BOUIX, MARIE-DOMINIQUE

BOUIX, Marie-Dominique. - Canonist, born at Bagnères-de-Bigorre on 15 May 1808, died on 26 December 1879 at Montech (Tarn-et-Garonne). A Jesuit, he taught in several colleges of the Order, which he left in 1842 for reasons of health. From 1842 to 1849 he was in Paris as vicar in the church of S. Vincenzo de’ Poli, reserving his free time for study and, from 1840, for journalism in the journal *Voix de la vérité* of Migne. He was then appointed a member of the commission for education alongside Monsignor Parisis and Montalembert. Towards the end of 1848 he was named a member of the commission for religious communities and director of the Maria Teresa infirmary. As provincial councils were being revived at that time, he intervened in support of the obligation of papal approval for such councils, arousing opposition from the clergy of Gallican tendency. Bouix, at the request of the nuncio Fornari, published his opinion on the matter in *L’Université* (September 1849) and, developing the theme further, wrote his work *Du concile provincial*. On 20 October 1850 he again wrote an article on this subject in *L’Université*. Having thus come into disagreement with Archbishop Sibour, he left Paris for Rome, where he remained for four years, and where, on 10 April 1851, Pius IX conferred upon him an honorary doctorate in both civil and canon law (*in utroque iure*) at the Sapienza. He returned to Paris in 1855, and in 1860 founded at Arras, with the support of Monsignor Parisis and Cardinal Gousset, the *Revue des sciences ecclésiastiques*. From that time began his full activity as a canonist with the publication of several treatises written in a sober and correct Latin, according to a scholastic method, summarizing the doctrine of the classical canonists. The subjects treated by Bouix cover the entire field of canon law except for marriage and censures.