LIVINHAC, LÉON. - Born on 13 July 1846, he entered the Society of the White Fathers in 1873. Five years later, in 1878, he set out from Marseille at the head of the first expedition of the White Fathers, for the missions of Equatorial Africa.

After 14 months of travel, he reached his destination and founded the mission of Uganda, soon becoming its first vicar apostolic. In the last years of his life he saw twenty-two of his first Christian martyrs raised to the honors of the altars, beatified in 1920. In 1889 he had been elected vicar general of the Society of the White Fathers and, after the death of Card. Lavigerie, he became its superior general for life, until 11 Nov. 1922, the date of his death.

Msgr. L. left behind a memory of himself as of a saint, and was regarded as one sent by divine Providence to gather up the spiritual inheritance of the founder and transmit it intact to the nascent society.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: A. Nicq, Le p. Siméon Lourdel et les premières années de la mission de l'Uganda, 3rd ed., Maison-Carrée (Algiers) 1922, pp. 65-249, passim, 361-538, passim; P. Voillard, Instructions de mons. L. L. aux missionnaires d'Afrique (Pères Blancs), ibid. 1923; J. Mercui, Les origines de la Société des missionnaires d'Afrique (Pères Blancs), ibid. 1929, pp. 337-40, 416-26.

Giovanni B. Canet

@incollection{ec7_livinhac_leon, author = {Canet, Giovanni Battista}, title = {Livinhac, léon}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1451--1452}, 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/livinhac-leon} }

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Livinhac, Léon

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