BOUVIER, JEAN-BAPTISTE. — Bishop of Le Mans, theologian, born in St-Charles-la-Forêt (Mayenne) on 16 January 1783 into a poor family, died in Rome on 28 December 1854. He studied at the seminary of Angers; ordained a priest in 1808, he was first a professor at the Château-Gontier college, then, from 1811 to 1819, successively professor of philosophy and theology and rector at the seminary of Le Mans; vicar general of the diocese from 1820 to 1834 and finally bishop from 1834 to 1854.
His Institutiones Theologicae (15 editions between 1834 and 1880), adopted almost universally in France, the United States, and Canada, brought him considerable renown, but were later judged rather severely because of traces of Gallicanism and Cartesianism disseminated throughout them. It may nevertheless be observed that he, like so many other French prelates, was Gallican not out of personal conviction, but through the nearly unconscious tradition of a certain innate French nationalist spirit, which in the religious sphere took concrete form in the particular guise of Gallicanism. In any case, he repudiated it by accepting the revision of his work undertaken in this regard by a Roman commission. As for the Cartesian philosophical system to which he adhered, it may be said that, under the influence of the times, rather than embracing it after discussion because he was convinced by it, he endured it, all the more since he was better prepared for practice than for speculation. Indeed, the moral section of his work received greater approval; indeed, he is credited with having contributed through it to the definitive defeat of Jansenist rigorism, thus preparing the new era of scholastic revival. His works, besides those cited, include: Institutiones philosophicae (Le Mans 1824; 12th ed., Paris 1858); Traité dogmatique et pratique des indulgences, des confréries et du jubilé, à l'usage des ecclésiastiques (Le Mans 1826; 10th ed., ibid. 1855); an abridged edition for the use of the faithful (ibid. 1826); Dissertatio in sextum decalogi praeceptum (17th ed., ibid. 1854); Catéchisme à l'usage du diocèse du Mans (ibid. 1838); Histoire abrégée de la philosophie à l'usage des séminaires et des collèges (2 vols., ibid. 1841); Précis historique et canonique sur les jugements ecclésiastiques (ibid. 1852); Statuta dioecesis cenomanensis (ibid. 1852); Lettres pastorales.