Masanori Sakano

In 1658 Pope Alexander VII appointed four French priests to the position of Vicar Apostolic and sent them to the Canadian and the Asian missions. This was because the Roman Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (hereafter, RCPF) intended to take back the initiative in the world Catholic missionary effort from Spain and Portugal, in order to create a new strategy. On the other hand, the Paris Foreign Missions Society (hereafter, PFMS), which was to realize this new strategy, was organized during the early 1660's by these four Vicars Apostolic, the missionaries who accompanied them an...

In the colonial history of early modern France, the research has dealt mainly with the regime of mercantilism. However, New France did have colonial functions, agricultural, commercial, military, and religious. In particular, the religious function was one of the most important at the beginning of 17^<th> century. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to examine the religious character of colonization in connection with the movement of French Catholic reconquest. There are three arguments presented in this article. First, the colonial strategy was to construct "Catholic French colonies" a...