Officially, CERC was born after I presented a paper on the need for such a site to the 1996 Society of Catholic Social Scientists Convention and recruited eleven Catholic academics to our advisory board.  Shortly thereafter, we set up an executive board and I started working part-time on CERC while continuing to teach full-time.

It became clear very quickly that doing both jobs was really too much.  Then, one day in 1997, I received news that the Homeland Foundation in New York would grant enough funding for me to work on CERC full-time for a year.  I took a leave of absence from teaching from 1999-2000 but, by the end of that school year, CERC had little left in the kitty and no funding prospects.  I knew that, in order to continue CERC, I would have to secure funding.

But it was August 2000, the Jubilee Year, and Madeleine and I wanted to make a pilgrimage.  So we bundled up our two youngest children and drove, tenting as we went, from the west coast to Ontario, visiting all the churches we could on our way and ending up at the little shrine of Our Lady of Combermere at Madonna House.  Our daughter Elizabeth had been living nearby with the Michael O'Briens while attending the fledgling Mater Ecclesia, what was to become Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College, but which at that time was holding classes in the O'Brien kitchen.

One day, while visiting the O'Brien's, I received a phone call from Fr. Bruce-John Hamilton, our pastor at home in Powell River.  He said, "Fraser, I've got a job for you: a full-time teaching position in the school, and it's yours if you want it."