Pierre-Marie Gerlier was born in
Versailles, and was a
lawyer before deciding to pursue an ecclesiastical career. Indeed, after attending the
University of Bordeaux, he studied at the
seminary in
Issy for late vocations. Gerlier studied at the seminary in
Fribourg before serving as an officer of the
French Army in
World War I, during which he was wounded and
captured.
Ordained to the
priesthood on 29 July 1921, he then did
pastoral work in
Paris, where he was also the
archdiocesan Director of Catholic Works. On 14 May 1929 Gerlier was appointed
Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes by
Pope Pius XI. He received his
episcopal consecration on the following 2 July from Cardinal Louis-Ernest Dubois, with Bishops Benjamin Roland-Gosselin and
Maurice Dubourg serving as
co-consecrators, in
Notre Dame Cathedral. Gerlier was named
Archbishop of Lyon on 30 July 1937, and was created
Cardinal-Priest of
Ss. Trinità al Monte Pincio by Pope Pius in the
consistory of 13 December that year. As
Lyon's archbishop, he held the
honorary title of
Primate of
Gaul. From 1945 to 1948, he served as
Vice-President of the
French Episcopal Conference.
Second World War During
World War II, Gerlier condemned
Pierre Laval's
deportation of
Jews to
Nazi death camps, the severe conditions of which he also opposed. Moreover, he asked that
Roman Catholic religious institutes take Jewish children into hiding. However, Gerlier controversially did nothing to prevent the deportation to Auschwitz of the leading French Jew,
Jacques Helbronner. On October 28 the Gestapo arrested the president of the
Consistoire, who was a personal friend of both Pétain and Gerlier. Vichy was immediately informed and so was Cardinal Gerlier. Helbronner and his wife were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz in transport number 62 that left French territory on November 20 1943. They were gassed on arrival (sometime between October 28 and November 20). Neither the Vichy authorities nor the head of the French Catholic Church intervened in any way. "That Pétain did not intervene is not astonishing, that Gerlier abstained demonstrates that to the very end the leaders of the French church maintained their ambiguous attitude even toward those French Jews who were the closest to them."
Post-war He was one of the
cardinal electors in the
1939 papal conclave (at which he was considered
papabile), which selected
Pope Pius XII, and
participated again in the
1958 conclave, which resulted in the election of
Pope John XXIII. Living long enough to attend only the first three sessions of the
Second Vatican Council, Gerlier was also a
cardinal elector in the
conclave of 1963 that chose
Pope Paul VI. On social issues, He championed the
Worker-Priest movement In 1953, Gerlier described the film
Une caprice de Caroline chérie, starring French
sex symbol Martine Carol, as "a scandalous display of
vice". He received
Édouard Herriot's
deathbed conversion to
Catholicism in 1957. In 1965, Gerlier died from a
heart attack in Lyon, at the age of 85. He is buried in
Lyon Cathedral. == See also ==