Leo Dupont
Leo Dupont (known in the French-speaking world as Léon Papin Dupont ) (born January 24, 1797 in Le Lamentin , Martinique , † March 18, 1876 in Tours , France ) was a Roman Catholic lay person who practiced the Eucharist in France in the 19th century Atonement and especially the worship of the most holy face of Jesus spread.
Life
Leo Dupont was born in 1797 on the island of Martinique, a French colony. His family was wealthy and owned a sugar cane plantation. His father was a native of the French Brittany officer Nicholas Dupont, his mother was the Creole Marie-Louise GAIGNERON de Marolles. When Leo was six years old, his father died leaving his vast estate to his young wife. Leo attended school in Martinique and for a while in the USA. He then went to the private high school of Pontlevoy in Tourraine (France) with his brother Theobald from 1811 to 1815. From 1818 he studied law in Paris with his brother.
Leo was an open-minded, fun-loving young man who liked to travel to Parisian societies. He was considered wealthy and generous. Despite his worldly life, he always remained a faithful churchgoer. However, the encounter with the “Aid Organization of the Little Savoyards” caused the young student to change his mind; he has led a life of piety and charity ever since.
After completing his studies, he returned to Martinique and was a councilor in Saint-Pierre, the island's capital. Leo Dupont considered becoming a priest. But his brother's death in 1826 and his mother's wish made him make a different decision. On May 9, 1827, he married the young Creole Caroline d´Audiffredy, who gave birth to their daughter Henriette in 1832. However, his wife died of tuberculosis just eight months after giving birth. After this stroke of fate, Leo Dupont decided to move to France with his mother and settle in Tours.
There he made friendly contact with the pastor of the Saint Gatien cathedral and the superior of the Ursulines, who also accompanied him spiritually. On her advice, the widower did not enter into a new marriage and decided against the priesthood because his friends were of the opinion that in the laity he could develop greater social influence. He showed himself to be an upright and pious Christian in his everyday life, who regularly went to confession and communion, which was a rarity in France at the time. He resolved to turn away from all sin and break away from worldly customs and social obligations. He devoted himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures, which were in a Latin and a French version in the center of his room.
He also valued outward signs of piety such as scapulars and medals. He especially tried to spread the use of the Benedictus medal to convert sinners and ward off Satan. Leo repeatedly went on pilgrimages to French shrines, a form of devotion that was hardly cultivated in France in the 19th century. In 1846, shortly after the apparition of Mary in La Salette (September 19, 1846), he went there to be one of the first to climb the mountain of the apparition and to speak personally to the seer children. On the way home from La Salette to Tours, there was a brief encounter in Ars-sur-Formans with Johannes Maria Vianney , who was later canonized pastor of Ars.
Another stroke of fate struck Leo Dupont in 1847. His daughter died when she was only 15 years old. She was her mother's likeness and extremely gifted. She was spoiled by her father and grandmother. Leo Dupont feared that she was too fond of worldly pleasures. He is therefore said to have prayed to God that he would rather take his daughter away from him than that she should deviate from the right path and worship worldly vanities. Shortly afterwards, Henriette suddenly fell ill with typhus and died.
After the death of his daughter, he turned to the fight against hardship and misery, sin and unbelief with even greater zeal. He promoted the youth by founding a St. Vincent's Conference and supported the Little Sisters of the Poor , whom he had brought to Tours, financially in building a home for the elderly, the poor and the sick, and also helped there himself every Sunday evening. His good contacts with the English living in Touraine helped him to lead some Anglicans back into the Roman Catholic Church. He was also particularly dedicated to his three main concerns: the nocturnal atonement, the revival of the veneration of St. Martin of Tours, and the veneration of the most holy face of Jesus Christ.
After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the stream of pilgrims to the Holy Face in Leo Dupont's salon declined significantly. His gout complaints, which had plagued him for a long time, got worse and worse. Soon he suffered from increasing paralysis of the body, which made reading and writing difficult for him. He lived more and more isolated from his environment and devoted himself to prayer day and night. Tormented by severe pain, he asked for Holy Communion with the last of his strength and then fell into an eight-day agony before he died on March 18, 1876 at the age of 79.
Entrance to the Oratory of the Most Holy Face (8 Rue Bernard Palissy, 37000 Tours)
Former home of Leo Dupont
Oratory chapel in Leo Dupont's former drawing room
The grave of Leo Dupont in the chapel of the oratory
Grave slab of Leo Dupont
Leo Dupont's death room on the upper floor of his house, above the salon / chapel
folded up deathbed of Leo Dupont with the lectern that was in his drawing room
Death bust of Leo Dupont
Spiritual works
Atonement worship
The nocturnal atonement goes back to an initiative of believers in Paris who gathered for Eucharistic adoration after the riots of 1848 to make reparation for the sins of men and to pray for the repentance of sinners. First, young girls and women gathered in the Carmelite Church on Rue d´Enfer for prayer vigils. From December 6, 1848, on the initiative of the converted Jew Hermann Cohen, men gathered in the Church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires for nighttime worship. Two months later, on February 2, 1849, Leo Dupont received permission from Monseigneur Morlot, Archbishop of Tours, to begin the nightly atonement in Tours. From Tours he spread the work of atonement to numerous cities in the country.
Adoration of St Martin of Tours
The basilica and monastery of Saint Martin of Tours were destroyed during the French Revolution. With this, the worship of St. Martin in the population also decreased. A new residential area was built over the ruins of the monastery and basilica. A cholera epidemic in 1849 revived the worship of St. Martin . In 1850 Leo Dupont founded an aid organization in honor of the saint, the “St. Martin's Clothing Chamber” for the poor and needy. Another goal of this aid organization was the rebuilding of the basilica above the tomb of the saint, which was uncovered again on December 14, 1860 on the initiative of Leo Dupont during road works.
Adoration of the holy face
The devotion to the Sacred Face of Jesus Christ learned Leo Dupont by the Carmel of Tours know who was in the vicinity of his home. Leo Dupont was connected to the Carmel by providing legal advice and financial support to the sisters. A young Carmelite woman, Sister Mary of St. Peter (1816–1848), had received heavenly messages since 1843 urging her to make amends for the Lord's offenses by reviling the worship of the holy name of God, the childhood of Jesus, and the Passion and spread the tortured holiest face of Jesus. Leo Dupont continued this mission after his sister's death. On Palm Sunday in 1851, the Prioress of Carmel presented him with a copy of the handkerchief of St. Veronica, which is kept and venerated in St. Peter's Basilica. This copy was held against the handkerchief in St. Peter's Basilica and thus became a relic of touch. Leo Dupont set up the face picture in his drawing room and next to it an oil lamp that burned day and night. He wanted to stimulate his visitors to ask questions and tell them about the adoration of the face to atone for the abuse of God's name and the desecration of Sunday. Already on Holy Saturday there was a first miraculous healing when a young woman prayed in front of her face and anointed her aching eyes with oil from the lamp, whereupon the pain disappeared. A multitude of healings occurred in Leo Dupont's drawing room, as evidenced by innumerable crutches and walking aids on the walls. Up to three hundred people came into the salon every day to pray in front of the image of the most holy face, to anoint themselves with the oil of the lamp and then to go to confession and communion. After Ars, Leo Dupont's salon was the most frequented place of pilgrimage in France at the time. The reputation of the face image of Tours also spread beyond France. By 1854 Leo Dupont had distributed and sent over 60,000 bottles of oil and over 25,000 prints of the face picture.
Aftermath
At the funeral of Leo Dupont, the whole city gave the "holy man of Tours" the final escort. On July 29, 1876, the Archbishop of Tours gave Charles Théodore Colet permission to set up a chapel in Leo Dupont's drawing room, where the image of the face would continue to be venerated. The priestly community of the holy countenance was created to care for the oratorio of the holy countenance . On October 25, 1884, Archbishop Guillaume René Meignan established the “Brotherhood of the Most Holy Face”, which was founded only one year later, on October 1, 1885, by Pope Leo XIII. was raised to the rank of arch brotherhood. Today, Dominicans look after the oratorio of the holy countenance.
Beatification process
Leo Dupont was already called "the holy man of Tours" by his fellow men during his lifetime. After his death, in 1891, the beatification process was opened in the Diocese of Tours. On June 21, 1939, the case was referred to the Roman Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On March 21, 1983, Pope John Paul II confirmed him the heroic degree of virtue . Since then, Leo Dupont has been allowed to be venerated as a Venerable Servant of God . Precondition for the beatification are now a miracle at the intercession of Leo Dupont and the continued veneration by the faithful.
literature
- Pierre-Désiré Janvier: The Apostle of the Holy Face. Leo Dupont (1797-1876). Carinthia, Klagenfurt 1986. ISBN 3-85378-264-7
- Pierre-Désiré Janvier: Leo Dupont: The Holy Man of Tours. The Herald of Face Jesus Worship: His Life and Mission. Gotthard Media, Goldau 2013. ISBN 978-3-03806-010-9
- Handbook of the Arch Brotherhood of the Holy Face , Aachen 1976.
- Pierre-Désiré Janvier: The Holy Man of Tours (or The Life of Léon Papin-Dupont). John Murphy & Co., Baltimore 1882.
- Edward Healy Thompson (ed.): Library of religious biography. Volume VIII. Léon Papin-Dupont. The Life of Léon Papin-Dupont, the holy man of Tours. Burns and Oates, London 1882.
Web links
to Leo Dupont:
- Carmel of the Holy Face - Leo Dupont (Eng.)
- The Holy Name of Jesus an the Holy Face. Information about Leo Dupont (engl.)
- Homepage of the Dominican Convention / Oratory of the Holy Face in Tours (French)
to adoration of the Holy Face:
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dupont, Leo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Papin Dupont, Léon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French Roman Catholic layman, Venerable Servant of God |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 24, 1797 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Le Lamentin |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 18, 1876 |
| Place of death | Tours |