Michel Lelong

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Michel Lelong MAfr (born February 25, 1925 in Angers , † April 10, 2020 in Paris ) was a French Roman Catholic religious priest of the White Fathers . In France it was considered a “symbol of the Islamic - Christian dialogue”.

Life

Michel Lelong, son of a French resistance fighter around Charles de Gaulle , found his spiritual calling in 1940 after seeing a film about Charles de Foucauld and entered the diocesan seminary in Angers. After a year he continued his theological training with the Society of Missionaries of Africa . In 1948 he received the Tunisian Carthage the priesthood . He lived in the Maghreb for over twenty years , where he worked, among other things, at the White Fathers' cultural center in Tunis . In 1975 he took over the management of relations with Islam in the French Bishops' Conference . Among other things, he was involved in the Association du Groupe des foyers islamo-chrétiens . In 1993 he founded the Groupe d'amité islamo-chrétienne (GAIC) , where he held the presidency together with the Algerian intellectual Mustapha Cherif . Lelong has written numerous works on the interreligious relations of Christianity and Islam.

For his work for the Islamic-Christian dialogue, he was awarded the National Order of Merit of France, the Ordre national du Mérite (officer) and accepted into the Legion of Honor (knight).

An appeal caused a sensation, which he signed in 1982 together with Pastor Étienne Mathiot and the philosopher Roger Garaudy in view of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and which was criticized for his sharp anti-Zionist statements. Later he defended his friend Garaudy together with the well-known "poor priest" Abbé Pierre after his work Les mythes fondateurs de la politique israëlienne ("The founding myths of Israeli politics") had been published: Although he did not agree with his holocaust-denying statements, he had the right to represent this. In 2007 he attended the funeral of former minister Maurice Papon , who was convicted of involvement in the deportation of French Jews under the Vichy regime , because he was always convinced of Papon's innocence. He also advocated a dialogue with the traditionalist Pius Brotherhood and declared his admiration for the Islamist preacher Tariq Ramadan .

On April 10, 2020, Lelong died at the age of 95 during the COVID-19 pandemic in France at the Hôpital Lariboisière in Paris as a result of a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Fonts

  • Pour un dialogue with the athees. 1965
  • J'ai rencontré l'Islam. 1976
  • Le Don qu'il vous a fait. 1977
  • Deux fidélités, une espérance. 1979
  • La tradition islamique. 1979
  • L'Islam et l'Occident. 1982
  • Guerre ou Paix à Jérusalem? 1983
  • L'Église nous parle de l'Islam: du Concile à Jean-Paul II. 1984
  • Si Dieu l'avait voulu. 1986
  • De la prière du Christ au message du Coran. 1986
  • L'Église catholique et l'Islam. 1993
  • La vérité rend libre. 1999
  • Jean-Paul II et l'Islam. 2003
  • Le choix de Cécile. 2005
  • Chrétiens et Musulmans: adversaires ou partenaires? L'Harmattan 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hatem Bourial: Disparition: le père Michel Lelong n'est plus. In: Tunis-Hebdo. April 11, 2020, accessed on April 11, 2020 (French).
  2. ↑ Maurice Papon, enterré décoré. In: Liberation.fr . February 21, 2007, accessed April 11, 2020 (French).
  3. ^ Nicolas Senèze: Mort du père Michel Lelong, prêtre de tous les dialogues. In: la-croix.com . April 11, 2020, accessed on April 11, 2020 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Lelong, Michel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French religious, person of Christian-Islamic dialogue and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Angers
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 2020
Place of death Paris