MERMILLOD, GASPARD. – Cardinal, born at Carouge (diocese of Geneva) on 22 September 1824, died in Rome on 23 February 1892. Ordained a priest in 1847, he was vicar at the parish of S. Germano in Geneva. In the canton of Geneva, where Calvinist intolerance and radicalism held undisputed sway, M. became a determined advocate and defender of the rights of Catholics. In 1848 he protested indignantly against the expulsion of Bishop Marilley.
With the support of the French and Piedmontese Catholics whom his preaching had stirred, in 1857 he succeeded in opening in Geneva, where the 20,000 Catholics were gathered in a single parish, the new church of Our Lady, and he became its first parish priest. To combat Calvinist rationalism, he founded the Annales catholiques. Appointed titular bishop of Hebron, he was given charge of all the Catholics of the canton of Geneva; but this, which was to have been the first step toward the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in Switzerland, led to no further developments because of the renewed intensity of Protestant intolerance. Indeed, from 1870 onward the oppression of Catholics increased, owing to the canton authorities’ attempt to impose on them the establishment of a national Church (1872). M.’s appointment as bishop was deemed illegal, and he was ordered to renounce II. Since M. refused, on 17 February 1873 he was expelled from the canton and compelled to settle at Monthon near the frontier (cf. concerning these events G. Goyau, Une ville église: Genève, II, 3rd ed., Paris 1919, pp. 149 ff.).
In 1881 Leo XIII entrusted him with visiting the Catholic churches in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Consultor to the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1882, he was appointed bishop of Geneva and Lausanne the following year and created a curial cardinal in 1890.