38 Facts About Jacques Gaillot

Jacques Gaillot was a French Catholic clergyman and social activist.

Jacques Gaillot was Bishop of Evreux in France from 1982 to 1995.

From 1995, Jacques Gaillot was bishop of the titular see of Parthenia.

Jacques Gaillot was born in Saint-Dizier, Haute-Marne, on 11 September 1935.

In 1983, Jacques Gaillot publicly supported a conscientious objector in Evreux who declined to perform alternative service in forestry on the grounds that it did not contribute to the relief of the destitute or promote peace.

In 1984, Jacques Gaillot declined to join large-scale Church-led public demonstrations in favour of French parochial schools and signed petitions in favour of secular education.

In January 1985, Jacques Gaillot drew sustained media attention for the first time when he signed an appeal on behalf of underpaid Catholic school teachers; signing the appeal was Georges Marchais, the head of the French Communist Party.

Also in 1987, Jacques Gaillot traveled to Athens to show solidarity with Palestinian refugees.

Jacques Gaillot participated in the ceremony of the transfer of the ashes of the late bishop Baptiste-Henri Gregoire to the Pantheon, a necropolis for the great men of France.

Jacques Gaillot was the only French bishop participating in this ceremony.

The French journalist Henri Tincq wrote in Le Monde that Jacques Gaillot "has the merit of saying out loud what many people in authority in the church think deep down".

Jacques Gaillot gave interviews to leading gay magazines and criticized his peers as incompetent to judge the circumstances of gays and lesbians.

Jacques Gaillot offered to resign but the Vatican did not respond.

On 12 April 1994, Jacques Gaillot appeared on television in a discussion with dissident Catholic theologian Eugen Drewermann.

Jacques Gaillot was the target of a bitter campaign to disparage his name.

Jacques Gaillot responded by calling Duval an "ayatollah" seeking to impose "ideological uniformity" within the French Bishops Conference.

Jacques Gaillot compared the leadership style of Cardinal Bernadin Gantin, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, to that of the Stasi, the East German security police.

Jacques Gaillot assigned him as a pastor in Lieurey, putting him in contact with children again.

Jacques Gaillot was perceived favorably by a significant number of people, particularly due to his ministry to all people without distinction.

Bishop Jacques Gaillot continued to defend human rights and engage in activism, regularly publishing information about his activities on the website of Parthenia.

Jacques Gaillot travelled throughout France and internationally, spreading the word of the Christian Gospel and defending those who are considered "outcasts".

Jacques Gaillot was an avid anti-war protester and is considered by many to be a strong socialist.

In 1995, after his removal as Bishop of Evreux, Jacques Gaillot attended a Call to Action conference in Detroit as one of the keynote speakers.

Jacques Gaillot held three sessions, proving to be popular despite speaking through a translator.

Jacques Gaillot hosted the conference alongside other controversial Catholic theologians including Hans Kung and Thomas Gumbleton.

Free of responsibility for a functioning diocese, Jacques Gaillot became even more daring in his activism.

In July 1995, Jacques Gaillot engaged in protests against French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne prohibited Jacques Gaillot from addressing a World Youth Day event in Bonn in 2004.

Also in 2004 Bishop Jacques Gaillot met with Maryam Rajavi, an Iranian political activist president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

In 2007 Jacques Gaillot posted a video interview on Google Video, attempting to bring attention to the escalating violence in Darfur.

Jacques Gaillot wrote a book shortly after his removal from Evreux, which was published in 1996 and titled Voice from the Desert: A Bishop's Cry for a New Church.

In 2000, Louis-Marie Bille, Archbishop of Lyon and president of the French Episcopal Conference, invited Jacques Gaillot to attend a national ecumenical service in Lyon on 14 May alongside other senior members of the French hierarchy.

Jacques Gaillot accepted, writing that he was "happy to demonstrate my communion with the Church".

On 1 September 2015, shortly before his 80th birthday, Jacques Gaillot, accompanied by Daniel Duigou, a priest and former journalist, met privately with Pope Francis in his Vatican City residence for 45 minutes.

Jacques Gaillot said the pontiff encouraged him to continue his activism on behalf of migrants and refugees.

Jacques Gaillot moved to a retirement home in Paris in November 2022.

Jacques Gaillot died in Paris on 12 April 2023, at the age of 87.

Jacques Gaillot suffered from pancreatic cancer and had been hospitalized a week earlier.