Emmanuel Célestin Suhard (French pronunciation:[emanɥɛlselɛstɛ̃sɥaʁ]; 5 April 1874 – 30 May 1949) was a French cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Paris from 1940 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1935. He was instrumental in the founding of the Mission of France and the worker-priest movement, to bring the clergy closer to the people.
Returning from Rome in June 1899, Suhard was made professor of philosophy at the Grand Seminary of Laval on the following 30 September. He began teaching theology in 1912, and was made the seminary's vice-rector in 1917. In 1919, he became a titularcanon of Laval's cathedralchapter.
During World War II, the cardinal was briefly detained in his archiepiscopal residence by German forces on 26 June 1940. He subsequently addressed a dispatch to Hitler on 26 October 1941 to save the hostages of Nantes and Châteaubriant. He was a supporter of Philippe Petain and presided over a number of quasi-political services in Notre-Dame Cathedral during the war, including a service for victims of RAF bombings attended by Petain, whom the Cardinal greeted upon his arrival, in April 1944.[2] Suhard also presided over the funeral, again at Notre-Dame, of Vichy Minister and propagandist Philippe Henriot who had been murdered in his office by resistance fighters.[3]
Charles de Gaulle was unimpressed by Suhard's wartime record, however. Upon returning to Paris in August 1944, de Gaulle excluded Suhard from the service at Notre Dame de Paris and refused to meet with him.[7][8]
This quote was attributed to him via Madeleine L'Engle. "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."
Another quote is attributed to him from Donald Cozzens' The Changing Face of the Priesthood: "One of the priest's first services to the world is to tell the truth."[11]
