Père Venance

J. Albert Caron was born in 1895 in Cabano, on the shores of Lake Témiscouata, Quebec. Initially trained in classical studies at the Collège séraphique des Capucins in Ottawa, he joined the Capuchin novitiate in Limoilou in 1914, adopting the name Brother Venance. Ordained a priest in 1923, he taught literature, mathematics, and philosophy at various institutions, all the while nurturing a growing passion for science. Influenced by Pope Pius XI's encyclical Deus Scientarium Dominus, which called for philosophers to be open to scientific research, he began studying biology at the Université de Montréal in the early 1930s, where he worked with Brother Marie-Victorin, a pioneer of Quebec botany. At the turn of the 1940s, Father Venance began microcinematography, an art that combined his love of nature and his religious vocation. His films, such as The Invisible World and Journey in a Drop of Water, offer fascinating views of the microscopic world, revealing the beauty of invisible creatures and biological processes, in a scientific approach imbued with mysticism. His reputation gradually grew and culminated in the 1961 broadcast of the television series Au-delà des apparences (Beyond Appearances) on Radio-Canada, which brought his work to the general public. With more than 12,000 feet of film produced during his career, Father Venance leaves a unique scientific and cinematic legacy that we are rediscovering today thanks to the archives preserved at the Université de Montréal.