Louis William Valentine Dubourg

Louis William Valentine Dubourg (né Louis Guillaume Valentin Dubourg; 1766 – 1833) was a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the early years of the United States. He was born in Cap Français, St. Domingue, now known as Cap-Haïtien, Haiti to Pierre Dubourg and his wife, Marguerite (née Armand de Vogluzan).

Pierre Dubourg was a merchant from Bordeaux who had relocated temporarily to St. Domingue. His business interests included a trading warehouse and a coffee plantation. Although the family would retain interests in Saint-Domingue, young Louis was removed, aged two years old, to Bourdeaux to live with his maternal grandparents and to be educated in France. His early education was received at the College de Guyenne, a royal institution claiming a heritage to the third century. He continued his education at the petit seminaire of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, entering on October 12, 1786. Saint-Sulpice was run by the Sulpicians and maintained a grand-seminaire for the education of the sons of the nobility and a petit-seminaire for the education of commoners. Dubourg completed his course and was ordained in March 1790, in an auspicious time for the commencement of a clerical career in France. His first assignment was to a new community at Issy to work in a boarding school for younger boys. As conditions deteriorated, Dubourg was forced to flee in August 1792 for exile in Spain.

Dubourg makes his way to Spain then to the United States

Seven months after Dubourg went into exile, Spain was host to 6,322 French priests. The king limited their function to saying Mass, and prohibited them from holding public office or teaching. The French were suspected of Jansenism and Gallicanism. To make matters worse, the declaration of war in 1793 made French exiles enemy aliens. This combination of impediments forced French clerical exiles to seek ministries elsewhere. Needing to move on, Dubourg, while looking for a ship in 1793, found a captain who recognized him from the resemblance to his brother who, the captain informed him, had fled to Baltimore. He took passage on his ship and landed in Baltimore, then home to 1,500 Dominican refugees from the uprising of Toussaint L'Ouverture. He was appointed President of Georgetown College on October 1, 1796, serving until early 1799. Under his administration, the curriculum expanded and the college's enrollment grew. During his tenure he hosted a visit by former President George Washington in 1797. Washington tied his horse up and entered alone. On July 10, 1798, Dubourg was a dinner guest at Washington's home in Mount Vernon.^{[citation needed]}

When Dubourg resigned from Georgetown he was not on good terms with the directors. Bishop John Carroll explained the origin of the problem: “He was too fond of introducing his countrymen into every department; and the Directors had too strong prejudices against every thing, which was derived, in any shape, from France ... in consequence thereof, their judgment had an involuntary bias to blame him”. Internationally, the main dividing issue between the Federalists of Hamilton and Adams and the Republicans of Jefferson and Madison was whether the U.S. should be allied with Britain or France.

After leaving Georgetown, Dubourg founded St. Mary's College, Baltimore, remaining as president for thirteen years, during which he acquired a reputation as a spendthrift while introducing some innovations. Seeing a need to obtain financing for the College, he obtained permission from the State of Maryland to run a lottery. While his own inattention to detail may have contributed to the decline of the institution, international politics also played a role. The Concordat between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII provided for some reestablishment of the Church in France and led some French clergy to return home, thereby depleting St. Mary's faculty. Dubourg considered a return and even taking the College with him, but both remained. The college relied heavily on students from the Caribbean. The withdrawal of Cuban students was a blow as were the Non-Intercourse Acts of the Jefferson administration, which limited enrollment from the Caribbean as well as cut off the funds for tuition payments for those who were enrolled. Despite these handicaps, the school survived. During his stay in Baltimore, Dubourg achieved a position of personal prominence. He was instrumental in assisting the Poor Clares, exiles from France, to open a school for girls in Georgetown. While preaching in New York, he captured the imagination of a young widow, Elizabeth Ann Seton, guiding her journey to religious life. He was the superior of her Daughters of Charity who advised their relocation from Baltimore to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where their Motherhouse and the shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton remain.

Dubourg appointed Bishop of Louisiana and the Floridas

The expansion of the United States created a need for the extension of the episcopal leadership of the Church. Among other sees, Archbishop Carroll nominated Dubourg as Bishop of the Louisianas. DuBourg was confronted with several challenges when he began his ministry in the west. At the time of Dubourg's arrival in New Orleans corruption was rampant, and nowhere more so than in the Church. The dominant person in the Church was Antonio de Sedella, O.F.M. Cap., pastor of the Cathedral of New Orleans by appointment by the king of Spain. DuBourg chose to make his residence at the Ursuline Convent.

With Napoleon defeated, Dubourg decided to return to Europe to present the problems of the Church in Louisiana to the officials of the Propaganda, the Curia department responsible for the Mission territories. Before leaving, Dubourg created a controversy by naming another French émigré, Fr. Louis Sibourd administrator in his absence. Sedella refused to acknowledge the authority of Sibourd unless Dubourg could show he had the authority to appoint a vicar general. With the controversy raging, Dubourg departed New Orleans on May 4, 1815, arriving in Bordeaux in July, shortly after the battle of Waterloo. The occupation of France made travel difficult. Dubourg sent correspondence to Rome explaining the situation in New Orleans. The newly freed Pope Pius VII responded with a letter to Archbishop Carroll confirming Sibourd as Vicar General. Forthcoming was Dubourg’s appointment as bishop, followed by his consecration on September 24, 1815 at the church of Saint Louis of the French in Rome.

On his trip, Dubourg proceeded to recruit for his diocese. In northern Italy he worked among the Congregation of the Mission, the Vincentians, led to his first recruit, Fr. Felix de Andreas. DeAndreas then recruited the Reverend Joseph Rosati who, in time, would be the first bishop of St. Louis and builder of what is now known as the Old Cathedral. Among others were Fr. Leo De Neckere and Antoine Le Blanc, who would become successive bishops of New Orleans and Michel Portier who would become Bishop of Mobile. The scandals of Sedella induced Mother Marie Oliver of the Ursulines to consider removal of her sisters from New Orleans, but Dubourg talked her into, not only permitting them to stay, but sending nine more postulants. In January 1817, Dubourg visited Madeleine Sophie Barat to ask her to send some of her Religious of the Sacred Heart to his diocese. One enthusiastic volunteer was 47 year old Mother Rose Philippine Duchesne, who led a group of four nuns in pursuit of her dream of teaching the Indians. Joining the group were three members of the Christian Brothers. He collected art work which currently graces the Basilica of Saint Louis in Missouri and the Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. Dubourg requested permission to locate his episcopal see in St. Louis, far upriver from the corruption of New Orleans and Sedella.

Dubourg serves the Church in St. Louis

Dubourg left Bordeaux with more than two dozen supporters on July 1, 1817, arriving at Annapolis on September 4. Traveling by stage and steamboat, Dubourg first reached Missouri on December 28 at Fenwick’s Settlement near the mouth of Apple Creek. They moved on to Ste. Genevieve where he said the first Pontifical Mass in his diocese on January 1, 1818. He moved on to Cahokia whence a mounted patrol of 40 accompanied him to St. Louis, Missouri on January 5, 1818, where he was installed in the church which was described as “a kind of miserable barn falling into ruins." A town which had not had even a resident pastor was now the home of an extraordinary bishop and would soon be flooded with missionaries. St. Louis in 1817 was a small episcopal see as the city did not extend beyond Third Street, had no resident pastor and no proper cathedral. Dubourg made a request that St. Louis prepare to raise funds for the erection of a cathedral, for support for the missionaries and to reimburse him for the journey. Dubourg achieved four goals: the building of an adequate church and strengthening of the organization of the Saint Louis parish, the founding of an academy for boys under the guidance of diocesan priests, a girls school under the Religious of the Sacred Heart, and a missionary effort among the Indians.

Dubourg invited Mother Duchesne to establish, in 1818, an Academy in St. Charles and then Florissant. That same year, Dubourg founded St. Louis Academy, which later evolved into Saint Louis University. Dubourg established a seminary under the auspices of the Vincentians in St. Louis and Perryville, which remains a focus of Vincentian activity today. Three Christian Brothers were sent to staff Ste. Genevieve Academy on January 3, 1819. That same year Dubourg addressed the issue of the appointment of coadjutors to assist in his large diocese. In this he betrayed an incredible string of bad judgment. He first nominated Fr. Louis Sibourd, whom he had named vicar general when he went to Europe for the northern part of the diocese. This request was denied by Rome due to Sibourd’s age. Dubourg raised the issue of appointing Sedella as vicar general, but Sedella declined the offer. In his letter, Sedella gave his age and the preposterous situation in which the ordinary would be in the village of St. Louis, while a coadjutor would be in New Orleans. This letter may have played a role in DuBourg's move to New Orleans. In 1822, Dubourg left St. Louis with an unfinished church and an unresolved issue about preaching to the growing Anglophone population.

In 1823, Dubourg made a further contribution to the development of St. Louis. A financial crisis in Maryland forced a group of Belgian Jesuits to seek a new home. Dubourg seized the opportunity by taking advantage of a “faith-based initiative” of the Federal government by applying for a funding for an Indian school. The grant was approved, and seven pioneer Jesuits, most prominent among them the renowned Indian missionary Pierre De Smet, moved their ministry to St. Louis. Dubourg situated them on a farm in Florissant in the vicinity of the Religious of the Sacred Heart. A few year later these same Jesuits would take over Saint Louis College, the successor of Saint Louis Academy which later evolved into the current Saint Louis University. In 1825, Dubourg rejected the claim by one Father Segura to the Red Church of St. Charles Borromeo of St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. Segura left the diocese of Aire without an exeat; Dubourg had ordered Segura to secure the exeat, and with that, the parish would be his. Dubourg condemned this decision by Segura and the parish churchwardens, but Segura remained in the post until the appointment of Leo-Raymond de Neckere as Bishop of New Orleans in 1830.

In 1826, Dubourg made his last trip to Missouri, visiting Perryville, Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis where he attempted, and thought that he succeeded, in suppressing Saint Louis College. He left St. Louis by steamboat and traveled to Europe where he resigned.

Dubourg returns to France

The Church in France was then recovering from the Napoleonic era and Dubourg was appointed Bishop of Montauban, where he served for seven years before becoming Archbishop of Besançon in eastern France. Dying on December 11, 1833, aged 67, after living less than a year in Besançon in which cathedral he is now buried.

References

• Bowden, Henry Warner. Dictionary of American Religious Biography, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977; ISBN 0-8371-8906-3
• Christensen, Lawrence O. Dictionary of Missouri Biography. Columbia, MO and London: University of Missouri Press, 1999; ISBN 0-8262-1222-0
• Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1967
• Annabelle M. Melville, Louis William Dubourg: Bishop of Louisiana and the Floridas, Bishop of Montauban, and Archbishop of Besancon, 1766-1833, Loyola University Press,

1986; ISBN 9996432122

External links

• Dubourg's role, continued here in what became the Archdiocese of Saint Louis
• "Louis-Guillaume-Valentin Dubourg". Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05178c.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-17. 

Academic offices
Preceded by Robert Molyneux, S.J. #2	President of Georgetown University 1796-1798 #3	Succeeded by Leonard Neale, S.J. #4