Born in Switzerland on May 19, he spent his boyhood in France and moved to California with his mother where he was educated. His father who was the Protestant Chaplain General of the French Army was killed near the end of the Second World War. He graduated from Amherst College, Mass. with a B.A. Cum Laude in 1946. He came to Canada in 1951 and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1953 from Toronto's Trinity College. He received his Master of Theology degree in 1961 from Trinity.
After serving in various parishes in Montreal and Toronto he did graduate work at McGill, Yale and the University of Toronto. During his period as rector of St. Laurence Anglican Church in Toronto from 1954 to 1962, he became a chaplain at the Bell Clinic. He helped patients cope with alcohol and drug addiction problems from 1957 to 1960.
Rev. de Corneille was the founder of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue movement in Canada. In 1962 he initiated the Anglican church committee known as the Christian Approach to the Jewish People. He advocated that dialogue be accepted as an official church programme to further greater understanding between Jews and Christians. He served as the full time director of Jewish-Christian Dialogue from 1962 to 1970. In 1968 he planned and organized the International Conference on Christians and Jews which was held at Glendon College, York University.
In 1971, at the initiative of Lou Ronson (see MG 31, H 138) he was invited to become Executive Director of B'nai Brith's League for Human Rights, which was headquartered in Toronto. Rev. de Corneille conducted several noteworthy projects including the successful Campaign to have the International Human Rights Covenants ratified by Canada as well as the Oil Mighty Dollar programme.
In 1979 he was elected to Parliament for the riding of Eglinton-Lawrence. He served in Parliament until 1988. During this period he was Founding Chairman of the Canada-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group. In 1980-1981 he served as Chairman of the National Committee for a Human Rights Charter which lobbied Parliament to have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. He led the Canadian campaign to honour Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who rescued Hungarian Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II.
He is the author of "Christians and Jews".
Roland de Corneille passed away in Toronto in 2014.
