Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/280

 CANADA

236

CANADA

Church by the British Government, the spiritual su- premacy of the king in religious affairs could not be maintained as defined in the Royal Instructions of 1701. Let us add that Lord Elgin, a broad-minded governor, appeared on the scene, and recognized thai it was time to put an end to a system of government based on partiality and the denial of justice.

To this governor Canada is indebted for her relig- ious liberty, plainly granted in an act of 1851 issued by the Queen of Great Britain and published in the Canadian press, 1 June, 1852. Here it is formally stated that the "free exercise and enjoyment of pro- fession and religious worship, without distinction or preference, are permitted by the constitution and laws of this province of Canada to all the subjects of His Majesty in the said province."

The fifteen years that followed the Act of Union were therefore very productive for Canadian Catholicism. Archbishop Signay of Quebec, his successor, Arch- bishop Turgeon (1850), and in an especial manner Bishop Ignace Bourget, the successor of Bishop Lar- tigue in the See of Montreal, gave a great impetus to the religious life of Canada. During their episco- pates five religious communities of men and sixteen of women either arose on Canadian soil or came thither from France. The following may be men- tioned: Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate, who were to repeat among the savages of the "Far West" the missionary successes of the Society of Jesus dur- ing the seventeenth century; the Jesuit Fathers (1842), whom Canada had been calling in vain for over fifty years; the Clerics of St. Viator, and the Fathers of the Holy Cross. In this period were founded at Mon- treal: the Sisters of Providence (1843), the Sisters of the Holy Xames of Jesus and Mary (1843), the Sisters of Mercy (1848), the Sisters of St. Anne (1850) ; at Quebec, the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (1850). The number of sees was increased by the foundation of Toronto (1841), Halifax (1842), raised to an arch- diocese in 1852, St. John, New Brunswick (1842), Arichat, Nova Scotia (1844), transferred to Antig- onish in 1886, Bytown or Ottawa (1847), St. John's, Newfoundland (1847). The First Council of Quebec, since 1844 a Metropolitan See, with Montreal, Kings- ton, and Toronto for suffragans, was held in 1851. The Sees of Three Rivers and St. Hyacinthe were erected in 1851. This decade was also marked by : ( 1 ) t he celebrated " missions ' ' of Monsignor de Forbin- Janson, former Bishop of Nancy, and the institution of parochial retreats ; (2) the adoption of a school system that assured separate primary and normal schools for Catholics and Protestants (1841); (3) a genuine cru- sade for the promotion of temperance (1843) and the founding of societies for the suppression of alcoholism; (4) the establishment of the Society for the Propa- gation of the Faith and the Work of the Holy Child- hood ; (5) colonization societies to provide for the sur- plus of the Canadian population (1848). A glance at the following table shows the rapidity of this increase : —

Date

Total Population

Incmise in Popu- lation

Catholics

Catholics
 * Incrcase

»

Increase

Protes- tants

Provi

nee of

Quebec

1831

511,922

per cent

12.-,, (10(1 percent

86,000

per cent

1844

681,806

33

.-.72.64:1 34

100,163

1851

s.sii, :;;,r,

30

746,866 30

139,490

27

1861

1,110,664

I 27

Province of Ontario

167,940

20

1831

261,000

40,000

221.000

is II

180, )

88

78,000 96

411,000

86

1851

952,000

94

167,000 115

■;s.-,. mxi

91

Mil

i .:

47

258,141 55

1,137,000

44

The Catholic population now needed more primary schools; the need was met chiefly by Meilleur, the

superintendent of education. On assuming office he found a school attendance of only 3000, which, when he retired in 1855, thirteen years later, had increased to 127,000. New centres of secondary education had been opened: the college of Joliette (1846), Saint-Laurent (1847), Rigaud (1850), Sainte-Marie de Monnoir (1853), and Levis (1853). The following year (1S54) the inauguration of a Catholic univer- sity, the Laval University at Quebec, crowned all the generous efforts already made for the cause of educa- tion. This was also due to the Canadian clergy. The First Council of Quebec had manifested the need and desire for such an institution; less than ten years later all the difficulties had been surmounted, and the Seminary of Quebec, which had undertaken this dif- ficult task, could exhibit fresh proof of its devotion to Church and country. Laval University had already proved its worth and accomplished much good when it was canonicallv established by a Bull of Pius IX (1876).

While the Church was thus progressing in Eastern Canada, in the West it was only beginning its work. About 1818 a priest of the Diocese of Quebec, the Abbe' Provencher. founded on the banks of the Red River the first Western Canadian missions beyond the pale of civilization. Two years later he was consecrated bishop, and for the remaining years of his life Bishop Provencher multiplied his labours, called to his aid assistants, and sent missionaries as far as British Columbia. In 1844 he was made Vicar Apostolic of the North- West, and in 1847 Bishop of St. Boniface. The same year another missionary from Quebec, Modeste Demers, was named Bishop of Vancouver. To establish his missions securely Bishop Provencher invited to his diocese the Oblate Fathers, recently established at Montreal. They ac- cepted the invitation, and in 1853 one of their number, Bishop Tache, succeeded the first Bishop of St. Boni- face. In 1862 the Vicariate Apostolic of Athabaska was erected, with Bishop Faraud (1828-90) as titular. The ecclesiastical province of St. Boniface (Manitoba) was created in 1871. Bishop Tache was raised to the rank of archbishop by Pius IX, and his coadjutor, Monseigneur Grandin (1829-1902), was named Bishop of the newly-erected see of St. Albert. To the See of St. Albert and the Vicariate Apostolic of Athabaska were added in 1890 the Vicariate Apostolic of Sas- katchewan, raised, in 1908, to the rank of a bishopric, with the title of Prince Albert, and the See of New Westminster (British Columbia), and in 1901 the Vicariate Apostolic of Mackenzie and the Yukon. The last department, by a Brief of Leo XIII (1903), was detached from St. Boniface and attached to Victoria (Vancouver), which was raised to archiepiscopal rank, and has been known since 1904 as the archdio- cese of Victoria.

While the ecclesiast ical hierarchy was forming in t he West the Church was pursuing her beneficent work in Eastern Canada. At the Second Council of Quebec (1854) the bishops promulgated disciplinary regula- tions concerning primary schools, secret societies, temperance, educational institutions, politics, erro- neous Bibles, immoral books, and parochial libraries. The definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Con- ception (8 Dec, 1854) brought joy to the hearts of pastors and faithful. During the ensuing years the Catholics of Canada watched sadly the march of ideas and events in Europe, and bishops drew attention in their pastorals to errors condemned by the head of the Church. Canadian Catholics were indignant at the invasion of the Pontifical States by the Piedmon- tese, and seven corps of Zouaves were spontaneously formed to hasten to the defence of the common father of the faithful (1868-1870). The division of .Montreal into parishes should be mentioned as be- longing to this period. Until then the Sulpicians had been able to minister to the city. Bui in 1866 an