Benjamin Pâquet

He was an influential and controversial figure in 19th century Quebec religious politics, making numerous enemies amongst the French-Canadian ultra-montane elite of the period.

Pâquet was born in 1832 in Saint-Nicolas, near Lévis, then Lotbinière County, on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Québec City.

His studies completed, he immediately enrolled at the Grand Séminaire, where his major achievement was the relaunching the student newspaper, L'Abeille ("the Bee"), launched in the 1840s and whose publication had stopped.

[2] Pâquet soon demonstrated, in addition to theology, a keen interest in people and events, commenting on the inner politics and controversies of the time such as the Montreal ultramontanes' struggle, under the leadership of Ignace Bourget, to establish an independent university.

While in Rome, Louis-Honoré became very ill, and Benjamin promised that, should his brother recover, he'd build a chapel to the Virgin Mary, which he did upon in return.

[1] Upon his return in 1866 he was appointed to Université Laval's faculty, and soon thereafter got involved in one of numerous controversies that would pit him against Alexis Pelletier, a virulently polemic ultra-montane who would remain one of his staunchest opponents.

This first clash was related to Frenchman Jean-Joseph Gaume's crusade to remove pagan authors from the classical curriculum, which Pelletier echoed in Canada.

[1] These attacks proved fruitless, and the text was hailed in La Civiltà Cattolica as "the most faithful echo of Roman doctrines.

Amongst his informers were Hospice-Anthelme Verreau in Montreal, Calixte Marquis in Nicolet, Joseph-Sabin Raymond in Saint-Hyacinthe, and Zepherino Zitelli and [Alessandro Cardinal Franchi, from the then Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.

He invested a lot to increase his influence, and gained over that time several appointments: apostolic protonotary (1876), privy chamberlain (1877), and adviser to the Congregation of the Index (1878).

"[1] For all this Pâquet attracted universal loathing from the ultra-montanes, and many of the province's bishops requested his return in 1878, seeing him as the prime source of strife amongst the clergy.

In 1892, a year before leaving his rectory, a proposal to nominate him to the diocese of Chicoutimi was abandoned because of fierce opposition (Louis-Nazaire Bégin was succeeded by Michel-Thomas Labrecque).