French Born Jesuit Lead Procession Of 800 Threw Montreal

Bishop Ignace Bourget

Bishop Ignace Bourget was an ultramontane, deeply committed to papal supremacy and the subservience of the state to that supremacy. He was the staunch adversary of the so-called Gallicans who accepted the authority of the state and believed that the Catholic Church in each country should have freedom to modify its practices in the light of national custom.

It was fitting, then, that Fr. Antoine-Nicolas Braun, S.J. preached the sermon that day before Bourget. Braun was a French-born Jesuit who, in 1870, had been forced out of his duties in Quebec City for his anti-gallican views. 

In Montreal he found a congenial mentor in Bishop Bourget, though he wound up preaching the anniversary sermon by accident. The ultramontane Bishop Louis-Francois Lafleche proved unavailable at the last moment. "Father Braun ... laid down the doctrine that ... if the civil decrees were permitted any authority at all," we reported, "it was owing to the leniency and kindness of the spiritual authorities. The spiritual power made the laws, and simply employed the state to carry them into effect." He was in effect advocating a theocracy. For many Montrealers, even some priests, this sounded as weird then as it surely does today. After the mass, the procession formed again and made its way to city hall where some 800 people sat down to "a sumptuous banquet."
Link (here) to read the full story at the Montreal Gazette