Fesch, Joseph

FESCH, JOSEPH. - Cardinal, b. 3 January 1763 at Ajaccio, d. 13 May 1839 at Rome. Son of Angela Maria Pietra Santa who, left a widow by Giuseppe Ramolino, married in second marriage François F., the future cardinal was the half-brother of Letizia Ramolino and therefore the uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte. He studied at the Seminary of Aix in Provence from 1781 onward, and there was ordained a priest in 1785. Having returned to Corsica, in 1791 he took the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy. Having laid aside the priestly habit, which he resumed only after the conclusion of the Concordat of 1801, he was in the retinue of his nephew during the Italian campaign. Archbishop of Lyon in 1802, he was created the following year by Pius VII cardinal of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, and was appointed ambassador of France to the Holy See.

He felt deeply the bond of blood with his nephew, but he joined to this natural affection a profound veneration for the Pope and for the Holy See. Of Gallican ideas, he did not oppose energetically, as his status of prince of the Church required, the Melzi decrees and the Organic Articles. He did not intend, however, in any way to repudiate the primacy of the bishop of Rome and he refused the appointment as archbishop of Paris by the Emperor in 1810, because it lacked the canonical institution of the Supreme Pontiff. At the fall of Napoleon he led a retired life in Rome, where Pius VII granted him generous hospitality. He never renounced the see of Lyon.

Silvia Furlani