François-Marie-Benjamin Richard

See also: Richard

François-Marie-Benjamin Richard (Nantes, 1819 - Paris, 1908), was a Prélat French.

Archbishop of Paris, born with Nantes, on March 1st 1819 and died in Paris, the January 28th 1908.

After studies with the Séminaire Saint-Sulpice it became in 1849 secretary of the bishop of Nantes, Jaquemet, then, of 1850 to 1869, general Vicaire. In 1871 it became bishop of Belley where it started the lawsuit for the beatification of the Curé of Ars. May 7th, 1875, it became Coadjuteur of the cardinal Guibert, Archevêque of Paris, which it succeeded on July 8th, 1886, becoming titular cardinal of Santa Maria in Via, on May 24th, 1889. It put much energy to be made complete the basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre, which it devoted. Politically, the Richard cardinal was attached by bonds of regard and sympathy to the catholics monarchists. In 1892, when Leon XIII recommended the “Rallying” of the catholics to the Republic, the cardinal created the Union of Christian France in order to link all the catholics on the only basis of the defense of religion. The monarchists opposed this Rallying and the policy which this union represented; finally, according to the desire of the pope, the union was dissolved. On many occasions the Richard cardinal spoke to defend the religious congregations and Leon XIII addressed to him a letter (December 27th, 1900) concerning the monks threatened by the Law on Associations which one projected then. Old man and patient it was, some time before its death, jeté with the door of évêché which was confiscated to make the Ministry of Labor of it.

In the field hagiographic it was distinguished by publishing a Vie " bienheureuse" Francoise d' Amboise (1865) and Saints of the Church of Bretagne (1872).

The judgment of Alfred Loisy

In Choses passées (1912) Alfred Loisy writes of him:

It was a man of another age: the language which he spoke did not say me anything, and he did not hear that from which I had learned how to be useful to me. Its spirit was not very cultivated; but it was far from being as limited as sometimes one low said it in his clergy. It had brought its Brittany a granite faith that no doubt had never owed effleurer. He wanted to be right; he was good; I intended to say by people of his intimacy which it was very charitable. But it was strong badly prepared to hear the biblical question and one can say all the contemporary questions. He believed firmly in theology, with the tradition of the Church, and he conformed his spirit submissively to it, where no personal idea placed; that others, especially of the priests, found some difficulty with this absolute tender of the intelligence, it was for him a kind of mystery, a mystery which hid a perversity of the heart. To nourish a clean thought, which did not agree with the thought of the Church, was the fact of a proud spirit, delivered to Satan. And the thought of the Church, the worthy cardinal hardly had time to seek it in the books, in a personal study of the old and new ecclesiastical documents. Very sure theologists, pertaining to religious orders, helped it to distinguish it. With that, conscience meticulous person of the responsibilities for her load and concern of taking care of the purity of the doctrines as well as to the observation of the discipline in its clergy and the catholic establishments of its diocese.

Voi also the homonymy François Richard

Random links: