Ignace Bourget - Early Life

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 a Point Lévis school, and then went on to study at the Petit Séminaire de Québec, with only middling academic success, 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 Archbishop 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 particularly 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 to this position 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.