Saint profile
François de Laval
About François de Laval
François de Laval was born at Montigny-sur-Avre in France in 1623. He studied with Jesuits and was ordained a priest in 1647. After several years in Caen, he accepted an appointment to serve the growing Catholic community of New France. He was consecrated a bishop in Paris in December 1658 and reached Québec the following June.
As apostolic vicar and then bishop, Laval built institutions for a church spread across a large colony. He founded the Québec seminary in 1663 to form and support clergy. The Canadian bishops' account describes the seminary as central to the church's development. His office also put him amid the religious and political tensions of colonial New France; this short account does not turn that history into an uncomplicated founding legend.
Laval died at Québec on 6 May 1708. His long ministry remains part of the church's memory in Canada. Pope Francis recognized him as a saint by equivalent canonization in 2014 and later named him among the evangelizers who shaped the church in Québec. The recognition supports his Catholic saint status; it does not make every detail of later devotional accounts an independently documented event.
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