It was the Jesuits who placed the church of Quebec under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, and gave it as second patron St. Louis, King of France.  This double choice could not but be agreeable to the pious Bishop of Petraea.  Learning, moreover, that the members of the Society of Jesus renewed each year in Canada their vow to fast on the eve of the festival of the Immaculate Conception, and to add to this mortification several pious practices, with the view of obtaining from Heaven the conversion of the savages, he approved this devotion, and ordered that in future it should likewise be observed in his seminary.  He sanctioned other works of piety inspired or established by the Jesuit Fathers; the novena, which has remained so popular with the French-Canadians, at St. Francois-Xavier, the Brotherhoods of the Holy Rosary and of the Scapulary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  He encouraged, above all, devotion to the Holy Family, and prescribed wise regulations for this worship.  The Pope deigned to enrich by numerous indulgences the brotherhoods to which it gave birth, and in recent years Leo XIII instituted throughout the Church the celebration of the Festival of the Holy Family.  “The worship of the Holy Family,” the illustrious pontiff proclaims in a recent bull, “was established in America, in the region of Canada, where it became most flourishing, thanks chiefly to the solicitude and activity of the venerable servant of God, Francois de Montmorency Laval, first Bishop of Quebec, and of God’s worthy handmaiden, Marguerite Bourgeoys.”  According to Cardinal Taschereau, it was Father Pijard who established the first Brotherhood of the Holy Family in 1650 in the Island of Montreal, but the real promoter of this cult was another Father of the Company of Jesus, Father Chaumonot, whom Mgr. de Laval brought specially to Quebec to set at the head of the brotherhood which he had decided to found.

It was the custom, in these periods of fervent faith, to place buildings, cities and even countries under the aegis of a great saint, and Louis XIII had done himself the honour of dedicating France to the Virgin Mary.  People did not then blush to practise and profess their beliefs, nor to proclaim them aloud.  On the proposal of the Recollets in a general assembly, St. Joseph was chosen as the first patron saint of Canada; later, St. Francois-Xavier was adopted as the second special protector of the colony.

Montreal, which in the early days of its existence maintained with its rival of Cape Diamond a strife of emulation in the path of good as well as in that of progress, could no longer do without a religious edifice worthy of its already considerable importance.  Mgr. de Laval was at this time on a round of pastoral visits, for, in spite of the fatigue attaching to such a journey, at a time when there was not yet even a carriage-road between the two towns, and when, braving contrary winds, storms and the snares of the Iroquois,