Early Life and Education
Kelly's success had humble beginnings. He was born in Quebec City, Quebec, to a carter, John Kelly, and Marguerite Migneron. If Joseph-Octave Plessis had not encountered him on the street and sent him to primary school, Kelly might have lived an unremarkable life. As it happened, Kelly, after that schooling, and reaching the age of 14, was sent to the Petit Séminaire de Québec, where his "very great application in all things" could be demonstrated. Elected prefect of the Congrégation de la Bienheureuse-Vierge-Marie-Immaculée in 1802, Kelly was assisted by Jacques Labrie and future Lower Canada Rebellion leader Louis-Joseph Papineau.
Plessis had also furthered his own career, becoming coadjutor bishop of Quebec. In 1803, Kelly had a chance to repay Plessis' investment in him, becoming Plessis' assistant secretary. Two years later, when Plessis was made bishop, Kelly served as diocesan secretary. The next year, 1806, Kelly left his mentor, and Quebec City, to work under François Cherrier, Vicar General at Saint-Denis, a town south of Montreal (and, coincidentally, where Kelly's former assistant Papineau would win a major Rebel victory three decades later). Cherrier was also impressed by Kelly, describing him as "his charming lieutenant vicar". On 9 November 1806, Plessis ordained his protegée as a full Catholic priest.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Baptiste Kelly
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“I am not describing a distant utopia, but the kind of education which must be the great urgent work of our time. By the end of this decade, unless the work is well along, our opportunity will have slipped by.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)