MONTRÉAL, ARCHDIOCESE of. — In the province of Québec (Canada).
The archdiocese of M. today numbers 946,535 Catholics, of whom 806,185 live in the city of M. More than 8,000 belong to the Eastern rite. 1,795 diocesan priests and 871 religious belonging to 25 different congregations exercise the sacred ministry. Eleven congregations of brothers and 54 women’s religious institutes devote their lives to prayer, teaching, and the care of the sick.
Among its institutions are 201 parishes, 18 public chapels, 1 seminary for the Foreign Missions, 1 philosophy seminary, 1 theology seminary (the Faculty of Theology of the University of M.), 1 Catholic and civil university, 43 scholasticates and novitiates, 23 apostolic schools, 13 classical colleges, 726 schools and convents, 6 normal schools, 3 teacher-training institutes, and 72 hospitals, homes, and orphanages. The archdiocese covers an area of 12,096 square miles.
The city’s foundation is owed to Dauversière (v.), who happened by chance to meet the Sulpician Gian Giacomo Olier at Meudon in 1640. Their conversation concluded with financial assistance from Olier toward the foundation. A company called Société Notre-Dame de M. was established to promote the glory of God in M. Paolo Chomedy de Maisonneuve and Giovanna Mance, foundress of the Hôtel-Dieu of M., were among the first founders of the new settlement. On 17 May 1642, the Jesuit Bartolomeo Vimond celebrated the first Mass at M.; in 1643 Margherita Bourgeois landed at M. to open the first elementary school there, and shortly afterward founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady (Congrégation Notre-Dame). Sister Margherita was beatified by Pius XII on 12 Nov. 1950.
The population gradually developed; only in 1821 did M. receive its first bishop, in the person of Mgr Giacomo Lartigue, who remained vicar general of Québec and a suffragan bishop. On 13 May 1836, Gregory XVI, by the bull Apostolici ministerii manus, erected M. as a diocese, and Leo XIII elevated it to an ecclesiastical province on 7 June 1886.
Several dioceses have been detached from M.: St-Hyacinthe on 8 June 1862, Sherbrooke on 28 Aug. 1874 (which since 1951 have constituted the province of Sherbrooke), Valleyfield on 27 Jan. 1892, Joliette on 27 Jan. 1904, St-Jean-de-Québec on 9 June 1933, and St-Gérôme (1951). They form the ecclesiastical province of M.
The diocese played a primary role in the development of the Church in Canada, an achievement due in large part to Mgr Ignazio Bourget, the second bishop of M. (1840–1876). He introduced the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (1841), the Jesuits (1842), the Clerics of St. Viator (1847), the Fathers of Holy Cross (1847), the Brothers of Charity of Ghent (1865), the Ladies of the Sacred Heart (1842), the Sisters of the Good Shepherd of Angers (1844), and the Sisters of Holy Cross (1847) into Canada. He also founded several women’s congregations that quickly spread throughout North and South America: the Sisters of Providence (1843), of Mercy (1848), of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (1843), and of St. Anne (1850).
BIBLI: Le Jeune, s. V. in Dictionnaire général du Canada, Ottawa 1931; L. Pouliot, Canada, in DIIG, XI, cols. 675–698; Gregory XIII, Apostolici ministerii manus, 13 May 1836, in Mandements et lettres pastorales publiées dans le diocèse de M. depuis son érection jusqu'à l'année 1869, I, Montréal 1887, pp. 15–16; Leo XIII, Remanciatum est nobis, 7 June 1886, in Leoni XIII acta, VI, Rome 1887, p. 95; Le Canada ecclésiastique, 1950, Montréal 1950, pp. 175–249.
UNIVERSITY OF M. — The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, approving the petition of Msgr. Ignazio Bourget, bishop of M., asked Laval University of Québec to establish a branch in M. Among the many reasons that motivated this decision was the great distance separating the two cities, which prevented many young men from attending Laval University.
Instruction began in M. in 1878 in the Faculties of Theology and Law and in 1879 in the Faculty of Arts. On 2 February 1889, Pope Leone XIII, by the brief Jamdudum, granted greater independence to the branch, but the institution retained the name of Laval University of M. On 8 May 1919, in response to a request from the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of M., the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities authorized the M. branch to constitute itself as an independent university, and on 14 February 1922 it obtained recognition for civil purposes from the province of Québec. On 30 October 1927, Pius XI canonically erected the University, which in 1950 received a new civil charter.
For several years the University had only a temporary seat, but the authorities soon decided to provide the institution with a building worthy at once of the metropolis of Canada and of the Athenaeum’s lofty mission. Construction work lasted several years, and today the University possesses on Mont Royal an imposing building containing all the Faculties, one of the most notable university buildings in America.
The University developed rapidly and has a large number of faculties: theology (with the Pius XI Institute for popular theology); law; medicine, with the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery for advanced studies, as well as the affiliated Institutes of Dietetics and Nutrition and the school of nursing; philosophy, with the Institutes of Psychology, Medieval Studies, and Family and Social Education; arts, sciences, dental surgery, pharmacy, and the social, political, and economic sciences, with a section specializing in industrial relations and a section of social service. The University also includes the schools of optometry and hygiene and the affiliated institutions: Polytechnic School, Oka Agronomic Institute, School of Veterinary Medicine (the latter two directed by the Trappist Fathers), School of Advanced Commercial Studies, Higher Normal School, and Marguerite d’Youville Institute. In 1950 the Faculty of Music was established.
The administration consists of a board of governors (12), all of the Catholic religion, a Commission of Studies, and an executive committee. In 1949–50 it had 1,517 professors (300 of them in the affiliated classical colleges), and in 1950–51, 12,195 students. — Vedi tav. XCVI.