Guide to Documents Relating to French and British North America in ...

past four years with the consent of his French ordinary, the bishop of Saint-Malo, Fran~ois de Ville-
Montee. 2S Propaganda took every opportunity to make it clear that whoever wanted to become an
apostolic missionary and operate in mission territories had to ask the Congregation for special faculties.
These varied according to the needs and the position of the petitioners, and had to be renewed
periodically in order to maintain a closer relationship between Propaganda officials and their
subordinates around the world. 26
Missions had to be formalized as soon as possible. In the early stages of missionary activities,
a prefect apostolic was appointed. He was responsible to Propaganda and could partially communicate
his faculties to his missionaries. Missions might be small, but the organizational structure was to be
applied to all of them. In the second half of the eighteenth century, a small mission such as Saint-
Pierre and Miquelon consisted of a prefect apostolic (in Saint-Pierre) and a single missionary (in
Miquelon).27 Propaganda always corresponded with individual missionaries operating in the New World,
although it was cautious never to bypass the appointed superiors in the colonies. Those who wrote to
Propaganda were unsophisticated priests who simply did not know whether the land in which they
found themselves was dependent on any superior, missionaries so far from established hierarchies that
they found it easier to correspond with Rome than with Quebec or Baltimore, rebel priests at war
with their superiors, idealists envisaging grand schemes for the conversion of the American savages,
or simply European priests who longed to be exposed to the vineyards of the New World. 28
In the mid-seventeenth century, Canada became important enough to require a more efficient
hierarchic structure. Until then, for most practical purposes, the Jesuits had run the church in the
colony. (As we shall see, Propaganda had almost no power over them). In 1658 Laval was appointed
vicar apostolic in Canada. A vicar apostolic was, in fact, a bishop abroad (in partibus infidelium). He
had the spiritual powers of a bishop, but depended on Propaganda. As soon as European diplomacy
allowed it, Laval was appointed full bishop of Quebec. 29 Propaganda corresponded directly with Laval
and his successors. Laval, in particular, sent yearly reports on the state of religion in his diocese. Later,
Bishop Jean-Olivier Briand (the first bishop after the English Conquest of 1760) appointed a vicar
general in Paris, who acted as his liaison with Rome and Propaganda. The three successive vicars
general in Paris (Pierre de La Rue, better known as Abbe de L'Isle-Dieu, appointed before the
Conquest, 1734-1777; Fran~ois Sorbier de Villars, 1777-1788; and Martin Hody, 1789-1792) forwarded
and often filtered an enormous amount of correspondence coming from North America. De La Rue was
often assisted by Joseph-Marie de La Come de Chaptes, dean of the Chapter of Quebec (1762-1779).
When the French Revolution disrupted the customary networks, the correspondence between Canada
and Rome went via Lisbon -- where the Quebec merchant Francis Morrogh acted as a practical contact
-- or was entrusted to priests travelling from Rome to England via Venice and Germany. Of course,
after the Conquest, Canada became an English possession, and a number of matters were dealt with
in London rather than in Paris. Thomas Hussey was then appointed vicar general of the bishop of
Quebec in London (1784-1788). Like his French colleagues, Hussey too had a voluminous
correspondence with Propaganda.30
After the American War of Independence, Propaganda tried to organize the American clergy
according to the system that had been applied to Canada. (Before the American Revolution, there were
only Jesuits in the British continental colonies, and the vicar apostolic in the London district enjoyed
token jurisdiction over them.) At first, a proposal was put forward to establish a vicar apostolic in
Baltimore or Philadelphia. When Benjamin Franklin unexpectedly made it clear that the American
Congress actually preferred an American bishop to a foreign vicar apostolic, John Carroll was first
appointed prefect apostolic of the missions in the United Provinces of America (1784), and then full
bishop of Baltimore (1789), thus becoming the second Catholic bishop in Anglo-America. Like his
colleague in Quebec, Carroll corresponded directly with Propaganda, but often used Hussey in London
to keep up correspondence with Rome. 3l
6