Florent Michel Marie Joseph du Bois de La Villerabel (29 September 1877 – 7 February 1951), archbishop of Aix, Arles and Embrun (1940–1944), was the most prominent of seven French mainland or colonial bishops who, in the aftermath of the Liberation, were obliged to submit their resignations to Pope Pius XII because of their close collaboration with the Germans during the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944.
Villerabel was a leading clerical collaborationist with the Nazis after the German invasion of France in 1940. He opposed La Voix du Vatican, the Pope's radio station, which was critical of the Vichy government.[citation needed] After the liberation of France in 1944, Villerabel was the most senior of seven French mainland or colonial bishops who were obliged to submit their resignations to Pope Pius XII.[2]
The head of the French government, Charles de Gaulle, proposed that thirty collaborationist prelates should resign, but the diplomatic skills of the Papal Nuncio, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, reduced the number.[2] A coadjutor to François-Jean-Marie Serrand, Bishop of Saint-Brieuc and Tréguier was appointed, and the then archbishops of Reims and Bordeaux were barrred from any future appointment as cardinals.[citation needed]
Other bishops obliged to resign included Henri-Édouard Dutoit of Arras, François-Louis Auvity of Mende, and Roger-Henri-Marie Beaussart, auxiliary of Paris, who had welcomed de Gaulle at Notre-Dame in 1944 on behalf of the archbishop, Cardinal Suhard; the latter could not attend the ceremony as he was under house arrest.[2][3]
Villerabel's retirement (when he resumed his former titulature of Aenos or Enos which he had held as auxiliary bishop to the Archbishop of Tours from 1920 to 1940) was spent at Solesmes Abbey and at St Brieuc.[1] He died in his home city of Saint-Brieuc on 7 February 1951 at the age of 73.[1]
