Bouix, Marie-Dominique

BOUIX, MARIE-DOMINIQUE. - Canonist, b. at Bagnères-de-Bigorre on 15 May 1808, d. on 26 Dec. 1870 at Montech (Tarn-et-Garonne). A Jesuit, he was a professor in several colleges of the Order, which he left in 1842 for reasons of health. From 1842 until 1849 he was in Paris as a vicar in the church of St. Vincent de Paul, reserving his free time for study and, from 1840, for journalism in Migne's review Voix de la vérité. He was then appointed a member of the commission for education together with Msgr. Parisiè and Montalembert. Toward the end of 1848 he was appointed a member of the commission for religious communities and director of the Maria Teresa infirmary. Since at that time the celebration of provincial councils had resumed, he intervened in support of the obligation of pontifical approval of councils, arousing opposition on the part of the clergy of Gallican tendency. B., at the request of the nuncio Fornari, published his opinion on the matter in the Univers (Sept. 1849) and, going more deeply into the subject, wrote his work Du concile provincial. On 20 Oct. 1850 he again wrote an article on this subject in the Univers. Having thus found himself in disagreement with Archbishop Sibour, he left Paris to go to Rome, where he remained four years, and where on 1 Apr. 1851 Pius IX had the degree in retroque iure honoris causa conferred on him at the Sapienza. He returned to Paris in 1855, and in 1860 founded at Arras, with the support of Msgr. Parisiè and Card. Gousset, the Revue des sciences ecclésiastiques. From that time begins his full activity as a canonist with the publication of several treatises written in a sober and correct Latin according to a scholastic method, and summarizing the doctrine of the classical canonists. The subjects treated by B. embrace the whole of canon law except marriage and censures.