Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal - Controversy of The Uncloistered

Controversy of The Uncloistered

The difficulties of establishing a non-cloistered religious order for women in 17th century New France were considerable. At the time, such independent action by women threatened some men, and the church preferred the regimen of the cloistered nun behind the walls of a convent. Marguerite and the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal broke this mold. Before 1698, the first two bishops of Quebec, François de Laval and Jean-Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, were ambivalent about the Congregation, failing to understand their need to remain uncloistered. However, they did recognize the societal need for traveling teachers; they counted on Bourgeoys and her sisters to reach the small and dispersed population of Canada in these early years. The sisters were allowed to live a relatively uncloistered life. They were needed to take education to the children between Quebec and Montreal and beyond. If women were to be the educators, Laval and Saint-Vallier reluctantly recognized the sisters needed to be able to travel and live outside a convent.

By 1694 Bishop Saint-Vallier sent the Congregation a new constitution that imposed more restrictions. The nuns had enjoyed certain freedoms for approximately forty years, and resisted more restrictive and conventional rules. The constitution afforded the Congregation the right to officially declare vows, necessary to gain legitimacy in the frontier society and grow as an organization. It required the sisters to be obedient to and report directly to the bishop of Quebec. The document also required them to take solemn vows, attacked their more secular activities in the convent, and instituted the requirement of a dowry to be donated by new sisters. After a few years of resistance, in 1698 the sisters had to accept Saint-Vallier’s constitution; it had traditional requirements long enforced in Europe. Cloistering was a tradition used to safeguard the chastity of nuns, as well as to encourage a more prayerful way of life.