CARRIÈRE, JOSEPH

Sulpician moral theologian; b. Panouze-de-Cernon, near Rodez, France, Feb. 19, 1795; d. Lyons, April 23, 1864. He attended the Sulpician seminary at Issy, where he taught theology even before ordination. Immediately after ordination in 1817 he was assigned to teach the postgraduate course in moral theology at the seminary in Paris. Here he composed a remarkable course, Praelectiones theologicae majores in seminario Sancti Sulpitii habitae (1837–47), of which he published three sections: De matrimonio (2 v. Paris 1837); De justitia et jure (3 v. Paris 1839); and De contractibus (3. v. Paris 1844–47). These treatises went through several editions and won him great acclaim. He was the first writer of note to treat of theology in its relations to the Napoleonic Code, and his expositions of French law were accepted as authoritative by the jurists of his time, who admired him greatly for his knowledge, clarity, fairness, and decisiveness of judgment and his simplicity and modesty of character. Extant correspondence with bishops, priests, and laymen show how highly his advice was esteemed. As official visitator of the Sulpician houses in the U.S. in 1829 he attended the First Council of Baltimore. In 1850 he became the 13th superior general of the Society of Saint Sulpice.

Bibliography: e. levesque, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912), 11:1131–32. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951), 2.2:1804–05. l. bertrand, Bibliothèque sulpicienne, 3 v. (Paris 1900), 2:272–281. p. h. lamazou, M. Carrière, supérieur de Saint Sulpice (Paris 1864). h. hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae, 5 v. in 6 (3d ed. Innsbruck 1903–13) 5.1:1389.

[m. j. barry]