LANGENIEUX, BENOÎT-MARIE. - Cardinal Archbishop of Reims, b. at Villefranche (Rhône) on 15 Oct. 1824, d. at Reims on 1 Jan. 1905. Ordained in 1850, he was successively parish priest in Paris at several important parishes, until in 1871 he was named vicar general of the archdiocese. Bishop of Tarbes in 1873, the following year he was promoted to the see of Reims, which he governed for over thirty years. In 1886 Leo XIII conferred the cardinal’s hat upon him, with the title of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina.
Legate a latere to the Eucharistic Congresses of Jerusalem, Reims, and Lourdes, promoter of the beatification of Joan of Arc, which he celebrated at Orléans in 1885 with a famous discourse, he particularly cherished the title of cardinal of the workers, attributed to him for the prominent part he took in the social field, in application of Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum. When the anti-religious policy of the French government began, the Cardinal of Reims was among the most zealous defenders of the Church’s rights and published two particularly important writings: the Déclaration des cardinaux et exposé de la situation faite à l'Eglise de France (1892) and the Lettre au Président de la République (1904). He also wrote a history of the Church, widely used in French seminaries.