Paul-Émile Léger

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Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger (center) with Minister Paul Gérin-Lajoie (right), Montreal 1962
Cardinal coat of arms

Paul-Émile Cardinal Léger PSS , CC , GOQ (born April 25, 1904 in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield , Québec ; † November 13, 1991 in Montreal , Québec) was a Roman Catholic clergyman and Archbishop of Montreal from 1950 to 1968 .

biography

Léger was ordained a priest on May 25, 1929 in Montreal and went to France from 1930 to 1933 and to Japan from 1933 to 1939, where he was administrator of the Sulpizian seminary in Fukuoka . He returned to Canada during the Second World War . In 1947 Léger became rector of the Pontifical Canadian College in Rome and remained so until his appointment as Archbishop of Montreal, when he succeeded Joseph Charbonneau , who had resigned due to health reasons.

Pope Pius XII appointed him archbishop on March 25, 1950. He was ordained bishop by the Secretary of the Consistorial Congregation , Adeodato Giovanni Cardinal Piazza OCD , on April 26th of the same year; Co-consecrators were the Archbishop of Québec , Maurice Roy , and the Bishop of Strasbourg , Jean-Julien Weber PSS.

Léger quickly gained the reputation of an eloquent speaker and was widely recognized for his commitment to religious and social issues that reached beyond Québec's borders. In the consistory on January 12, 1953 he was by Pope Pius XII. accepted into the college of cardinals as cardinal priest . The titular church of Santa Maria degli Angeli was assigned to him. He was papal legate in Lourdes (1954), at the St. Josephs Oratory (1955) and in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré (1958). In the run-up to the Second Vatican Council , he was a member of one of the preparatory commissions. He attended all four sessions of the council as a council father.

After his return, Léger campaigned for the implementation of the Council's resolutions in his diocese . On April 20, 1968, he resigned his office as archbishop to look after lepers and the needy as a simple priest in West Africa. After completing various projects, he returned to Montreal in August 1979, where he continued his humanitarian work, including by supporting Asian refugees. He took part in the four conclaves of 1958 and 1963, as well as in August 1978 and October 1978 . Since 1989 he was the longest serving cardinal priest Cardinal Protopriester . He died in 1991 as the last cardinal to be held by Pius XII. was created.

His brother Jules Léger was Governor General of Canada from 1974 to 1979 .

Sculpture of the cardinal

Awards

Cardinal Léger received many awards in his life. More than 10 Canadian universities have awarded him honorary doctorates. In 1958 he received the Grande Croix of the Légion d'honneur of the Legion of Honor and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1968 . As co-president of the Canadian Refugee Foundation , Léger received the Pearson Peace Medal in 1979 and the Lester B. Pearson Foundation award for peace in 1980 . In 1983 he was the first winner of the Prix ​​Maisonneuve awarded by the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal . In 1985 Léger became grand officer of the Ordre national du Québec .

He was a Grand Crusader of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and a member of the Order of Malta .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,844105,00.html
  2. ^ Entry on the Pearson Peace Medal page ( Memento from May 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
predecessor Office successor
Giuseppe Siri Cardinal Protopriest
1989-1991 		Franz King
Joseph Charbonneau Archbishop of Montréal
1950–1968 		Paul Cardinal Grégoire
personal data
SURNAME Léger, Paul-Émile
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Léger, Paul-Émile PSS; Léger, Cardinal Paul-Émile
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian Roman Catholic Cardinal and Archbishop of Montreal (1950–1967)
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Salaberry-de-Valleyfield , Quebec
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1991
Place of death Montreal , Quebec