Benjamin Pâquet (or Paquet, pronounced ; March 27, 1832 – February 25, 1900) was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and educator. He was an influential and controversial figure in 19th century Quebec religious politics, making numerous enemies amongst the French-Canadian ultra-montane elite of the period. Three times his name was cited for potential bishopry, but each time his opponents successfully lobbied against his nomination or the decision makers settled on a less controversial choice. Biography Pâquet was born in 1832 in Saint-Nicolas, near Lévis, then Lotbinière County, on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Québec City. The son of farmers Étienne Pâquet and Ursule Lambert, he was descended from an old, pious family of the area, and was closely related to theologian Louis-Adolphe Pâquet as well as to provincial MLA Étienne-Théodore Pâquet (both nephews). His higher studies, as well as those of his younger brother Louis-Honoré, were financed by his uncle of the same name, a wealthy merchant. Benjamin entered the Petit Séminaire de Québec in 1845. Theological studies and teaching In 1849, when returning home from a pilgrimage at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, he was prompted by his mother to become a priest. His studies completed, he immediately enrolled at the Grand Séminaire, where his major achievement was the relaunching the student newspaper, L'Abeille ("the Bee"), launched in the 1840s and whose publication had stopped. He was ordained in his home parish by then Bishop of Vancouver Island Modeste Demers, himself a Saint-Nicolas native. Assigned as assistant priest at Notre-Dame de Québec Cathedral (a fairly elevated office for a starting priest), he was specifically in charge of serving Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Church. In 1862, however, he requested a teaching position at the Petit Seminaire, a request he was granted. The next year, he was one of three priests (the other two being his brother, and a future Archbishop Cardinal of Quebec Louis-Nazaire Bégin) selected to become Doctors of Theology in Europe as future teachers of the faculty of theology. There he enrolled at the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he and his brother arrived in the middle of the start-of-year rush. Jokingly referring to themselves as "savages", the pair integrated well. Pâquet soon demonstrated, in addition to theology, a keen interest in people and events, commenting on the inner politics and controversies of the time such as the Montreal ultramontanes' struggle, under the leadership of Ignace Bourget, to establish an independent university.