LIVINHAC, LÉON. - B. on 13 July 1846, he entered the Society of the White Fathers in 1873. Five years later, in 1878, he left Marseilles at the head of the first expedition of 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 apostolic vicar. In the final years of his life he saw twenty-two of his first Christian martyrs raised to the honours of the altar, 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, became its superior general for life, until 11 Nov. 1922, the date of his death.
Mons. L. left behind a memory of himself as a saint, and was regarded as one sent by Divine Providence to gather the founder’s spiritual inheritance and transmit it intact to the nascent society.
Giovanni B. Canet