Missionary bishop, born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. After studying and teaching in France, where he was ordained a Sulpician (1788), he went to the USA (1794) where he became president of Georgetown College (17969) and superior of the Sisters of Charity. As Bishop of Louisiana (from 1815) he played a key role in the infancy of American Catholicism. He returned to France in 1826.
Louis William Valentine Dubourg (1766 – 1833) was a leader of the Roman Catholic Church who played an active role in the growth of the church in the early years of the United States. He went on to turn what had been St. Mary's seminary in Baltimore, Maryland into St. Mary's College, which would eventually become St. Mary's Seminary and University. He also invited the widow Elizabeth Ann Seton to Baltimore in 1808 to establish a Catholic school for girls and later establish the Sisters of Charity of New York there. When he arrived in New Orleans, he found that the rampant vice of the city, coupled with the insubordination of Antonio de Sedella, a popular Spanish Capuchin priest who catered to the whims of the lukewarm local Catholic population, gave him reason to request that a new bishoporic be created for Louisiana. Shortly thereafter, however, he found he could no longer safely reside in New Orleans, and to avoid a schism, he relocated to St. Louis, Missouri in 1817. While in St. Louis, Dubourg founded St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary, the first college founded west of the Mississippi River. He also helped to bring Rose Philippine Duchesne and her newly created Society of the Sacred Heart to the St. Louis area. In 1823, his last year in St. Louis, he welcomed the arrival of Pierre-Jean De Smet and his fellow Jesuits to the diocese. These same men would later found St. Louis University.
He then returned to New Orleans, leaving the St. Louis Catholic community greatly expanded, even if in considerable debt. Joseph Rosati became his coadjutor in 1825, and after Dubourg returned to France, Rosati became the first bishop of the new diocese of Saint Louis.
In 1825, Dubourg returned to France, having resigned his seat in New Orleans due to supervisory conflicts with Rosati.
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