OTTAWA, ARCHDIOCESE OF. – In the province of Ontario, Canada. The archdiocese covers an area of 13,000 square miles with a population of 376,000, of whom 238,000 are Catholics, distributed across 13 parishes. The clergy consists of 248 diocesan priests and 370 religious, 3 seminaries (one diocesan, one university-based—Seminare St-Paul of the University of Ottawa—and one minor seminary), 51 male religious communities, and 111 female religious communities.
Bishop Ignace Bourget, upon taking possession of his episcopal see in Montréal (Québec) in 1840, conceived the idea of uniting the various dioceses of Canada into ecclesiastical provinces and also insisted on the necessity of dividing existing dioceses. In 1844, Rome erected the first ecclesiastical province in Canada, comprising the dioceses of Québec, Montréal, Kingston, and Toronto. Meanwhile, the Bishop of Montréal sent missionaries to the west and north of the country and, in 1841, obtained from Bishop Eugène de Mazenod of Marseille the Oblates of Mary Immaculate for his diocese. The Oblates landed in Montréal on 2 December 1841, and in 1844, Bishop Bourget sent some of them to Bytown. In 1846, he presented to the Canadian bishops the need to erect a diocese at Bytown. All the interested bishops signed a petition to this effect and requested that Fr. Eugène Bruno Guigues, O.M.I., be named its bishop. Pius IX granted the desired favor and erected the diocese on 25 June 1847 with the bull *Ad prospiciendum facilius*, entrusting it to Fr. Guigues (9 July), who immediately set to work organizing the new diocese. He founded schools, hospitals, parishes, and a classical college that became the Catholic University of Ottawa. Many of the churches were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.
The name of the diocese was changed to Ottawa on 4 June 1850, and Leo XIII elevated it to an archdiocese on 8 June 1886.
When Bishop Guigues arrived in Bytown, he found 6 diocesan priests and 8 Oblate missionaries; by 8 February 1874, the day of his death, the diocese already counted 55 churches, 33 chapels, and 80,000 faithful.
The ecclesiastical province of Ottawa today comprises the dioceses of Pembroke (Ontario), Mont-Laurier (Québec), Timmins, Hearst, and the Apostolic Vicariate of James Bay (all within the province of Ontario). In 1947, to commemorate the centennial of the archdiocese, a great Marian Congress was held in Ottawa, attended by more than 1,000,000 faithful, 9 cardinals, and 104 bishops.
UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA. – Immediately after his consecration, Bishop Guigues began the foundation of a scholastic institution, which, under the name of St. Joseph’s College of Bytown, was inaugurated on 26 September 1848; the following year it was recognized by the government under the name of the College of Ottawa. Bishop Guigues entrusted its care in perpetuity to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
The good organization of the College and the spirit animating it have borne fruit: the 120 students of 1856 have today become more than 4,000. – See pl. XXXII.