Gabriel Piguet

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Gabriel Emmanuel Joseph Piguet (born February 24, 1887 in Mâcon , † July 3, 1952 in Clermont-Ferrand ) was Roman Catholic Bishop of Clermont .

Life

Priest and bishop in France

Gabriel Piguet attended the primary school in Villefranche-sur-Saône and the Jesuit college of Montgré . After graduating from high school in Macon-sur-Saône in 1904 , he entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris . He studied theology and philosophy , interrupted as a volunteer infantryman in the military, and was ordained a priest on July 2, 1910 by Léon Cardinal Amette , Archbishop of Paris . After a doctoral program at the Collegium Angelicum in Rome he became a doctor of theology doctorate . It was in 1912 vicar of the Cathedral of Autun .

In 1914 Piguet became a medic for the French troops in Saarbrücken and at the front in Hauts-de-Meuse. He was badly wounded in Apremont and retired in 1917 with military honors. He resumed his service at Autun Cathedral and got involved in Catholic Action and the youth movement. In 1925 he took over the post of sub-director of the oeuvres (works). In 1927 he became an honorary canon in Clermont. In 1929 he was appointed Vicar General of the Diocese of Clermont and Archdeacon of Chalon-sur-Saône (Saône-et-Loire) and Louhans (Saône-et-Loire) by Hyacinthe-Jean Chassagnon . He was also involved in youth work and founded the Fédération Saint-Symphorien ; In 1933 he initiated a youth pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Pope Pius XI appointed Piguet Bishop of Clermont on December 7, 1933. He was ordained episcopal by the Bishop of Autun , Hyacinthe-Jean Chassagnon , on February 27, 1934 in the Saint-Lazare Cathedral of Autun . Co - consecrators were Jean-Baptiste-Auguste Gonon , Bishop of Moulins , and Jean-Marcel Rodié , Bishop of Ajaccio . The celebrant of the consecration service was the Parisian Archbishop Louis-Joseph Cardinal Maurin . His episcopal motto was "Veritatem in caritate - The truth in love (testify)" (Eph 4:15). Piguet was the 100th Bishop of Clermont.

Piguet was committed to youth work and the Christian education of children as well as the catechism, together with François Coudreau, who he sponsored . He was a supporter of the further education of the clergy and initiated the first priestly communities. In 1942 there were over a hundred seminarians in the Clermont seminary.

Resistance and imprisonment in Dachau concentration camp

Gabriel Piguet was a member of the Legion of Ancient Fighters of the First World War (1914-1918) around Marshal Philippe Pétain . He took part in the commemorations in bishop's robe and made Clermont Cathedral available from 1940. He was the first bishop to receive Philippe Pétain as head of the French government. However, its role during the occupation of France was controversial. He respected Pétain and criticized the French resistance . Nevertheless, from August 1942 he protected Jews and partisans who were persecuted by the Gestapo . He had numerous Jewish children hidden in Catholic institutions in his district, including in Ambert .

The bunker that housed special inmates like Piguet

As a result of this resistance and under flimsy arguments about formal errors in his diocesan administration, Gabriel Piguet was arrested by Hugo Geissler , head of the Gestapo in Vichy, on May 28, 1944 after the Pentecost service in the cathedral of Clermont . He was detained in the military prison of the 92nd Infantry Regiment. Together with Franz Xaver von Bourbon-Parma , he first came to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on August 20, 1944 as a member of the Resistance , where they met the already imprisoned Charles Delestraint . On September 6, 1944, they were taken to the Dachau concentration camp (prisoner number 103.001) without further legal proceedings. Gabriel Piguet was one of the so-called "honorary prisoners" in the pastors' block , later separated in block 26 , the so-called "bunker". Since July 11, 1941, three Protestant clergymen as well as Martin Niemöller and the Catholic priests of the cathedral capitular Johannes Neuhäusler , the editor-in-chief of the Munich Catholic church newspaper Michael Höck and the Aachen cathedral capitular Nikolaus Jansen as well as Corbinian Hofmeister , Abbot of Metten , were incarcerated here. He was then abducted together with Franz Xaver von Bourbon-Parma, Peter Churchill , Léon Blum , Hermann Pünder and others, who were also imprisoned in Dachau, as hostages of the SS for possible negotiations with the Allies. On April 24, 1945, under adventurous circumstances, he was transported across Germany with 136 fellow prisoners, and at the end of the Second World War he was freed in South Tyrol by the Wehrmacht officer Wichard von Alvensleben (see Liberation of the SS hostages in South Tyrol ).

Piguet was the only French bishop who was deported by the Nazis in 1944 and 1945. On December 17, 1944, Gabriel Piguet ordained the prisoner Karl Leisner as a priest with the permission of the Bishop of Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen , and the Archbishop of Munich, Michael von Faulhaber .

In 1951 it turned out that Gabriel Piguet had also helped Jewish families during the Second World War by issuing numerous false baptism certificates.

Honors

Pastoral letters

His pastoral letters received special attention:

  • The Salvation Role of the Bishop and Catholic Action (1934)
  • The Modern World and God (1935)
  • The Problem of Life (1936)
  • The Christian Spirit (1937)
  • The indispensable charity (1938)
  • The Child's Spirit (1939)
  • The Christian Spirit of France (1940)
  • Our Spiritual Contribution to French Renewal (1941)
  • Our Father in Heaven - Cry and Light of the Believing Spirit in Despair (1942)
  • The Redeemer (1943)
  • Spiritual Renewal (1944)
  • Some Aspects of Spiritual Resistance to Nazism (1946)
  • The Christian Balance (1947)
  • Spiritual wealth and poverty (1948)
  • The Kingdom of God Within Us (1949)
  • Holy Year - Time of Construction (1950)
  • The Authentic Testimony of the Christian (1951)
  • The True Face of the Christian (1952)

literature

Web links

Commons : Gabriel Piguet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h International Karl Leisner Circle: Biography of Gabriel Piguet (Circular No. 46 of August 2002)
  2. ↑ Thomas Kempter: “Celebrating God in Dachau Concentration Camp - Eucharist. In the "Bunker" , diploma thesis at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg / Breisgau; September 2005 (pdf; 1.19 MB)
  3. ↑ Eike Lossin: Catholic clergy in National Socialist concentration camps: piety between adaptation, command and resistance , Königshausen & Neumann 2011
  4. ↑ Otto Pies and Karl Leisner: Friendship in the Hell of the Dachau Concentration Camp , Pies 2007
  5. ↑ Jost Dülffer: Cologne in the 50s: between tradition and modernization , SH-Verlag 2001, p. 225
  6. ↑ Peter Koblank: The Liberation of Special Prisoners and Kinship Prisoners in South Tyrol , online edition Mythos Elser 2006
  7. ↑ Hans-Karl Seeger (Ed.): Karl Leisner - ordination and primacy in the Dachau concentration camp . Lit, Münster, 2nd, expanded edition 2006, ISBN 3-8258-7277-7 , pp. 72–91.
  8. ↑ Gabriel Piguet on the website of Yad Vashem (English)
predecessor Office successor
Jean-François-Etienne Marnas Bishop of Clermont
1933–1952 		Pierre-Abel-Louis Chappot de la Chanonie
personal data
SURNAME Piguet, Gabriel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Piguet, Gabriel Emmanuel Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French clergyman, Roman Catholic bishop of Clermont, Nazi opponent
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Mâcon
DATE OF DEATH 3rd July 1952
Place of death Clermont-Ferrand