Documents in Quebec History

Last revised:
23 August 2000

Les Québécois, le clergé catholique et l'affaire des écoles du Manitoba / Quebecers, the Catholic Clergy and the Manitoba School Question, 1890-1916

Reaction of La Semaine Religieuse to the Laurier-Greenway Compromise

[Note from the editor : La Semaine Religieuse of Montreal was a semi-official mouthpiece for the archbishop of Montreal. It is distributed to all members of the clergy of the diocese.]

"The Manitoba school question is not settled; it merely enters a new phase […] In Manitoba, Catholics and French-Canadians are not beggars nor strangers, to be content with crumbs. We will demand the Catholic School, school districts, books, teachers, and exemption from taxes. All constitutional and legal means of defence will be used before consenting to the rising generation being led into religious and national apostasy. There is no danger of His Eminence the Holy Father assenting : the signal for retreat will never come from Rome."

Source : Oscar Douglas Skelton, Life and Letters of Wilfrid Laurier. Vol. 2, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1921, 576p., p. 21.

© 2000 Claude Bélanger, Marianopolis College