Jules Saliège

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Jules Cardinal Saliège
Archbishop's coat of arms

Jules-Géraud Cardinal Saliège (born February 24, 1870 in Crouzy-Haut , France , † November 5, 1956 in Toulouse ) was Archbishop of Toulouse and Cardinal .

Life

Jules Saliège studied Catholic theology at the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris and received on 21 September 1895, the sacrament of Holy Orders . Then he was a member of the teaching staff of the boys' college of Pleaux until 1903 . From 1903 to 1925 he worked as a lecturer at the seminary of Saint-Flour , which he headed as Regens from 1907 . During the First World War he served as a military chaplain . On March 31, 1918 he was made honorary vicar general .

On October 6, 1925, Pope Pius XI appointed him . to the Bishop of Gap . The episcopal ordination donated him on January 6, 1926 Paul-Augustin Lecœur , the bishop of Saint-Flour ; Co - consecrators were Benjamin Roland-Gosselin , auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Paris , and Hippolyte de La Celle , bishop of Nancy .

Three years later, on December 17, 1928, Saliège became Archbishop of Toulouse. Saliège had campaigned for the Jews in the resistance against Adolf Hitler and was ecumenically open. Saliège was one of the first to formulate that the previous action catholique should not be a social group, but should articulate itself in the entire breadth of society. Pope Pius XII took Jules Saliège on February 18, 1946 as a cardinal priest with the titular church Santa Pudenziana in the College of Cardinals .

Jules Saliège died in 1956. His final resting place was in Toulouse Cathedral . Next to the cathedral, on the place named for him, a monument has been erected to the famous archbishop, on which his famous pastoral letter from 1942 is reproduced.

Bust of the cardinal next to the cathedral

Against the persecution of the Jews

On August 23, 1942, Saliège sent a pastoral letter to the priests of his archdiocese, which was to be read from the pulpits the following Sunday. A month earlier, on July 22, 1942, the assembly of Catholic archbishops and cardinals in the occupied zone had already sent a letter of protest to Pétain , in which the deportations were described as inhuman and unacceptable. Despite vigorous efforts by the cadres of the Vichy regime to prevent the Saliège letter from being read out, many priests read the pastoral letter. In clear language, Saliège described the deportation of the Jews as a brutal violation of both Christian and French values: Jews are the brothers and sisters of Christians like everyone else. Saliége's pastoral letter became a political issue when its wording was repeatedly circulated worldwide by both Vatican Radio and the BBC . For the first time, the regime saw itself exposed internationally as a willing collaborator with the Germans and their persecution of Jews .

Brothers! There is a Christian morality and a human ethic that impose duties and recognize rights. Both duties and rights are part of our human dignity .
God sent us both. We can hurt them. But no mortal sin can remove it from the world. Treating children and women, fathers and mothers like a herd of cattle, separating families and deporting them to a foreign country - that is a sad sight that we had to witness at this time.
Why does the church no longer have the right to asylum? Why are we so powerless and helpless? ... In our own diocese, in the camps of Noé and Récébédou , real horror scenes have taken place. Jews are people: men and women. Foreigners are people: men and women. It is just as criminal to use violence against these men and women, against these fathers and mothers and their families, as against anyone else. They too are members of humanity, they too are our brothers like so many others. A Christian cannot forget that. France, our beloved country, France, which you are known to all your children for your tradition of reverence for that, chivalrous, noble France - I trust you and I do not think that you are responsible for these horrors.
With loving devotion: Jules-Géraud Saliège, Archbishop of Toulouse

Honors

literature

  • Jean Guitton: Le Cardinal Saliège. Paris 1957.
  • Jean-Louis Clément: Monsigneur Saliège: Archevêque de Toulouse 1929–1956. Paris 1994.

Web links

notes

  1. ↑ after Hallie, p. 195; Seibel, on the other hand, indicates "the majority of priests"
  2. ↑ According to Philip Hallie : "That innocent blood may not be shed ..." The history of the village of Le Chambon and how good happened there. Neukirchener, Neukirchen-Vluyn 3rd edition 1990, ISBN 3788707224 , p. 195. Second translation from English
predecessor Office successor
Gabriel-Roch de Llobet Bishop of Gap
1925–1928 		Camille Pic
Jean-Augustin Germain Archbishop of Toulouse
1928–1956 		Gabriel-Marie Garrone
personal data
SURNAME Saliège, Jules
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saliège, Cardinal Jules-Géraud (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French clergyman, Archbishop of Toulouse and Cardinal
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Crouzy-Haut , France
DATE OF DEATH 5th November 1956
Place of death Toulouse