Louis XIV - Pastor and a tithe to the church in New France

Pastor and a tithe to the church in New France
 

Louis XIV established an organization where thegovernor,the bishop and the steward monitor each other and oppose very often. Thus Mgr François de Laval is directly opposite Louis Buade Frontenac tradewater spirits,it has become a disease that decimated the Native American tribes.

In 1660, the bishop takes major and launches anotice of excommunication against all who practice this trade . On the other hand, Louis Buade Frontenac opposes Mgr François de Laval on many other topics. At some point, the crisis is at its maximum and Frontenac decides to ignore Bishop Laval and no longer involved in the Sovereign Council.

Governor Frontenac

From 1675, with the arrival of a new manager (Duchesneau), the Bishop reappears the Sovereign Council and back in business. In addition, Bishop François de Laval Laval must fight against the authority of the Governor for the appointment of priests.

The Church is therefore dependent on the state and the state of the Church. Like Rome wants to have control over the new diocese and the king shared the same desire, Rome began by appointing a delegate apostololique which is the direct representative of the Holy See and does not depend of the King of France.

When Bishop François de Laval becomes titular bishop in 1674, he reports directly to Rome. Nevertheless, the various bishops who succeed will depend on the King of France. Tithing is pooled for the livelihood of priests. It is a centralized management system to establish the authority of the bishop.

Bishop Jean-Baptiste of Chevrières Cross of St-Vallier successor and wants to undo some of what his predecessor took decades to build. Bishop Saint-Vallier has a very special character andfight withhis predecessor as with civil authorities. Bishop Saint-Vallier trust the clergy of French Canadian origin. He founded factories and decentralizing the organization of the Church.

The priest becomes the guideof this community has a responsibility to lead his people to salvation. When in a village no lord, the parish priest in lieu. In most of our villages, in addition to an often richly decorated church, there is a rectory in lieu of the manor. The priest acts not only in the spiritual realm, but often in the material sphere. It is often counsel, arbitrator in disputes between parishioners and even medicaladvisor.

The Church is in close relationship with the state, which often becomes her rival. But there is always a sense of mutual protection. One does not go without the other. This is why even Frontenac Intendant Jean Talon will seek to temper the religious authority. In return, the Church preaches obedience to the king, God's representative on earth. Not until the Governor Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil to delineate the parishes and plan new.

Tithing

In 1724, we pass from 15 to 40 parishes. The State entrusts to priests the civil registers and requires parishioners to tithe and other amounts to meet the needs of theChurch.To assist religious communities in their missions, the state provides them with huge lordships that can ensure their operations but not their development. New France lays the foundation for a society which will give the Church a role that no region of America will not let him.

The Church is dependent on the state, but it gives him a social mission that it does not want to assume. It costs him less to act and assume himself the costs related to thisobligation.It is a very particular brand of Quebecsociety.You can not blame the Church for taking up too much in Quebec society because historically it is the state that promoted this.

Mgr François de Laval

The Sulpicians were the lords of Montreal and the Recollects are in Trois-Rivières. The secular clergy for its part shall function in the countryside. There are a hundred ordinations during the French regime. However, people like to live in a parish setting. Once a significant number of settlers permits, we hasten to ask a priest by promising to build a church and a rectory. The parish provides a sense of belonging and solidarity.

Teaching in turn suffers from sparse population and severe winter. The Church remains alone in this area. It is to retain that role for the religious formation of his flock. It is primarily the priests who carry teaching at arms. The Jesuit College is the only institution to provide full classicaleducation.Candidates for the priesthood do their seminary training. Any higher education is first oriented according to the training of clergy and it will remain so until the end of the 1950s

Civil society under the French regime is a religioussociety.We baptized as soon as possible. We attended mass regularly. Life is the rhythm of Sunday periods of penance and major religious holidays. You can count a total of over one hundred and fifty days of fasting and abstinence. In addition, the priests are developing devotional brotherhoods like the Third Franciscan Order, the Work of the Good Death, etc. Other associations specifically reserved for married women or girls seek Christian perfection.

Women are encouraged to pray for their family. If there is a plague, all demanding their pastor public prayers and processions. The clergy of New France managed to keep the religion of the native country. Vocations are quite numerous: from 1650 to 1762 there was 841 religious vocations, including 630 women and 211 men. Secular communities mainly attract female vocations.

However, the Jesuits and the Sulpicians deny colonial in their ranks while the communities are fully Canadian women as 80% of the secular clergy. The Church pre-Conquest is strongly rooted in the community. It gave the company to NewFrance with the help of the Royal Government essential frameworks to ensure its survival.

Paid by the faithful to meet the expenses of the church, tithing is on crops and livestock, and concerns only the rural world. The rate is usually eight percent. At harvest, farmers prepare the wheels and the decimator passes withdraw from the fields sheaves due to him. But if a little slow or if bad weather threatens, farmers have the right to return their crop before its passage. They then take the opportunity to cheat by hiding some grain or giving only small sheaves. Besides the tithe is a perpetual subject of litigation and often the cure, when advocates, is obliged to excommunication décalcitrants.

The excomminication

Every Sunday from the pulpit, priests'throw ecommuniements "(excommunication) as people call the threats of excommunication pronounced against usurers, soothsayers, those living in concubinage ... but also against the peasants who do not pay tithingmeans.  

Excommunication is also used as a public denouncementwhen the royal court " can not have other evidence of the facts contained in an indictment, "she asked the priest to publish advocates" monitory "letters that require the faithful to" testify what they know of the facts contained on pain . excommunication  

"Butthe real risk is made: we must truly have committed something serious to be forbidden to damn or worse, expelled from the community of the faithful. The threat is no less true especially for believers who may consider addressing death without the assistance of religion. If one burns the excommunicated, the memory remains in quuotidiennes expressions as well as they say "a Fargot is communicated, when we can not do it burn" ...

Governor James Murray(1774)and adopted a conciliatory policy in the face Canadians: establishment of a parallel judicial system respecting the French CivilCode,permission for Canadian lawyers to practice their profession, appointment of a superintendent of the Catholic Church (bishop), encouraging donations (tithes) paid to the Catholic Church, etc.

James Murray and supporters of the French Party believe that Canadians are too numerous to be totally intransigent against them. These conciliatory actions had all designed to simplify management and prevent the French Canadians are up against His Majesty.

Other provisions of the Quebec Actinclude recognition of the manorial system, the French society, according to Bishop and recognition of tithing. No language provision is included in the text of the QuebecAct.However, Canadians have the right to practice their religion in their own language, as French is used in the courts and in civil cases. The governors of the Province of Quebec, like many leaders are bilingual. French is still, at that time, the language of international communication.

This law was repealed in Quebec to 1975 for tithing is no longer mandatory.

Alain Laprise April 24, 2019