Institut canadien de Montréal

[1] At the time of incorporation, the Institute had over 500 members, a library of over 2000 volumes, and a reading-room with newspapers and periodical publications.

[5][6] On 13 April 1858, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Montreal, Mgr Ignace Bourget, published a pastoral which was read in all the churches of his diocese.

He concluded by making an appeal to the members of the Institute to alter their resolution, stating that otherwise, no Catholic would continue to belong to it.

In 1865, several members of the Institute, including Joseph Guibord, appealed to Rome against this pastoral, but received no answer.

[8] On July 7, 1869, Rome added the institute's Annuaire for the year 1868 to the Catholic Church's Index of prohibited books.

He stated that any person who persisted in keeping or reading the Annuaire, or in belonging to the Institute, would be deprived of the sacrament, "même à l'article de la mort.

Bourget refused to let Henrietta Brown, Guibord's widow, bury her husband's remains in the Catholic section of the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery because he was a member of the Institute.

Henrietta Brown's lawyer, Joseph Doutre, also a member of the Institute, ultimately won his case before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the court of last resort for the British Empire, including Canada, on November 21, 1874.