Today is the Feast of St. Francis Laval — a knightly bishop whose diocese extended from Canada to New England, and all the Mississippi Valley, extending even to the Rocky Mountains.
St. Laval struggled a great deal throughout his ministry to defend the church’s power against state intrusion and did not hesitate to impose the threat of excommunication on those who would jeopardize souls for the sake of profit and control.
He defend Native People from being exploited by merchants and governors through the sale of alcohol and was especially committed to education, founding both a major and a minor seminary. The Séminaire de Québec, which later established Laval University, has made major contributions in the intervening centuries to higher academic education not only in Quebec and the rest of Canada, but throughout North America.
Saint Francis Laval, a true model bishop and model evangelizer — pray for us!
