LEDÓCHOWSKI, Mieczysław Halka, Count of. - Cardinal, b. 29 Oct. 1822 at Górki (diocese of Sandomierz), d. 22 July 1902 in Rome. He studied at Radom and at the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics in Rome and was ordained a priest in 1845. Auditor at the nunciature of Lisbon in 1851, apostolic delegate in Colombia and Chile in 1855, nuncio in Brussels and titular archbishop of Thebes in 1861, he was elected in Dec. 1865 archbishop of Gniezno and Poznań and preconized in the following January.

LEDÓCHOWSKA, MARIA THERESIA. Portrait.(courtesy of Fr. Ceterina Testers, S.J.)

In Dec. 1870 he went personally to Versailles, to the headquarters of William I of Prussia, to deliver to him an address from the bishops of his ecclesiastical province, seeking to obtain the sovereign's intervention in favor of the Holy See against the Italian occupation of Rome. In 1872 a serious conflict arose between the archbishop and the Prussian government, caused by a legislative provision forbidding the imparting of religious instruction in the Polish language. In vain did L. oppose this abuse: the teachers who refused to bow to the will of the state authorities were deprived of their teaching post. A worsening of the conflict came after the promulgation of the so-called May Laws. Asked by the prefect of Posen to renounce the administration of the diocese "because of his systematic resistance" to the new legislative provisions, L. opposed it with an indignant refusal. Arrested on 3 Feb. 1874, he was confined in the prisons of Ostrowo, where the papal brief reached him, by which he was informed of the conferral of the cardinalatial dignity in the Consistory of 15 March 1875. Freed from prison, he came to Rome in March 1876. At the end of the Kulturkampf, in 1886, he renounced the archbishopric. In 1892 Leo XIII appointed him prefect of Propaganda Fide.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: H. Bruck, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, IV, Magenau-Münster 1908, parts 1 and 2, passim: B. v. Selchow, Der Kampf um das Posener Erzbistum 1865. Graf L. und Oberpräsident von Horn. Ein Vorspiel zum Kulturkampf, Marburg 1923; E. Soderini, Il pontificato di Leone XIII, III, Milan 1932, passim: J. Schmidlin, Papstgeschichte der neuesten Zeit, II, Freiburg im Br. 1934, pp. 132-87, 341-497.

Silvio Furlani

@incollection{ec7_ledochowski_mieczyslaw_halka_c, author = {Furlani, Silvio}, title = {Ledóchowski, mieczyslaw halka, conte di}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1016--1017}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ledochowski-mieczyslaw-halka-conte-di} }

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Ledóchowski, Mieczysław Halka, Count of

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