*** Welcome to piglix ***

Leo Jozef Suenens

His Eminence
Leo Jozef Suenens
Cardinal, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel
Primate of Belgium
Suenens.jpg
See Mechelen-Brussel
Installed 24 November 1961
Term ended 4 October 1979
Predecessor Jozef-Ernest van Roey
Successor Godfried Danneels
Other posts Auxiliary Bishop of Mechelen (1945–61)
Orders
Ordination 4 September 1927
Consecration 16 December 1945
Created Cardinal 19 March 1962
Personal details
Born (1904-07-16)16 July 1904
Ixelles, Belgium
Died 6 May 1996(1996-05-06) (aged 91)
Brussels, Belgium
Styles of
Leo Jozef Suenens
External Ornaments of a Cardinal Bishop.svg
Reference style His Eminence
Spoken style Your Eminence
Informal style Cardinal
See Mechelen-Brussel

Leo Jozef Suenens (pronounced SOO-nens) (16 July 1904 – 6 May 1996) was a Belgian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel from 1961 to 1979, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1962.

Suenens was a leading voice at the Second Vatican Council and advocated aggiornamento in the Church.

Leo Suenens was born at Ixelles, the only child of Jean-Baptiste and Jeanne (née Jannsens) Suenens. He was baptised by his uncle, who was also a priest. Losing his father (who had owned a restaurant) at age four, Leo lived with his mother in the rectory of his priest-uncle from 1911 to 1912. Wealthy relatives wanted him to study economics and manage their fortune, but he chose the priesthood. He studied at Saint Mary's Institute in Schaerbeek and then entered the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1920. From the Gregorian he obtained a doctorate in theology and in philosophy (1927), and a master's degree in canon law (1929). Suenens had taken as his mentor Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier, who had also sent him to Rome.

Ordained to the priesthood on 4 September 1927 by Cardinal Jozef-Ernest van Roey, Suenens initially served as a professor at Saint Mary's Institute and then taught moral philosophy and pedagogy at the Minor Seminary of Mechelen from 1930 to 1940. He worked as a chaplain to the 9th artillery regiment of the Belgian Army in Southern France for three months, and in August 1940 he became vice-rector of the famed Catholic University of Louvain. When the Louvain's rector was arrested by Nazi forces in 1943, Suenens took over as acting rector, where he sometimes circumvented and sometimes openly defied the directives of the Nazi occupiers. Raised to the rank of Monsignor in October 1941, he was included on a list of thirty hostages who were to be executed by the Nazis, but the Allied liberation of Belgium occurred shortly before these orders could be carried out.


...
Wikipedia

...