Pierre-Paul Durieu (December 4, 1830 – June 1, 1899), was a Roman Catholic missionary and the first Bishop of New Westminster, in British Columbia, Canada.

Life

Durieu was born in 1830 in

Saint-Pal-de-Mons Saint-Pal-de-Mons (; oc, Sent Pal de Mons) is a commune in the Haute-Loire department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Depart ...

, the second son of Blaise Durieux and Mariette Bayle, a farming family who had sheltered the clergy during the French Revolution. As a boy, both he and his brother were allowed to study at the local minor seminary at

Monistrol-sur-Loire Monistrol-sur-Loire is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France.novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate at

Notre-Dame-de-l'Osier Notre-Dame-de-l'Osier is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. It is famous for being the location of a Marian apparition that took place in 1657. A church was built on the site of the apparition and completed in 1858. It b ...

on 31 October 1848. He professed

religious vows Religious vows are the public vows made by the members of religious communities pertaining to their conduct, practices, and views. In the Buddhism tradition, in particular within the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, many different kinds of re ...

on 1 November of the following year. After that, he did his studies in preparation for Holy Orders at the Oblate seminary in

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

. In 1854 Durieu was ordained as a priest by Eugène de Mazenod, the founder of his religious congregation, and, after being sent for further training in English and theology, was sent to join the

Oregon Mission The Methodist Mission was the Methodist Episcopal Church's 19th-century conversion efforts in the Pacific Northwest. Local Indigenous cultures were introduced to western culture and Christianity. Superintendent Jason Lee was the principal leader fo ...

s, where he was assigned to serve at St. Mary's Mission in the Yakima Valley and the Okanagan area of British Columbia. In 1875, Paul Durieu was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

as the

coadjutor bishop A coadjutor bishop (or bishop coadjutor) is a bishop in the Catholic, Anglican, and (historically) Eastern Orthodox churches whose main role is to assist the diocesan bishop in the administration of the diocese. The coadjutor (literally, "co ...

for the Vicariate Apostolic of British Columbia by Louis-Joseph d'Herbomez, the Vicar Apostolic. Upon his death, Durieu became Vicar Apostolic, and later the first Bishop of New Westminster (which later became the

Archdiocese of Vancouver The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver ( la, Archidioecesis Vancouveriensis) is a Roman Catholic Latin archdiocese that includes part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its cathedral archiepiscopal see is the Holy Rosary Cathed ...

). During his tenure, Durieu commanded the First Nations people of British Columbia to obey four directives: discontinue performing

native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

dances; cease the practice of

potlach A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Scienc ...

; cease consulting shamans; and to abstain from drinking and gambling. He wrote a book of

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

stories in Chinook Jargon in order to teach the Catholic faith to the native peoples under his care, and set up mission centers where they could keep their nomadic traditions but be reached by the missionaries. He attempted to secure treaties with the Canadian government to protect the rights of the peoples of the First Nations against the growing encroachments of the white settlers, to no avail. Durieu died in 1899 and was buried alongside his predecessor at St. Mary's Mission. The farming community of Durieu, northeast of Mission, B.C., is named after him.

References

*
"Former Bishops"
Archdiocese of Vancouver. Retrieved March 2, 2013.

Catholic Hierarchy. Retrieved March 2, 2013.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Durieu, Pierre-Paul 1830 births 1899 deaths People from Haute-Loire French Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic bishops of New Westminster 19th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Canada Franco-Columbian people Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Translators to Chinookan French emigrants to pre-Confederation British Columbia 19th-century translators Roman Catholic missionaries in Canada French expatriates in Canada Missionary linguists