Achille Liénart

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Collège de Sorbonne
  • Pontifical Biblical Institute
    • MottoMiles Christi Jesu
    Coat of armsAchille Liénart's coat of arms
    Styles of
    Achille Liénart
    Lille (emeritus
    )

    Achille Liénart (French:

    cardinalate
    in 1930.

    Biography

    Born in

    social reform, trade unionism, and the worker-priest movement.[1]

    On 6 October 1928 he was appointed

    Cardinal Priest of S. Sisto by Pius XI in the consistory of 30 June 1930. By coincidence, one of the first priests he ordained, on 21 September 1929, was Marcel Lefebvre.[2] Liénart's and Lefebvre's paths were intertwined during the following years, even serving both on the Central Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council. And it was Liénart who, as cardinal, in 1947 consecrated Lefebvre (who had been appointed as Apostolic Vicar of Dakar in Senegal
    ), to the episcopate.

    The coat of arms of Cardinal Liénart

    During the German occupation, Liénart initially supported

    Catholic Institute of Paris and headquarters of Catholic daily La Croix, which was raided and pillaged. Liénart blamed Vichy for its submission towards Nazi Germany and allowing persecution of the Church; in August, Liénart sent Cardinal Baudrillart a letter full of “violent accusations against Vichy, its spirit, its government.” Liénart would remain hostile to Vichy ever since, questioning “if Pétain is even worthy of the praise being heaped upon him in Paris.”[5]

    Liénart, who

    Mission de France
    on 13 November 1954 and later resigned from this post in 1964.

    Liénart had a nickname of a "Red Cardinal" because of his support for the left-wing worker-priest movement and Catholic trade unions, and he strongly promoted social justice within the Church.[6] Seeking collaboration with workers' associations and pursuing dialogue with socialist and communist trade unions, French worker-priests under Liénart would earn the respect of various left-wing movements, including the Marxist ones. Entering dialogue with these priests, a French communist activist remarked in 1954: "You are Christian and a priest; I am a Communist. But I say we are brothers. And when you tell me by my conduct that I am Christian, I respond to you that I would be even more so if the church was what you wished it to be." Liénart continued to maintain the movement even after Vatican took action against worker-priests in 1953, making sure that they could stay active "through special dispensations and broad interpretations of the papal wishes". Vatican would reverse its decision and embrace the movement in 1962.[7]

    Quadragesimo Anno in 1931 which he focused on the poverty and condition of the working class. According to Canadian historian Oscar L. Arnal, Liénart established himself as a devoted supporter of both Christian and secular labour unions, and organized several campaigns "to raise money for the strikers’ suffering families, and he had called upon the factory owners to negotiate the labor dispute sincerely".[8] Business circles in Lille reportedly despised Liénart, accusing him of communist sympathies and breaching episcopal neutrality. However, Vatican sided with Liénart, as the Sacred Congregation of Rites
    published a document defending French trade unions and appointed promoted Liénart to cardinal in 1929. Remarking on the left-wing alignment of Liénart, Arnal described that he represented a new revolutionary, anti-capitalist faction within the French Church:

    From the more visionary prelates to the lay masses of the Jeunesse Ouvriére Chrétienne and the Action Catholique Ouvriére, a new spirit of mission permeated the French church after the war. Catholicism began to welcome a revolutionary future as much as it had yearned previously for a lost past or a stable present. It was no longer a question of accepting a republican government and democratic political ideas. Instead, they rejected French Revolutionary and liberal values in the name of a more egalitarian society struggling to be born out of a decaying brutal capitalism. Cardinals like Suhard of Paris, Liénart of Lille, and Gerlier of Lyon believed firmly that worker-priests, proletarian Catholic Action, working-class parishes, and a missionary-trained clergy could offer French workers a serious, socialist alternative to classical Marxism.

    — Oscar L. Arnal, Ambivalent Alliance: The Catholic Church and the Action Française, 1899-1939, (1985), pp. 181

    During the Spanish Civil War, Liénart also organized help and supplies to Basque Country and helped Basque refugese escape to France. Liénart was sympathetic to the Basque independence movement and praised their dedication to the Catholic faith, arguing that it is of utmost importance to help Basque peoples protect their traditions, language and culture. He coordinated the effort of Catholic and secular trade unions to form a pro-Basque and anti-fascist alliance; and endorsed the announcement of the local Catholic union leader Maurice Dignac, who stated: "The Basque refugees in France will not be able to arrive at the feet of the Holy Father, as the Spanish refugees in Italy may. These thousands of Basque Catholics pursued by the rebels, plundered by the Crusaders, without homes or property, will not be able to reach the Father of Christianity: the Government of the fascist will stop them at the border.” In his pastoral letter, Liénart similarly wrote: "Basques are desolate; Christian charity asks us to assist them. Most of them are our brothers in faith: this is one more reason to help them."[9]

    French right-wing perfume magnate François Coty accused Liénart of "aiding and abetting communism", given his support for trade unions and willingness to negotiate with socialist movements. In his book Catholic Labor Movements in Europe Social Thought and Action, 1914–1965, Paul Misner called the cardinal "a champion of Christian labor and the JOC from the beginning of his episcopate", arguing that his close cooperation and endorsement of unions had a profound impact on social Catholicism in France and its relations with socialist movements. Pastoral letters by Liénart were "treated like a social encyclical" in France, and amongst the French left, his actions and willigness to cooperate "deprived their Catholic opponents of any objections in principle".[10]

    An active participant of the

    cardinal electors in the 1963 papal conclave, which selected Pope Paul VI
    .

    Liénart resigned as Lille's bishop on 14 March 1968, after forty years of service. He lost, on January 1, 1971, the right to participate in a conclave, having reached the age of 80. After his death at 89, he was buried in the

    Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille
    .

    References

    1. ^ Time. "Recent Deaths". February 26, 1973.
    2. ^ Ordained priest at Lille, France, by Msgr Achille Liénart, Bishop of Lille, on 21 September 1929 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre - Useful Information Archived 2004-07-03 at the Wayback Machine Society of Saint Pius X, District of Great Britain
    3. ^ Leaders of the Church During the Vichy Regime. Cardinal Achille Lienart Archived February 20, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
    4. doi:10.1017/S0003975620000041
      .
    5. ^ Luft, Aliza (16 May 2016). Shifting Stances: How French Bishops Defected from Support for the Anti-Semitic Vichy Regime to Save Jews During the Holocaust (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). University of Wisconsin-Madison. pp. 41–43.
    6. ^ McFadden, Robert D. (16 February 1973). "Cardinal Lienart, Who Backed Worker‐Priest Movement, Dies". nytimes.com.
    7. ^ Arnal, Oscar L. (1984). "A Missionary "Main Tendue" toward French Communists: The "Témoignages" of the Worker-Priests, 1943-1954". French Historical Studies. 14 (3). Duke University Press: 529–556.
    8. ISBN 0-8229-3812-X
      .
    9. ISBN 978-1-935709-20-6
      .
    10. ISBN 978-0-8132-2753-5
      .
    11. ^ Time. "The Council Opens". 19 October 1962.
    12. ^ Lefebvre, Marcel. They Have Uncrowned Him. 4th ed. Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1988.
    13. ^ Christus Rex. To Rulers Archived 2007-04-03 at the Wayback Machine

    External links

    Catholic Church titles
    Preceded by
    Bishop of Lille

    1928–1968     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by
    President of the French Episcopal Conference

    1948–1964     		Succeeded by
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