Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/797

 BOURGET

721

BOUROET

Cher and 2 in Indre, 1 house of refuge for young women in Cher, 2 patronages for girls in Cher, 20 hos- pitals or hospices in Cher and 14 in Indre, 5 com- munities for the care of the sick in their homes in Cher and 4 in Indre, 1 insane asylum in Cher, 6 homes for the aged in Cher and 2 in Indre, 1 orphanage for deaf-mute and blind girls in Indre, and 1 home for incurables in Indre, all conducted by nuns.

In 1900 the religious orders of men in the diocese were: Jesuits and Franciscans at Bourges; Trappists at Fontgombault. The societies peculiar to the dio- cese were: Men: Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, founded in 1854 with the mother-house at Issoudun. This house is the centre of the universal Archcon- fraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart which has vicariates Apostolic in Oceanica. Women: (1) Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament or of St. Laurence, a congregation said to date back to the time of Charlemagne. They are Sisters of the Perpet- ual Adoration and teachers. (2) Sisters of Charity and of the Holy Sacrament, called de Montoire, with the mother-house at Bourges. This congregation, founded in 1662 by Antoine Moreau, devotes itself to teaching and hospital nursing. It has 150 houses of which 106 are in the Diocese of Bourges. (3) Re- ligious of the Immaculate Mary, hospital nurses and teachers, with the mother-house at Bourges. After the Revolution, the congregation took the place of the lay confraternity of the Immaculate Mary, and, subsequent to 1857 had charge of the general hos- pital. (4) Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Issoudun with houses in Belgium and Australia. At the close of 1905 the Archdiocese of Bourges had 652,681 in- habitants, 65 pastorates 430 succursal parishes (mis- sion churches), and 28 curacies.

Gallia Christiana (1720), II. 1-115; instrumenta, 1-72; Leroux, La primatie de Bourges (Annales du Midi) (1895), VII; Pabiset, L'elabliesement de la prirrmiie de Bourges in Annaks du Midi (1902), XIV; De Gibahdot and Durant, La Cathedrale de Bourges (Moulins, 1849); Duchebne, Fasks fpiscopaux, II; Valoi.'*, Hist, de la pragmatigue Sanction de Bourges sous Charles VII (Paris, 1906); Chevalier, Topobibl. 465-466.

Georges Goyau.

Bourget, Ignace, first Bishop of Montreal, P. Q., Canada, and titular Archbishop of Martianopolis, b. at Point L^vis, Province of Quebec, 30 October, 1799; d. at Sault-au-RecoUet, near Montreal, 8 June, 1885. Remarkable for his piety and learning, he played throughout sLxty years a potent part in the religious, and even in the civil, life of Canada. Monseig- neur Bourget was the eleventh of thirteen children born to Pierre Bourget and Th^rese Paradis. Sixty-two years of his life were spent in the priest- hood, almost fifty in the episcopate, and for nearly thirty-six years he administered the then extensive Diocese of Montreal. He received his ele- mentary instruction at home and at the Point L6vis school and afterwards took the regular course of studies at the Seminary of Quebec, where he was distinguished for his strength of cliaractcr and brilliant intellect. Here, also, he studied thenlogyfor two years, subsequently entering Nicollet (Jollege, where he received the sub- diaconate, 21 May, 1821, being chosen that same year by Archbishop Plessis of Quebec to act as

Ignace Bourget

secretary to Bishop Lartigue of Montreal. Thua, even before receiving Holy orders, Ignace Bourget was launched upon an active life. On 23 November,

1821, he was made deacon and on 30 November,

1822, was ordained priest in the chapel of the Hotel- Dieu where he said his first Mass. The young priest soon won the entire confidence of his bishop, who, in 1836, named him vicar-general of the dio- cese. On 10 March, 1837, Pope Gregory XVI ap- pointed him coadjutor to Bishop Lartigue. and on 25 July of the same year he was consecrated titular Bishop of Telemessa in Lycia. He took po.5session, on 23 April, 1840, of the See of Montreal, made vacant some two weeks previously by the death of Bishop Lartigue.

Bishop Bourget inaugurated a retreat for the clergy of his diocese, 4 August, 1840; in the same year he carried out the desire of his predecessor by creating a chapter of canons, the installation taking place 31 January, 1841. In December, 1841, after his return from France and Rome, where he had visited many religious communities, he brought the Oblate Fathers to Montreal and in January, 1842, founded the Petit S^minaire de Sainte-Th^rese and canonically established the Temperance Society. The community of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, now flourishing in Canada and the LTnited States, was founded under his patronage in 1843, and about the same time the Sisters of Providence. The Providence Asylum was estab- lished 29 March, 1844. On 11 July, 1844, Bishop Bourget installed the Sisters of the Good Shepherd from Angers. In a pastoral letter, June, 1845, he commended the work of the Jesuit Fathers whose first establishment he blessed 31 July, 1851. On his return from Rome in 1847, he introduced the Fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, the Clerics of St. Viator, and the Sisters of the Holy Cross, and, a little later, placed the orphans under the care of the Dames de Charity. In 1848 he in- stalled the Sisters of Mis^ricorde; and on 30 August, 1850, was begun an institute for deaf-mutes known as the Hospice of the Holy Child Jesus. In the same year he founded the teaching order of the Sisters of Sainte Anne who have now several missions in the United States, one even in Alaska. All these religious orders have since attained notable proportions.

After the fire of 1852 which destroyed the cathe- dral, the episcopal palace, and one of the most beau- tiful sections of Montreal, Bishop Bourget made his home in the Hospice Saint-Joseph until 31 August, 1855, when he removed to Mont Saint-Joseph, the episcopal residence. In 1854 he went to Rome on the invitation of the Holy Father to assist at the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and in 1857 he instituted the Forty Hours' Devotion in his diocese, and organized the Conferences Eccl^siastiques. He returned to Rome in 1862 to represent the Province of Quebec at the canonization of the Japanese martyrs and was made a Roman Count and Assistant at the Papal Throne. During the same year he established the Third Oriler of St. Francis, and on 15 October organized the confraternity for perpetual devotion to St. Joseph. In 1864 he entrusted the deaf-mutes to the care of the Sisters of Providence. Believing that the pimple would benefit by the division of the parish of Montreal, he began the change in 1866-67, and after a lapse of forty years the increase to more than forty new parishes shows the wisdom of the step. In 1869 Bishop Bourget went to Rome to attend the Vatican Council. In 1870 he laid the founda- tion-stone of the Montreal Cathedral and in 1872 eelelirated his golden jubilee. He tendered his resig- nation as Bishop of Montreal in 1876, was named titular Archbishop of Martianopolis, and withdrew to the St. Janvier residence at Sault-au-RecoUet. In