François de Laval

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François de Laval

François-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval (30 April 1623 – 6 May 1708) was the first Roman Catholic bishop of New France and was one of the most influential men of his day. He was appointed when he was 36 years old by Pope Alexander VII. He is a member of the Montmorency family.

Born at Montigny-sur-Avre, Eure-et-Loir, France, he came from an illustrious part of the French nobility. As early as age 8 it was decided that he would have a career in the Church. His nomination as bishop in New France was the result of a quarrel between the Sulpicians, who actively aided the French government and its special interest groups in all its endeavours, and the Jesuits, who sought a more neutral ground. The Jesuits, who were very active in New France, did not want to work under a bishop who would have been a tool of Paris and the Sulpicians. They obtained a Papal Bull naming Laval in partibus bishop of Petra, a diocese at the time in Muslim lands, since the population of New France was too small to justify a diocese.

Laval was inflexible and zealous but knew when to compromise, in exceptional circumstances. He waged continuous warfare against the liquor trade to the Amerindians and interfered constantly in other matters whenever he saw questions of morality and religion being trampled.

In 1663 Laval founded the "Séminaire de Québec", a theological school which eventually also had lay students and finally became Université Laval, which was named in his honour in the 20th century.

By forming priests locally, and keeping their parish appointments at pleasure instead of by permanent appointment and by undertaking the construction of schools and churches, Laval created a strong local infrastructure independent of Paris.

He appears as a character in Willa Cather's novel Shadows on the Rock.