Ignace Bourget (; 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.
Early life
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. and the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary under Eulalie Durocher.
On August 30, 1850, Bourget founded the Hospice du Saint-Enfant-Jesus (Hospice of the Holy Child Jesus), an institute for the care of deaf-mutes, At around this time, 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. He was also reported to be an enthusiastic conversationalist. His hair had prematurely whitened. In 1871 the Institut closed its debating room, and in 1880 it closed its library.
The fall of the Papal States
Bourget was concerned not only with politics in Montreal, but also with politics in Italy, which directly affected the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. Between 1849 and 1870, the Italian peninsula underwent dramatic political changes, culminating in the unification of Italy into one nation. This had severe consequences for the Vatican and for the Roman Catholic Church. In 1848 Pope Pius IX was evacuated from Rome, and on September 20, 1870, the Papal States were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, effectively ending their sovereignty. These upheavals were a source of great concern to many Catholics, and they were of particular importance to Bourget, who as an ultramontane believed firmly in the supreme authority of the Pope in all matters both temporal and spiritual.
On October 23, 1854, Bourget travelled to Europe, where he remained until July 29, 1856. He visited Rome to represent the ecclesiastical province at the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 1854,
John Sweeny, bishop of Saint John fought an unsuccessful campaign against the act for several years, both through the auspices of Catholic MPs in the New Brunswick parliament, and via challenge in the courts. However, he was unsuccessful. He also 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.
Finally on May 18, 1873, Sweeny attended the provincial council of the Quebec church, where he invited the bishops of Quebec to intervene in New Brunswick affairs with the goal of supporting the cause of religious schooling. Bourget, who had had a key role in developing Lower Canada's system of religious schooling, accepted the invitation. The act prevented the teaching of Catholicism, regarded by the Roman Catholic Church as one of its key duties. On May 19, Bourget and Bishop Louis-François Laflèche co-authored and released a statement opposing the Common Schools Act, with the effect that several Conservative MPs of New Brunswick hailing from Quebec threatened to break ranks and support a motion of no-confidence against the government. The New Brunswick government responded by offering to pay the church's costs in the ongoing legal action over the act if the no-confidence motion was not passed - a deal which the church accepted. Their argument was that under the civil law of Canada the Church had a legal obligation to afford Guibord a Catholic burial.
In 1874 the Privy Council ruled that Guibord should be buried in a Catholic cemetery, and ordered that Bourget and the Roman Catholic Church pay the costs of the legal proceedings. Following the ruling, Bourget went to the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery and deconsecrated the burial plot where the Privy Council had ordered that Guibord could be buried.
Involvement in church politics
Université Laval
In 1852, Bourget was involved with the founding of the Université Laval by the Séminaire de Québec. At the time, Bourget believed that responsibility for the university was to be shared by all bishops within the episcopal province of Quebec. However, the organisation and management of the university were subsequently taken over by the archbishop and seminary of Quebec, with the result that by 1858 none of the local (Montreal) classical colleges were affiliated with the university.