Godfried Daneels
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His Eminence Godfried Danneels |
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| Cardinal, Archbishop Emeritus of Mechelen-Brussels | |
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| Archdiocese | Mechelen-Brussels |
| Province | Mechelen-Brussels |
| See | |
| Appointed | 19 December 1979 |
| Term ended | 18 January 2010 |
| Predecessor | Leo Joseph Suenens |
| Successor | André-Joseph Léonard |
| Other posts |
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| Orders | |
| Ordination | 17 August 1957 by Emiel-Jozef De Smedt |
| Consecration | 18 December 1977 by Leo Jozef Suenens |
| Created Cardinal | 2 February 1983 by Pope John Paul II |
| Rank | Cardinal-Priest |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Godfried Maria Jules Danneels |
| Born |
4 June 1933 Kanegem, Tielt |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Occupation | Theologian |
| Previous post |
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| Alma mater | Catholic University of Leuven, Pontifical Gregorian University |
| Coat of arms |  |
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Styles of Godfried Danneels |
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| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | Mechelen-Brussels |
Godfried Maria Jules Danneels (born 4 June 1933) is a Belgian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the chairman of the episcopal conference of his native country from 1979 to 2010. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983. His resignation at the age of 75 was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI on 18 January 2010.
Born in Kanegem, West Flanders, Godfried Danneels was the eldest of six siblings. He owed his vocation to the priesthood to a priest he had as a teacher in high school, Daniel Billiet. Like a few other bright candidates for the priesthood from West Flanders, Danneels did not enter the episcopal Seminary of Bruges after he finished high school, but was sent directly to the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven, there to follow a three-year course of Thomistic philosophy (1951–1954). Leuven, with which he remained "in love" his entire life, opened the world for him intellectually. From Leuven he was sent to Rome, where he studied Catholic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University whilst living in the Belgian Papal College (1954–1959). With a few exceptions, he judged the quality of his courses there inferior to those in Leuven, but Rome greatly enriched him culturally. Danneels obtained his bachelor's degree in June 1956, his license in 1958, and his doctorate in 1961.
His results as a student were uniformly excellent, with two symptomatic exceptions in Rome: an A– for canon law, revealing his lack of interest in the finesses of canon law, which would remain with him all his life, and a "mere" magna cum laude for his license, due to a mediocre exam in Institutiones systematico-historicae liturgicae, a course that was heavily inspired by canon law and which required memorizing the countless rubrics of the Tridentine liturgy.
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