François-Louis Auvity (9 January 1874 in Germigny-l'Exempt – 15 February 1964 in Germigny-l'Exempt), bishop of Mende (1937–1944), was one of seven French mainland or colonial bishops who were obliged to submit their resignations to Pope Pius XII in the aftermath of the French Liberation .
François-Louis Auvity | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Mende, then Titular Bishop of Dionysiana | |
 Photograph of Auvity from La Croix (1937) | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Installed | 1937 (as bishop of Mende) |
| Term ended | 1944 (as bishop of Mende) |
| Predecessor | Jules-Alexandre Cusin |
| Successor | Maurice Rousseau |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | May 1899 |
| Consecration | August 1937 by Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 9 January 1874 |
| Died | 15 February 1964 (aged 90) Germigny-l'Exempt, France |
Unlike almost all the prelates of his generation who fought in World War I, Auvity managed to get himself discharged due to a "non-pathological" ventral hernia. He was therefore not sent to the front during the war, but assigned to a military hospital in Dijon (8e section territoriale d'infirmiers militaires). In 1917, the pivotal year of the war which shook the French Army to its foundations, Auvity managed to get himself released from his role as territorial nurse in order to give classes.[1]
Auvity was appointed Bishop of Mende on August 15, 1937. His episcopate was then marked by World War II. In June 1940, Auvity enthusiastically welcomed the news of the armistice ending the Battle of France, the establishment by Pétain of an authoritarian government and the policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany. Even after the invasion of the Zone libre by German troops on 11 November 1942, when Pétain was no longer in control of a situation entirely dominated by the Nazis, Auvity insisted in the Semaine catholique de Mende on the duty of obedience of Catholics towards the civil power: "subjects," Auvity wrote, "have the duty to submit to all legitimate authority, since legitimate authority comes from God."[2] On Wednesday 24 February 1943, through the Croix de la Lozère, the official press organ and "militant voice" of the bishopric, Auvity made a first reminder that the Service du travail obligatoire was a "duty."[3] Then, on 2 July 1943, he published a letter in La Quinzaine catholique du Gévaudan in support of the forced work service which concluded with: "your interest and wisdom demand that you leave (to work for the Nazi war effort in Germany)."
Due to his collaboration with the Nazis,[4] he was arrested by the French Forces of the Interior of the Maquis on August 20, 1944.[5] His resignation from his position as bishop was demanded by the National Council of the Resistance and the Provisional Government of the French Republic.
As reported by the prefect Henri Cordesse in his memoirs,[6][7] the French Forces of the Interior were obliged to shelter Auvity at the Hôtel de Paris, the headquarters of the Kommandantur during the Occupation, to protect from popular vengeance. The guard was mounted by Armenians from the Ostlegionen deliberately chosen because of their insensitivity to the demands of the population of Mende who wanted to "purge" their bishop. Then Maurice David, known as Commander "Thomas", arranged the secret exfiltration of Auvity to the Abbey of Bonnecombe (Aveyron) while waiting for the storm to pass. Finally, François de Menthon, a fervent Catholic and Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government of the French Republic, ordered an investigation and concluded verbatim that it was "too dangerous" for Auvity to return to the diocese of Mende: "Many Catholics," he wrote, "think that Bishop Auvity has lost all authority, and consider that his return would not be without risk to his person, to public peace and to the peace of the Church."[8] Consequently, Auvity announced his departure on September 22, 1944, and resigned his episcopal seat on October 28, 1945. Contrary to custom, during his inaugural speech, Bishop Maurice Rousseau, the successor to the see of Mende, did not once pronounce the name of Auvity "so as not to reopen the scar".[9]
Auvity was then appointed titular bishop in partibus of Dionysiana and retired from public life to his comfortable country villa in his hometown of Germigny-l'Exempt, where he died of old age in 1964.[10]
For historians Patrick Cabanel[11] and Annie Lacroix-Riz,[12] the French foremost expert of the Catholic Church under the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, there is no doubt that François Auvity, far from being a passive collaborationist obeying only the civil power, positively adhered to Nazism. This is indeed confirmed by his various positions in favor of the Service du travail obligatoire, of the Milice of Joseph Darnand,[13] of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front,[14] and against the dissemination of the pastoral letter Et clamor Jerusalem ascendit by Jules-Géraud Saliège, archbishop of Toulouse, exhorting Catholics to a duty of humanity towards the Jews, given the "appalling" fate reserved for them.[15] Auvity also virulently opposed the French Resistance,[16] forbidding the priests of his diocese to bring to the Maquis "the aid of religion", which led him to applaud the torture and execution of the 27 prisoners of the Bir-Hakeim Maquis at the instigation of the prefect Dutruch and the Gestapo against the wishes of Hauptmann Lange of the Wehrmacht responsible for their capture.[17] Until its closure in 1942, Auvity never raised any protest either against the inhumane conditions of internment of anti-fascists, Jews or "undesirable foreigners" at the Rieucros Camp[18] set up in the outbuildings of the former Mende seminary under his episcopate (1939).[19]
References
edit- ^ Archives de Nevers (Nièvre, France), Registres matricules (1894-1894), matricule 2213 [R 228].
- ^ Auvity, "Le devoir des catholiques", Semaine catholique de Mende, December 4, 1942.
- ^ La Croix de la Lozère, February 24, 1943: first reminder, on the front page of La Croix that the S.T.O. is a duty.
- ^ Annie Lacroix-Riz, Les Elites françaises entre 1940 et 1944, Armand Colin, 2016, p. 70.
- ^ Jacques-Augustin Bailly, La Libération confisquée: le Languedoc, 1944-1945, Albin Michel, 1993, p. 291.
- ^ Henri Cordesse, La Libération en Lozère: 1944-1945, Reschly, 1977, p.114.
- ^ Henri Cordesse, Histoire de la Résistance en Lozère: 1940-1944, Les Presses du Languedoc, p. 87.
- ^ Laurent Ducerf, François de Menthon, un catholique au service de la République (1900-1984), Éditions du Cerf, 2006, p. 303.
- ^ Frédéric Le Moigne, Les évêques français de Verdun à Vatican II, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017, p.136.
- ^ "François Auvity, Un Traître impuni". Mediapart. December 10, 2023.
- ^ Patrick Cabanel, Vocations et migrations religieuses en Gévaudan, XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris, CNRS éditions, 1997, p.83.
- ^ Annie Lacroix-Riz, op. cit., Paris, Armand Colin, 2016, p.XIII.
- ^ La Croix de la Lozère, Sunday February 28, 1943. Call to support the Milice by joining a public meeting taking place in "Salle Urbain Ier" which belonged to the bishopric of Mende.
- ^ La Croix de la Lozère, Sunday, August 13, 1944 (last issue of the weekly newspaper). La Croix de la Lozère, "voice of the bishopric", speaks of the Panzerdivisionen of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front as "our troops".
- ^ "Jules Saliège". Anonymes, Justes et Persécutés durant la période nazie dans les communes de France. September 11, 2012.
- ^ In a letter intercepted in January 1942 by the Resistance and preserved in the Archives départementales de la Lozère (2 W 3177), Auvity claims not only to have severely forbidden his diocesans to interact with the Resistance, but also to have encouraged them to denounce "Gaullists" as a "duty".
- ^ Association nationale des anciens combattants et ami(e)s de la Résistance en Lozère, Marvejols conference presenting Baptiste Ménage's film, "Bir-Hakeim", May 27, 2013.
- ^ Michèle Descolonges, Un camp d'internement en Lozère: Rieucros 1938-1942, Presses universitaires du Midi, Toulouse, 2022.
- ^ "Souvenirs du camp de Rieucros", Midi Libre, Wednesday July 18, 2007.