Over Christmas break this year, I had the great opportunity to celebrate the New Year with some of my closest friends in Quebec City. While Quebec is best known for its beautiful European architecture, it also holds many other treasures, including a saint! Before visiting Quebec for the first time in 2022, St. Francois de Laval was not a saint I knew well, apart from the role he plays in Willa Cather’s 1931 novel, Shadows on the Rock. In the book, we meet the “Old Bishop Laval” as a compassionate advocate for the poor of the newly established New France.
In real life, St. Francois was appointed the first Bishop of Canada in 1658 at the age of 36. With this appointment, he left behind a life of privilege in France and sailed to the Americas, arriving in Quebec (then a new city of barely 500 people) in June 1659. His leadership was marked by a strong belief in the Church’s mission of evangelization, education, and care for the sick and needy. He dedicated large sums of money towards the education of children and sought to uphold the dignity of all people under his pastoral care, including Indigenous communities.
St. Francois was incredibly dedicated to his diocese and donated everything he owned to support the Seminary of Quebec, which he founded in 1663. He also oversaw the construction of the beautiful Notre-Dame-de-Quebec Cathedral, which stands beside the seminary. His tomb is located in the Cathedral, along with an informative exhibit about his life and legacy.
By the time he retired in 1688, St. Francois de Laval had established 24 new parishes, quadrupled the number of priests in his diocese, and confirmed over 5,000 people. The diocese he guided included all of the lands discovered by French explorers, stretching from Acadia to the St. Lawrence Valley and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of America, an area that now contains over 100 dioceses. For his foundational role not only in Canada but throughout the Americas, St. Francois de Laval is often called the “Apostle of America.”
Because of his great dedication to the education of children, he is an intercessor I call upon regularly in my role as an educator at St. Benedict Classical Academy. It was truly a blessing to be able to begin the new year of 2026 with friends, praying for his intercession in the cathedral he built.
“Everything done by the hand of God is admirably useful to us, though we may not see its effects immediately.”
– Saint Francois de Laval
AUTHOR: Jessica Nee, Aegis Support
