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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

Extract from the Pastoral Letter of Quebec Bishops Condemning the Laurier-Greenway Compromise [November 22, 1896]

[Note from the editor : This Pastoral letter addressed to all of the members of the clergy in the diocese was written by Mgr. Bégin, Archbishop of Quebec, and was endorsed by Bishops Laflèche (Trois-Rivières), Labrecque (Chicoutimi), Blais (Rimouski) and Gravel (Nicolet). It should be noted that there were four other bishops in Quebec who did not endorse the Circular. At least one of the remaining bishops was not in the position to sign as he was very sick and died shortly after (Mgr Fabre of Montreal).]

"No bishop wants nor approve the so-called settlement of the Manitoba school question, which, in a word, is based upon the indefensible abandonment of the best established and most sacred rights of the Catholic minority. His Grace the Archbishop of St. Boniface has sounded an immediate and energetic protest against this agreement; in doing so he has done nothing bu fulfil his duty as a sheperd and followed the directions of the Holy See. He could not but defend his flock".

Source : Oscar Douglas Skelton, Life and Letters of Wilfrid Laurier. Vol. 2, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1921, 576p., p. 20.

 

© 2000 Claude Bélanger, Marianopolis College