# Maurice Feltin

Maurice Feltin (15 May 1883 – 27 September 1975) was a French cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Paris from 1949 to 1966, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1953 by Pope Pius XII.

## Biography

Born in Delle, Territoire-de-Belfort, Maurice Feltin studied at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris before being ordained a priest on 3 July 1909. He then did pastoral work in Besançon until 1914, at which time he was made an officer in the French Army during World War I. For his work, he was awarded the Croix-de-Guerre, the Médaille militaire, and the Légion d'honneur.
On 19 December 1927, Feltin was appointed Bishop of Troyes by Pope Pius XI. He received his episcopal consecration on 11 March 1928 from Cardinal Henri-Charles-Joseph Binet, with Bishops Paul-Jules-Narcisse Rémond and Jean-Marcel Rodié serving as co-consecrators. Feltin was promoted to Archbishop of Sens on 16 August 1932, and was later named Archbishop of Bordeaux on 16 December 1935. After the defeat of France in the summer of 1940 Feltin supported the Vichy regime of Marshal Pétain. However, he also sheltered Jews fleeing German Occupied France and helped the Grand Rabbi of France escape the Gestapo. On 15 August 1949, he became the twenty-third Archbishop of Paris.
He was created Cardinal Priest of Santa Maria della Pace by Pope Pius XII in the consistory of 12 January 1953. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 1958 papal conclave and the 1963 papal conclave.
During the Algerian War Feltin strongly supported the French army and dismissed allegations of widespread torture as "exaggerations". He accused people who spread such information with undermining national unity and insulting the honor of the army. In the fall of 1959, he met with General Jacques Massu, a leading advocate for the use of torture, reassuring him that the Church supported the army. Feltin denounced the use of torture in 1960 but continued his opposition to the legalization of conscientious objection in France, rejecting objections to the war by certain French Catholics. In anti-war Catholic circles, Feltin's actions were met with displeasure.
He attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. He resigned as Paris' archbishop on 21 December 1966. After the first meeting between Church and Freemasonry which had been held on 11 April 1969 at the convent of the Divine Master in Ariccia, he was the protagonist of a series of public handshakes between high prelates of the Roman Catholic Church and the heads of Freemasonry.
He died in Thiais, outside Paris, at age 92, and was buried in Notre Dame Cathedral.

## Trivia

* Feltin condemned the legend of Santa Claus, claiming that it debased the "Christian significance of Christmas".
* In 1959, Feltin requested of the Holy Office that the Worker-Priest movement be revived, albeit under strict controls; his request, however, was denied.
* In 1963, Feltin denied Édith Piaf a religious funeral due to her controversial life. However, on 10 October 2013, fifty years after her death, the Roman Catholic Church gave Piaf a memorial Mass in the St. Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville, Paris, the parish into which she was born.