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Had the chance to read the famous Guibord case today (Brown v. Brown v the Curé of Montréal). It’s an astonishing case for all sorts of reasons, so I hope you’ll excuse a detour down this rather extraordinary civil law, ecclesiastical law, canon law rabbit hole.
In 1869 Joseph Guibord, a Catholic in Montréal, died. He had been a member of the Institut Canadien which the local bishop, Mons. Ignace Bourget, had declared to be a condemned society meaning that no Catholic could be a member.
Thus when Guibord died he was refused a burial in the Catholic cemetery by the local Curé. He was offered a civic burial in unconsecrated ground by the Church authorities, but denied the burial rites of a Catholic in good standing, in accordance with the directive of the bishop.
Guibord’s wife, Henriette Brown, pursued the case. She applied for a judicial remedy and remarkably the Superior Court of Quebec required Guibord to be buried in consecrated ground with the rites and ceremonies of the Catholic Church.
But wait there’s (much) more. The Church authorities were obviously unhappy about this and so appealed to the Court of Review, which overturned the Superior Court’s decision on grounds of religious liberty and the rights of the Church.
Mrs Brown then appealed to the Court of the Queen’s Bench. Here the four judges were all Catholics, and so the case was put that they were unable to make a decision because they were bound to a foreign potentate (i.e., the Pope). An old and dirty trick!
The Quebec Court of Queen’s Bench dismissed Brown’s case in a unanimous judgement, leaving Mrs Brown only one further point of appeal: the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
Between receiving her leave to appeal and the Privy Council meeting, Brown died. She left all her funds to the Institut Canadien to continue the case, which they did. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, including Sir Robert Phillimore (Hic genuflectur!), met in 1874.
Phillimore judged the case in the most extraordinary way. He refused to decide on the status of the Catholic Church (very good of him), but decided to pronounce on the manner of the excommunication itself. He essentially judged the Church on his own reading of the canon law.
In the end they refused to judge the issue of the Church’s burial rites, but insisted nevertheless that Guibord should finally be buried in the Catholic cemetery and in the consecrated ground of that cemetery. The first attempt was seen off by a local mob. The second succeeded.
You might think that was the final word, it being the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and all. You’d be wrong. The Bishop of Montréal promptly declared the ground in which Guibord was buried to be deconsecrated, under interdict, and separate from the rest of the cemetery.
This really is an extraordinary case with all sorts of interesting and obscure questions about religious liberty, the role of the civil courts, internal ecclesiastical administration and the rule of law in the Church itself. #CanonLaw is never dull.
