Saliège Jules-Géraud

Saliège, Monsignor Jules-Géraud File 197 Monsignor Saliège, the Archbishop of Toulouse, was the first high-ranking clergyman to protest publicly against the inhuman treatment of the Jews by the Vichy regime. On November 23, 1941, he sent a letter of protest on that subject, at a time when the entire Catholic hierarchy was silent. Hearing about the deportation of Jews from the camps in the south of France to the Drancy transit camp in August 1942, he composed a pastoral letter that was read from the pulpit in all the churches of his diocese on Sunday August 23, 1942: “That children, women, and men, fathers and mothers, are treated like a vile herd, that members of a family are separated from one another and sent to an unknown destination, it was reserved for our time to see that sad sight. Why does the right of asylum no longer exist in our churches? Why are we defeated? ... Jewish men are men. Jewish women are women. Not every act is permitted against them. ... They are part of the human race. They are our brothers like so many other people.” Overnight, the document became a manifesto; hundreds of thousands of copies were made and were circulated by members of the Resistance throughout France. Historians consider Saliège’s protest vastly influential in the abrupt turnabout in French public opinion at that time, in which support for the Vichy regime plummeted. Henceforth, more of the French people were prepared to oppose the anti-Jewish actions of the Vichy gendarmes and of the occupation authorities. Saliège also instructed the clergymen and nuns in his archdiocese to hide Jews, particularly children. Saliège’s adjutant, Bishop de Courrèges (q.v.), was appointed to coordinate activities to save Jews by Church institutions in the archdiocese of Toulouse. At the instruction of the Ministry of the Interior, the town prefect applied pressure, accompanied by threats, in an attempt to deter the priests from reading Saliège’s protest from their pulpits. TheArchbishop withstood these pressures with great courage and nobility of spirit. The authorities then tried to impugn his prestige and spiritual authority by publishing incendiary statements, but they did not dare to silence or punish the Catholic leader, who remained energetic despite his advanced age and poor health. On July 8, 1969, Yad Vashem recognized Archbishop Jules-Géraud Saliège as Righteous Among the Nations.