Québec, Dublin et la fondation d'universités catholiques dans l'Empire britannique au XIXe siècle

Abstract

This article analyzes the founding, in the mid-19th century, of Catholic universities in Quebec City and Dublin, under the authority of the Catholic Church and within the context of the British Empire. Laval University was founded in Quebec City and the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin as Catholic responses to the rise of Protestant higher education and the revolutions of 1848. These two universities opened their doors within weeks of each other, in 1854. A segment of the Catholic clergy in Canada and Ireland viewed the creation of Catholic universities as a means of preserving their religion, a minority religion in both British North America and the United Kingdom. The article first examines the Catholic university projects that took shape in Canada and Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century. It then highlights the support provided by the Irish Catholic diaspora for the creation of a Catholic university in Dublin, emphasizing how this support indirectly contributed to the founding of Laval University. The article concludes with an analysis of the 1852 European journey undertaken by Louis-Jacques Casault, Superior of the Seminary of Quebec, to obtain charters from the British Crown and the Holy See for Laval University. During this trip, representatives of the proposed Catholic universities in Quebec and Dublin crossed paths in Rome, where the Holy See compared the two projects and evaluated the extent to which each might antagonize the political authorities of the United Kingdom. Casault’s journey, which reportedly included a stop in Belgium, illustrates, finally, the significant role the Catholic University of Leuven played as a model for the Catholic university projects in Quebec and Dublin.