Georges Darboy

Georges Darboy
Archbishop of Paris
Georges Darboy in 1865.
See	Paris
Installed	January 1863
Term ended	May 1871
Predecessor	François-Nicholas-Madeleine Morlot
Successor	Joseph Hippolyte Guibert
Orders
Ordination	17 December 1836
Consecration	30 November 1859
Personal details
Born	(1813-01-16)January 16, 1813 Fayl-Billot, Haute-Marne, France
Died	May 24, 1871(1871-05-24) (aged 58) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Coat of arms

Georges Darboy (16 January 1813 – 24 May 1871) was a French Catholic priest, later bishop of Nancy then archbishop of Paris. He was among a group of prominent hostages executed as the Paris Commune of 1871 was about to be overthrown.

Darboy was born in Fayl-Billot, Haute-Marne in north-east France. He studied with distinction at the seminary at Langres, and was ordained priest in 1836. Transferred to Paris as almoner of the college of Henry IV, and honorary canon of Notre Dame, he became the close friend of Archbishop Affre and of his successor Archbishop Sibour. He was appointed bishop of Nancy in 1859, and in January 1863 was raised to the archbishopric of Paris. Darboy was a strenuous upholder of episcopal independence in the Gallican sense, and involved himself in a controversy with Rome by his endeavours to suppress the jurisdiction of the Jesuits and other religious orders within his diocese. Pope Pius IX refused him the cardinal's hat, and rebuked him for his liberalism in a letter which was probably not intended for publication.

He is also known for his opposition in 1868 to Jacques-Paul Migne, forbidding him to continue his low-cost books business after the burning of his printing establishment, and suspending him from his priestly functions.

At the First Vatican Council he vigorously maintained the rights of the bishops, and strongly opposed the dogma of papal infallibility, against which he voted as inopportune. When the dogma had been finally adopted, however, he was one of the first to set the example of submission.