“Women and children, fathers and mothers treated like cattle, members of a family be separated from one another and dispatched to an unknown destination - it has been reserved for our own time to see such a sad spectacle. Why does the right of sanctuary no longer exist in our churches? Why are we defeated? . . . The Jews are real men and women. Foreigners are real men and women. They cannot be abused without limit. . . . They are part of the human species. They are our brothers, like so many others.”- Jules-Géraud Saliège
Unit 1012 will honor and always
remember Cardinal
Jules-Géraud Saliège. We will remember and honor him for saving Jews
during the Holocaust and he rightfully deserves to be recognized by the State
of Israel as Righteous among the Nations.
His story
should be an inspiration for us to support victims’ rights and by speaking out
against evil and saving lives. We also learn do the right thing by helping
those who suffer injustice. We will post information about him from Wikipedia and other links.
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Cardinal Jules-Géraud Saliège
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Jules-Géraud Saliège (February 24,
1870—November 5, 1956) was a French Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He
served as Archbishop of Toulouse from 1928 until his
death, and was a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism in
France. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope
Pius XII. For his efforts to protect Jews during the Nazi
Holocaust he was recognised as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
Biography
Born in Saint-Flour,
Jules-Géraud Saliège studied at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice
in Paris before being ordained to the priesthood
on September 21, 1895. He then taught at the minor seminary in Pleaux until 1903, and at the seminary in
Saint-Flour from 1903 to 1907, when he was named its rector.
He was made an honorary canon of the cathedral chapter of Saint-Flour on
September 14, 1905, before becoming an honorary vicar general on March 31, 1918. During World War I, he served as a military chaplain.
On October 29, 1925, Saliège was
appointed Bishop of Gap
by Pope Pius XI. He received his episcopal
consecration on January 26, 1926, from Bishop Paul-Augustine
Lecoeur, with Bishops Benjamin Roland-Gosselin and Hippolyte de La Celle
serving as co-consecrators, in
Saint-Flour
Cathedral. Saliège was later named Archbishop
of Toulouse on December 17, 1928.
Nazi period
During the Nazi
occupation of France,
he was outspoken in attacking the German treatment of Jews and conscription
of Frenchmen. For his criticism of the Nazis' and Vichy's anti-Jewish policies,
he was praised by the Vatican newspaper.
With the free press silenced in Vichy
France, Charles Lederman, a Jewish
Communist approached Saliège, to alert public opinion to what was being done to
the Jews. He told Saliège of the arrests, kidnappings and deportations. Saliège
read his famous Pastoral letter the following Sunday. Other bishops - Monseigneur Théas, Bishop of Montauban, Monseigneur Delay, Bishop of Marseilles, Cardinal
Gerlier, Archbishop of Lyon, Monseigneur Vansteenberghe
of Bayonne and Monseigneur Moussaron, Archbishop of Albi - also denounced the roundups
from the pulpit and through parish distributions, in defiance of the Vichy
regime. The protest of the bishops is seen by various historians as a turning
point in the formerly passive response of the Catholic Church in France.
Saliège wrote to his parishioners:
"The Jews are real men and women. Not everything is permitted against
these men and women, against these fathers and mothers. They are part of the
human species. They are our brothers like so many others. A Christian should
not forget this". The words encouraged other clerics like the Capuchin
monk Père Marie-Benoît.
Post-war
Pope
Pius XII created him Cardinal Priest of S.
Pudenziana in the consistory
of February 18, 1946. In 1950, the Cardinal excommunicated
a priest within his archdiocese for rejecting the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He also encouraged the Christianization
of society.
Saliège died in Toulouse, at age 86.
He is buried in Saint-Étienne Cathedral, Toulouse.
He was posthumously awarded the title Righteous
among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
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