Fesch, Joseph
Fesch, Joseph
Cardinal , uncle of Napoleon I, born Ajaccio, Corsica, 3 January 1763 ; died Rome, Italy , 13 May 1839 . After ordination, he embraced the military career, becoming commissary of war under his nephew in 1795 . When hostility to religion somewhat abated, he reentered ecclesiastical life and helped to negotiate the Concordat of 1801 . In 1802 he was named Archbishop of Lyons, and, receiving the cardinal ‘s hat in 1803 , was appointed ambassador to Rome. He induced Pius VII to crown Napoleon in Paris, and was present at the ceremony. Though powerless to prevent the rupture between the emperor and the Holy See, he prevented Napoleon from acknowledging an independent Gallican Church, upheld papal rights in the matter of canonical institution, and fell into imperial disfavor by protesting his loyalty to the exiled pontiff. After the Restoration he resided in Rome, his diocese being governed meanwhile by an administrator.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Fesch, Joseph
Cardinal, b. at Ajaccio, Corsica, 3 January, 1763; d. at Rome, 13 May, 1839. He was the son of a captain of a Swiss regiment in the service of Genoa, studied at the seminary of Aix, was made archdeacon and provost of the chapter of Ajaccio before 1789, but was obliged to leave Corsica when his family sided with France against the English, who came to the island in answer to Paoli’s summons. The young priest was half-brother to Letizia Ramolino, the mother of Napoleon and upon arriving in France he entered the commissariat department of the army; later, in 1795, became commissary of war under Bonaparte, then in command of the Armée d’Italie. When religious peace was reestablished, Fesch made a month’s retreat under the direction of Emery, the superior of Saint-Sulpice and re-entered ecclesiastical life. During the Consulate he became canon of Bastia and helped to negotiate the Concordat of 1801; on 15 August, 1802, Caprara consecrated him Archbishop of Lyons, and in 1803 Pius VII created him cardinal.
On 4 April, 1803, Napoleon appointed Cardinal Fesch successor to Cacault as ambassador to Rome, giving him Chateaubriand for secretary. The early part of his sojourn in the Eternal City was noted for his differences with Chateaubriand and his efforts to have the Concordat extended to the Italian Republic. He prevailed upon Pius VII to go to Paris in person and crown Napoleon. This was Fesch’s greatest achievement. He accompanied the pope to France and as grand almoner, blessed the marriage of Napoleon and Josephine before the coronation ceremony took place. By a decree issued in 1805, the missionary institutions of Saint-Lazare and Saint-Sulpice were placed under the direction of Cardinal Fesch, who, laden with this new responsibility, returned to Rome. In 1806, after the occupation of Ancona by French troops, and Napoleon’s letter proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, Alquier was named to succeed Fesch as ambassador to Rome. Returning to his archiepiscopal See of Lyons, the cardinal remained in close touch with his nephew’s religious policy and strove, occasionally with success, to obviate certain irreparable mistakes. He accepted the coadjutorship to Dalberg, prince-primate, in the See of Ratisbon, but, in 1808, refused the emperor’s offer of the Archbishopric of Paris, for which he could not have obtained canonical institution. Although powerless to prevent either the rupture between Napoleon and the pope in 1809 or the closing of the seminaries of Saint-Lazarre, Saint-Esprit, and the Missions Etrangeres, Fresch nevertheless managed to deter Napoleon from signing a decree relative to the Gallican Church. He consented to bless Napoleon’s marriage with Marie-Louise, but, according the researches of Geoffrey de Grandmaison, he was not responsible to the same extent as the members of the diocesan officialité for the illegal annulment of the emperor’s first marriage.
In 1809 and 1810 Fresch presided over the two ecclesiastical commissions charged with the question of canonical institution of bishops, but the proceedings were so conducted that neither commission adopted any schismatic resolutions. As its president, he opened the National Council od 1811, but at the very outset he took and also administered the oath (forma juramenti professionis fidei) required by the Bull “Injunctum nobis” of Pius IV; it was decided by eight votes out of eleven that the method of canonical institution could not altered independently of the pope. A message containing the assurance of the cardinal’s loyalty, and addressed to the supreme pontiff, then in exile at Fontainebleau, caused the Fesch to incur the emperor’s disfavour and to forfeit the subsidy of 150,000 florins which he had received as Dalberg’s coadjutor. Under the Restoration and the Monarchy of July, Fesch lived at Rome, his Archdiocese of Lyons being in charge of an administrator. He died without again returning to France and left a splendid collection of pictures, a part of which was bequeathed to his epicopal city.
As a diplomat, Fesch sometimes employed questionable methods. His relationship to the emperor and his cardinalitical dignity often made his position a difficult one; at least he could never be accused of approving the violent measures resorted to by Napoleon. As Archbishop, he was largely instrumental in re-establishing the Brothers of Christian Doctrine and recalling the Jesuits, under the name of Pacanarists. The Archdiocese of Lyons is indebted to him for some eminently useful institutions. It must be admitted, moreover, that in his pastoral capacity Fesch took a genuine interest in the education of priests.
———————————–
GEORGES GOYAU Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VICopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Fesch, Joseph
a French cardinal, was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, Jan. 3, 1763. His father’s second wife was the mother of Laetitia Bonaparte. He studied at the College of Aix, in Provence, entered the Church, and was archdeacon and provost of the chapter of Ajaccio when the revolution broke out. The Bonaparte family being exiled from Corsica in 1793 for their opposition to Paoli and his British allies, Fesch followed them to Toulon, where his circumstances compelled him to enter the commissariat of the army. In 1795 he was appointed to the commissariat of the Army of Italy, just placed under the command of his nephew, Napoleon Bonaparte. After the 18th Brumaire he resumed his ecclesiastical functions, and was actively engaged in the negotiations concerning the Concordat of July 15, 1801. Napoleon made him archbishop of Lyons, and Fesch took possession of that see Aug. 15, 1802. Six months later he was created cardinal of St. Laurent in Lucina. In 1804 he was appointed ambassador to Rome, and was accompanied in this mission by Chiateaubriand, who thus began his diplomatic career. He subsequently decided Pius VII to come to Paris to crown the emperor. Napoleon appointed him high almoner, commander of the Legion of Honor, and senator. Fesch paid great attention to the interests of his diocese, and established a high theological school. During the difficulties between Napoleon and the pope he showed much consideration for the latter, declining in 1809 the archbishopric of Paris, which was offered him-by the emperor, and even rejecting the petitions of the chapter that he would at least administer the diocese. In 1811 Napoleon called a council to settle his difficulties with Pius VII, and appointed Fesch its president, in which capacity he seems not to have acted according to the views of the emperor, for he was sent back to his diocese. A letter of his addressed to the pope, then at Fontainebleau, caused him to be deprived of his stipend. He introduced into France the order of the’ “Brethren of the Christian Schools,” founded at Lyons a college of home missions, and was instrumental in procuring the recall of the Jesuits. When Napoleon I was sent to Elba, Fesch withdrew to Rome, where he was well received by Pius VII. During the “hundred days” he returned to France and into his archbishopric. After the battle of Waterloo he returned to Rome, declining, however, to resign his office as archbishop of Lyons. He died May 13, 1839. See Biog. du Clerge contemporain; L’ Ami de la Religion; L’Abbe Lyonnet, le Cardinal Fesch, fragments biographiques (Lyon, 1841, 2 vols. 8vo); La Verilt sur le cardinal Fesch (Lyon, 1842, 8vo); Thiers, Hist. du Consulat et de l’Empire, t. xiii; ‘Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 17:572.