Ignace Bourget (French pronunciation: [iɲas buʁʒɛ]; October 30, 1799 – June 8, 1885) was a Canadian Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Montreal from 1840 to 1876.
Born in Lévis, Quebec, in 1799, Bourget entered the clergy at an early age, undertook several courses of religious study, and in 1837 was named coadjutor bishop of the newly created Diocese of Montreal. Following the death of Jean-Jacques Lartigue in 1840, Bourget became Bishop of Montreal.
During the 1840s, Bourget led the expansion of the Catholic Church in Quebec. He 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. He also 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. He 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 Université Laval and the Hospice of the Holy Child Jesus.
Bourget was a fierce ultramontanist, supporting the supreme authority of the pope in matters both secular and spiritual. He frequently clashed with the Canadian secular authorities, most notably through his attacks on the anti-clericist Institut Canadien de Montréal, his defence of parochial schooling in New Brunswick, and his refusal to grant a Catholic burial to Joseph Guibord. In 1876, facing an inquiry by the Vatican into his increasing involvement in secular politics, Bourget resigned as Bishop of Montreal and retired to Sault-au-Récollet, where he continued to take an active role in church life until his death in 1885.
Bourget was born in the parish of St Joseph in Lévis, Quebec, on October 30, 1799. He was the eleventh child of thirteen born to Piere Bourget, a farmer, and Therese Paradis. He received elementary schooling at home and at the Point Lévis school, and then went on to study at the Petit Séminaire de Québec, and at the Grand Séminaire de Québec.
In 1812, Bourget was admitted to the Congrégation de la Sainte-Vierge. On August 11, 1818, he was tonsured in the cathedral at Quebec City and from September 1818 commenced three years of study at the Séminaire de Nicolet, where he studied theology, and also taught first year classes in Latin elements and second year classes in syntax. On January 28, 1821, he was conferred minor orders by Joseph-Octave Plessis, Archbishop of Quebec, and on May 20 of that year at the parish church of Nicolet he was elevated to the position of subdeacon. On May 21, 1821, Bourget left Nicolet to assume the post of secretary to Jean-Jacques Lartigue, vicar general of Montreal. On December 22, 1821, he was made a deacon at the bishop's residence in the Hôtel-Dieu.
On November 30, 1822, 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 Bourget was named chaplain. This role gave him responsibility for organising the pastoral ministry of St-Jacques and seeing to the conduct of public worship.
On September 8, 1836, Montreal was made a bishopric, with Lartigue becoming Bishop of Montreal. This led to clashes with the Society of Saint-Sulpice, known as the Sulpicians, who exercised dominion over Montreal Island as seigneurs and pastors of the parish of Notre-Dame and who did not recognise Lartigue's episcopal authority over them. This frustrated Lartigue, who followed the doctrine of ultramontanism, which asserted the supreme authority of the Pope over local temporal and spiritual hierarchies. Bourget shared this viewpoint with Lartigue, which led Lartigue to make a submission to Pope Gregory XVI appointing Bourget as his successor to the episcopal see. Despite objections from the Sulpicians, who asserted Bourget was too inexperienced and too concerned with the minutiae of process and discipline, the submission was accepted by the Pope, and on March 10, 1837, Bourget was appointed bishop of the titular see of Telmesse (an honorary rather than substantive position) and coadjutor to the bishop of Montreal with right of succession. He was consecrated bishop on July 25, 1837, in St-Jacques Cathedral.
The newly created diocese of Montreal consisted of 79 parishes, 34 missions at widely dispersed points, particularly in the Eastern Townships, and four missions to the Indians. It included 186,244 adherents of whom 115,071 were communicants. The town of Montreal itself contained 22,000 Catholics, being approximately two thirds of the town's population. In June/July 1838 and in May–July 1939, Bourget toured the bishopric, visiting around 30 parishes.
1837 and 1838 saw the Lower Canada Rebellion, in which both Lartigue and Bourget made public statements opposing the rebels, and in particular condemning Louis-Joseph Papineau, who was a supporter of secular schools in preference to religious schools. Lartigue called on all Catholics to reject the reform movement and support the authorities.
Bishop of Montreal, and church expansion
On April 19, 1840, Jean-Jacques Lartigue died, and by right of succession on April 23, 1840, Ignace Bourget became Bishop of Montreal, a position which he held until 1876.
As bishop, Bourget continued to tour the outlying parishes, including in late 1840 a visit to the north shore of the Ottawa River, where Bourget established eight new missions, creating the foundations for what would eventually become the diocese of Bytown. In November 1840, Bourget moved the training of ecclesiastics from the Grand Séminaire Saint-Jacques to the Petit Séminaire de Montréal, where it would be handled by the Sulpicians. In the same year, he directed four Grey Nuns in the creation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint-Hyacinthe, an offshoot of the Hôpital Général de Montreal, with the result of a new hospital servicing the Saint-Hyacinthe area. In December 1840 Bourget was instrumental in the establishment of the Mélanges religieux, a religious journal intended to be free of politics.
From May 3 to September 23, 1841, Bourget visited Europe, where he sought new priests to staff the schools, missions and parishes occasioned by Canada's burgeoning population. He also raised the issue of the creation of an ecclesiastical province to unify the administration of Canada's dioceses. He 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 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.
The invitation was accepted and the next several years saw an influx of religious congregations into Montreal, including missions from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (arriving December 2, 1841), the Jesuits (arriving May 31, 1842), the Society of the Sacred Heart (arriving December 26, 1842) and the Good Shepherd Sisters (arriving June 7, 1844). When other religious communities, such as the Filles de la Charité de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, cancelled their plans to send missions to Montreal, Bourget instead organised the foundation of new Montreal-based religious communities, including in 1843 the Sisters of Providence under the leadership of Émilie 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, Bourget presided over the ceremonial conferring of the pallium on the metropolitan bishop, Archbishop Joseph Signay, at the cathedral at Quebec. During 1844 Bourget suggested to Signay that Signay should call a first provincial council to establish the authority of the archbishop and demonstrate that the title was not merely honorific. Signay took the suggestion as an insult, which soured his relationship with Bourget.