BOURGOING, FRANÇOIS. - French Oratorian, disciple of Bérulle (v.) and his second successor, b. in Paris on 18 March 1585, d. there on 22 Oct. 1662. In 1611 he renounced the curacy of Clichy in favor of St. Vincent de Paul, in order to become one of the first six fathers of the French Oratory. He founded a series of houses of the Congregation (Rouen, Nantes, Clermont, Lyon, etc.), which he also introduced into Flanders. Elected superior general in 1641, after the death of Fr. de Condren, he governed the Oratory until his death. His government was of great importance, because he codified and had approved in Rome the Constitutions of the Congregation, to which he also gave a Ratio studiorum and the Directions pour les missions. He opposed with energy the Jansenist infiltrations among his own. Bossuet delivered his funeral eulogy.
B.'s place in the history of Bérullian spirituality is characteristic, although he did not have the gifts of a great writer. His course of meditations, published in Latin (Veritates et sublimes excellentiae Verbi Incarnati J.C. in argumenta meditationum totius anni propositae, 2 vols., Antwerp 1620), then in French, praised by Bossuet, is a popularization of the doctrine of Card. de Bérulle; quite noteworthy is the Direction pour l'oraison, contenant 24 avis..., prefaced to the French edition and also printed separately. The Méditations sur divers états de J. C. (Paris 1648) aim to be even more an echo of the founder's teaching, as the title of the 1661 edition says: L'esprit de l'E. card. de Bérulle, tiré de ses élévations sur les grandeurs des états différents de J. C. Finally, thanks to B.'s efforts, aided by his confrere Gibieuf, we owe the first edition of the Oeuvres complètes du card. de Bérulle (Paris 1644); he prefaced it with a long preface, capital for the understanding of the master's spiritual doctrine.