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François-Louis Auvity

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The Right Reverend

François-Louis Auvity
Titular Bishop of Mende, then Titular Bishop of Dionysiana
Black and white portrait photograph of Auvity
Photograph of Auvity from La Croix (1937)
ChurchCatholic Church
Installed1937 (as bishop of Mende)
Term ended1944 (as bishop of Mende)
PredecessorJules-Alexandre Cusin
SuccessorMaurice Rousseau
Orders
OrdinationMay 1899
ConsecrationAugust 1937
by Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII)
Personal details
Born(1874-01-09)9 January 1874
Germigny-l'Exempt, France
Died15 February 1964(1964-02-15) (aged 90)
Germigny-l'Exempt, France

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 in the aftermath of the Liberation were obliged to submit their resignations to Pope Pius XII.

François-Louis Auvity was appointed Bishop of Mende on August 15, 1937. His episcopate was then marked by World War II. Due to his collaboration with the Nazis[1], he was arrested by the French Forces of the Interior of the maquis on August 20, 1944[2]. 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, in order to protect Auvity from popular vengeance, the French Forces of the Interior were obliged to shelter him at the Hôtel de Paris, the headquarters of the Kommandantur during the Occupation. 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."[3] 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"[4].

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[5].

For the historian Patrick Cabanel[6] and especially the historian Annie Lacroix-Riz[7], 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, of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front[8] [9], or 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[10]. Auvity also virulently opposed the French Resistance[11], 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 Captain Lange of the Wehrmacht responsible for their capture[12].

References

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  1. ^ Annie Lacroix-Riz, Les Elites françaises entre 1940 et 1944, 2016, p. 70.
  2. ^ Jacques-Augustin Bailly, La Libération confisquée: le Languedoc, 1944-1945, 1993, p. 291.
  3. ^ Laurent Ducerf, François de Menthon, un catholique au service de la République (1900-1984), Éditions du Cerf, 2006, p. 303.
  4. ^ Frédéric Le Moigne, Les évêques français de Verdun à Vatican II, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017, p.136.
  5. ^ "François Auvity, Un Traître impuni". Mediapart. December 10, 2023.
  6. ^ Patrick Cabanel, Vocations et migrations religieuses en Gévaudan, XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris, CNRS éditions, 1997, p.83.
  7. ^ Annie Lacroix-Riz, op. cit., Paris, Armand Colin, 2016, p.XIII.
  8. ^ Henri Cordesse, La Libération en Lozère: 1944-1945, Reschly, 1977, p.114.
  9. ^ Henri Cordesse, Histoire de la Résistance en Lozère: 1940-1944, Les Presses du Languedoc, p. 87.
  10. ^ "Jules Saliège". Anonymes, Justes et Persécutés durant la période nazie dans les communes de France. September 11, 2012.
  11. ^ 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".
  12. ^ 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.
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