MONCTON, ARCHDIOCESE of. — City and archdiocese in the province of Nouveau Brunswick (Canada), with three suffragan dioceses: St-Jean, Bathurst, and Edmundston. Its population is composed for the most part of descendants of the Acadians whom the English deported in 1755, after the conquest of New France. The founding of a college on 15 October 1854 marks a new stage in the history of Acadia; the college was subsequently entrusted to the Fathers of Holy Cross, and the old Seminary of St. Thomas became St. Joseph’s College (10 October 1864), with Fr. C. Lefebvre as its first superior.
The ecclesiastical province of M. was erected by Pius XI on 22 February 1936, with the apostolic constitution Ad animarum salutem. The archdiocese of M. has 53,579 Catholics of French language, 6,940 of English language, and 302 of other languages, out of a population of 102,875, over an area of 2,887 square miles; it has 53 diocesan priests and 62 religious (Congregation of Holy Cross, Dominicans, Trappists, Redemptorists), 62 churches, 41 of them parishes, 2 hospitals, a retreat house, 20 missions or mission stations, a university (St. Joseph’s University, at Memramcook), and a college.