62 Facts About Ignace Bourget

Ignace Bourget encouraged the immigration of European missionary societies, including the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Jesuits, the Society of the Sacred Heart and the Good Shepherd Sisters.

Ignace Bourget established entirely new religious communities including the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, Sisters of Saint Anne, Sisters of Providence, and the Institute of Misericordia Sisters.

Ignace Bourget commissioned the construction of St James Cathedral, known today as Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, and played a key role in the establishment of the Universite Laval and the Hospice of the Holy Child Jesus.

Ignace Bourget was a fierce ultramontanist, supporting the supreme authority of the Pope in matters both secular and spiritual.

Ignace Bourget frequently clashed with the Canadian secular authorities, most notably through his attacks on the anti-clericist Institut Canadien de Montreal, his defence of parochial schooling in New Brunswick, and his refusal to grant a Catholic burial to excommunicant Joseph Guibord.

In 1876, facing an inquiry by the Vatican into his increasing involvement in secular politics, Ignace Bourget resigned as Bishop of Montreal and retired to Sault-au-Recollet, where he continued to take an active role in church life until his death in 1885.

Ignace Bourget was the eleventh child of thirteen born to Piere Bourget, a farmer, and Therese Paradis.

Ignace Bourget received elementary schooling at home and at the Point Levis school, and then went on to study at the Petit Seminaire de Quebec, and at the Grand Seminaire de Quebec.

In 1812, Ignace Bourget was admitted to the Congregation de la Sainte-Vierge.

On May 21,1821, Ignace Bourget left Nicolet to assume the post of secretary to Jean-Jacques Lartigue, vicar general of Montreal.

On November 30,1822, Ignace Bourget was ordained to the priesthood by Lartigue and shortly thereafter was given supervision of the construction of Saint-Jacques Cathedral, the erection of which had only begun that year.

The cathedral was completed on September 22,1825, and consecrated by Plessis, and Ignace Bourget was named chaplain.

Ignace Bourget shared this viewpoint with Lartigue, which led Lartigue to make a submission to Pope Gregory XVI appointing Ignace Bourget as his successor to the episcopal see.

Ignace Bourget was consecrated bishop on July 25,1837, in St-Jacques Cathedral.

In November 1840, Ignace Bourget moved the training of ecclesiastics from the Grand Seminaire Saint-Jacques to the Petit Seminaire de Montreal, where it would be handled by the Sulpicians.

In December 1840 Ignace Bourget was instrumental in the establishment of the Melanges religieux, a religious journal intended to be free of politics.

From May 3 to September 23,1841, Ignace Bourget visited Europe, where he sought new priests to staff the schools, missions and parishes occasioned by Canada's burgeoning population.

Ignace Bourget raised the issue of the creation of an ecclesiastical province to unify the administration of Canada's dioceses.

Ignace Bourget concluded his visit to Europe by visiting France, where he observed and was impressed by the religious revival taking place in that country.

On June 23,1841, the Paris newspaper L'Univers stated that Ignace Bourget had "come to Europe to seek a reinforcement of workers for the gospel", and indeed his visit was interpreted as an open invitation to apostolic missionaries to bring their missions to Montreal.

When other religious communities, such as the Filles de la Charite de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, cancelled their plans to send missions to Montreal, Ignace Bourget instead organised the foundation of new Montreal-based religious communities, including in 1843 the Sisters of Providence under the leadership of Emilie Gamelin, and the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary under Eulalie Durocher.

On June 12,1844, the ecclesiastical province of Quebec was erected by papal bull, and on November 24,1844, Ignace Bourget presided over the ceremonial conferring of the pallium on the metropolitan bishop, Archbishop Joseph Signay, at the cathedral at Quebec.

Ignace Bourget was instrumental in several important developments in the city of Kingston, Ontario, at that time newly named as capital of the Province of Canada.

Ignace Bourget invited the Congregation of Notre-Dame to set up a primary school in Kingston, and in September 1845 arranged for the creation of a hospital staffed by Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph from the Hotel-Dieu at Montreal which serviced the town and surrounding district.

On May 1,1845, Ignace Bourget directed Rosalie Cadron-Jette, a widow of his St-Jacques congregation, in the establishment of the Hospice de Sainte-Pelagie, a Montreal-based institute providing care and crisis accommodation for unwed mothers, and on January 16,1848, he arranged for Cadron-Jette and her helpers to take nuns' vows and found the Institute of Misericordia Sisters, a religious community dedicated to "girls and women in a situation of maternity out of wedlock and their children".

In 1853 Ignace Bourget founded the Annales de la temperance, a society dedicated to the goal of temperance.

Ignace Bourget was supported in this cause by Charles-Felix Cazeau, secretary to Signay.

In Rome, Ignace Bourget found a Vatican newly rejuvenated, Pope Pius IX having recently succeeded the unpopular Pope Gregory XVI.

Ignace Bourget was unsuccessful in securing Signay's discharge, but nevertheless enjoyed several other successes, including the establishment of the diocese of Bytown with Ignace Bourget's preferred candidate, Joseph-Bruno Guigues, made bishop.

Ignace Bourget secured an additional 20 religious staff for Montreal, including representatives of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the Clerics of Saint Viator, the Jesuits, and the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Ignace Bourget worked directly with its victims along with many of the staff of his diocese.

At around this time, Ignace Bourget was reported as taking no more than five hours' sleep a day, and produced a substantial body of written works including pastoral correspondence and manuscript works.

The vice-chair was Louis-Joseph Papineau, a noted anti-clericist whom Ignace Bourget had publicly condemned during the 1837 rebellions, and in September 1848 Ignace Bourget found himself unable to work productively with the committee and resigned.

Ignace Bourget favoured Roman-style ceremonies over the more sedate masses of the Sulpicians, brought back holy relics from Rome for veneration, and introduced new devotions including the Seven Sorrows of Mary, the Sacred Heart, and, on February 21,1857, the Forty Hours' Devotion.

On July 8,1852, the Bishop's residence was destroyed in a spate of severe fires, causing Ignace Bourget to move his accommodations to the Hospice Saint-Joseph until August 31,1855, and thereafter to an episcopal residence at Mont Saint-Joseph.

Ignace Bourget planned to commission a scale reproduction of Rome's St Peter's Basilica to serve as a replacement, and engaged first Victor Bourgeau and then Joseph Michaud to design the new cathedral.

Ignace Bourget used his influence at the provincial council to cause a disciplinary regulation to be drawn up, dated June 4,1854, declaring that members of "literary institutes [at which] readings are given there which are anti-religious" were not to be admitted to the Roman Catholic sacraments.

In 1858 Ignace Bourget commenced a series of pastoral letters attacking liberals, anti-clericists, and the Institut Canadien.

Ignace Bourget made further unfavourable reports to the Holy Office regarding the Institut in 1866 and 1869, and in July 1869 the Annuaire de l'Institut Canadien pour 1868 was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Ignace Bourget was concerned not only with politics in Montreal, but with politics in Italy, which directly affected the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.

On October 23,1854, Ignace Bourget travelled to Europe, where he remained until July 29,1856.

Ignace Bourget visited Rome to represent the ecclesiastical province at the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on December 8,1854, and then spent time in Italy and France.

Ignace Bourget argued that the revolution in Italy was attacking the Church "in order next to overthrow unimpeded the rest of the universe", and characterised Canada's liberal books and newspapers as accomplices in this alleged conspiracy.

In 1862, Ignace Bourget again travelled to Rome, this time with the goal of representing the Province of Quebec at the canonization of the Japanese martyrs.

In 1868 Ignace Bourget was instrumental in the recruitment and enlistment of seven detachments of Canadian Papal Zouaves, comprising 507 individuals, who were sent to Rome to assist the papacy in the defence of the Papal States at a cost to the church of at least $111,630.

Ignace Bourget urged Catholics to stop paying the school tax in protest, to which the government responded by imprisoning key priests and seizing property, including Sweeny's carriage.

Ignace Bourget, who had had a key role in developing Lower Canada's system of religious schooling, accepted the invitation.

In 1852, Ignace Bourget was involved with the founding of the Universite Laval by the Seminaire de Quebec.

At the time, Ignace Bourget believed that responsibility for the university was to be shared by all bishops within the episcopal province of Quebec.

In 1865 Ignace Bourget petitioned the Vatican for the establishment of a new Catholic university in Montreal but his application was rejected.

In 1870 the Universite Laval proposed opening a branch in Montreal but Ignace Bourget rejected this proposition as it did not accept his authority over it as bishop.

In 1876 the Vatican ordered the establishment of a branch of the Universite Laval at Montreal, answering only to Quebec, but Ignace Bourget resigned as Bishop shortly thereafter and therefore was never required to enact the order.

The Sulpicians disputed Ignace Bourget's proposed hierarchy and both Ignace Bourget and the Superior General of Saint-Sulpice were summoned to Rome.

The Sulpicians refused to allow Ignace Bourget to have authority to dismiss the parish priest and threatened to withdraw their entire religious community of 57 priests from Montreal, which would have created a crippling shortage of clergy in the diocese.

Negotiations were held with the result that in 1865 Ignace Bourget was given authority to divide the parish of Notre-Dame on the condition that the new parishes would be offered first to the Sulpicians, that the Sulpicians would name their own priests to the parishes but would require them to be invested by the Bishop, and that the new parish priests could be dismissed by either the Bishop or the Superior of the Sulpicians.

Between September 1866 and December 1867, Ignace Bourget divided Notre-Dame into ten new canonical parishes.

From October 27 to 30,1872, Ignace Bourget celebrated the golden anniversary of his ordination, and on May 1,1873, he ordained Edouard-Charles Fabre as coadjutor bishop in a ceremony at the church of the College Sainte-Marie.

Around this time, Ignace Bourget was frequently beset by illness, but despite this he continued a series of energetic attacks on liberalism, including liberalism within the Catholic Church.

Between August 12 and October 30,1881, Ignace Bourget travelled to Rome, pleading unsuccessfully for the establishment of a second Catholic university in Montreal.

In 1882, Ignace Bourget took part in a fundraising drive to help raise money to pay off the Diocese of Montreal's significant debts, which totalled some $840,000.

On November 9,1882, Ignace Bourget made his final public appearance at Boucherville, celebrating the diamond anniversary of his ordination as the conclusion of his fundraising tour.

On June 24,1903, a statue of Ignace Bourget created by artist Louis-Philippe Hebert was unveiled in the parvis of the St James Cathedral.