Louis Billot

Louis Billot (12 January 1846 in Sierck-les-Bains, Moselle, France – 18 December 1931 in Ariccia, Latium, Italy) was a French Jesuit priest and theologian. He became a cardinal in 1911 and resigned from that status in 1927, the only person to do so in the twentieth century. While largely unknown in the modern age, he was nonetheless considered "the most important Thomistic speculative theologian of the late nineteenth century."

Biography

Louis Billot, sometimes identified as Ludovic Billot, He was instrumental in drafting Pope Pius X's 1907 encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis and was a close friend of Fr. Henri Le Floch, rector of the French Seminary in Rome.

Pius X created him Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata in the consistory of 27 November 1911. Billot was one of the cardinal electors in the conclaves of 1914 and 1922. During the 1914 conclave, the knowledge that two of his nephews had died fighting in the French Army affected his vote. He was also one of the three Cardinal-Presidents of the Pontifical Academy "S. Tommaso" in Rome, together with Benedetto Lorenzelli and Michele Lega. He was appointed a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on 6 February 1923.

Resignation as cardinal Billot's support for the deeply conservative movement Action Française eventually created tension between him and the Holy See. Pope Pius XI believed that the movement used Catholicism for its own political ends and placed the movement's newspaper on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which meant that it was banned from all Catholic homes. Billot expressed strong disagreement with the decision, saying that the political activities of monarchist Catholics ought not to be censured by Rome.

On 13 September 1927, in a meeting with Pope Pius XI, Billot submitted a letter asking to be allowed to resign as cardinal. The Pope had a document drafted for his signature and accepted the resignation eight days later on 21 September. The Pope announced Billot's change in status to the College of Cardinals at the consistory on 19 December, saying: "The autograph letter with which he tendered his resignation adduced such high spiritual motives, and in such grave circumstances, that after much thought and prayer we decided to accept them." Billot had asked to be allowed to resign several times before.

Action Française suggested that the papal action against the newspaper had provoked Billot's action. The Holy See said his meeting with the Pope was amicable and attributed his resignation to his age (he was 81). It said he had only an academic interest in Action Française.

Billot died at the Jesuit Novitiate of Galloro, near Ariccia, outside Rome, at the age of 85. He is buried in the Jesuit chapel of the Campo Verano cemetery.

Works De ecclesiae sacramentis commentarius in tertiam partem s. Thomae, Rome 1900.

In English