Louis-Joseph Marie Querbes was born in Lyon, France on August 21, 1793 in the midst of the French Revolution. The next daya bomb destroyed his home. His father had been a peasant, who migrated to Lyon to work as a tailor. Louis attended the parish school of St. Nizier, and 1812 the seminary of St. Irenaeus. Classmates included John Vianney, Jean-Claude Colin, and Marcellin Champagnat. Unable to enter the Society of Jesus (which was not restored until 1814, he was ordained a member of the secular clergy on December 17, 1816. He was first assigned to his home parish of Saint-Nizier. In 1822 he was named pastor of St. Bonnet in Vourles, a village of Vourles near Lyon, where he remained until his death. In the wake of the Revolution there was much social confusion and disorder, and few schools left open outside the large cities. In Vourles, between 1826 and 1831, he developed the basis of an association of catechists who would take charge of the Christian education of children and related tasks. Desirous of securing teachers for his own and for neighbouring parishes, Father Querbes established at Vourles as early as 1829 a school for the training of lay teachers, which was soon officially sanctioned by the Royal Council of Public Instruction.
Father Querbes founded the CSV in 1831 in Vourles. He chose as a patron, St. Viator, a local saint who lived in the fourth century and was revered by the people of Lyon as a model of youth. The order received papal approval in 1838. Under the leadership of Father Querbes the membership of the community increased so rapidly that before the time of his death there existed more than 200 Catechists of Saint Viator in France; and besides teaching in many parochial schools, and a school for the deaf, the clerics conducted colleges, schools of agriculture, and a publishing house from which were issued a large number of practical school classics and educational magazines such as "L'Ecole et la Famille". In 1847, at the request of Bishop Bourget of Montreal, Father Querbes sent teachers to staff a small college in Joliette, Quebec. Suffering from diabetes, Father Louis Querbes died 1 September 1, 1859. The newspaper La Croix reported on February 27, 2006 that Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, had begun the process which might lead to the beatification of Querbes. José Antonio Lezama, c.s.v. has been appointed postulator of the cause.
Legacy
The Canons of Saint Viator continue to serve in many locations around the globe. A number of educational facilities are named in his honor. The park behind the cathedral in Joliette, Quebec is named after him.
