1. Jean-Marie Villot was a French prelate and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Lyon from 1965 to 1967, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1967 to 1969, Vatican Secretary of State from 1969 to 1979, and Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church from 1970 to 1979.
Jean-Marie Villot was born on 11 October 1905 in Saint-Amant-Tallende, Puy-de-Dome, to Joseph and Marie Villot; he was an only child.
Jean-Marie Villot became a Marist novice on 7 September 1925, but left the order three months later.
Jean-Marie Villot then studied at the Catholic Institute of Paris and the Pontifical Athenaeum Angelicum in Rome, where he earned a licentiate in canon law and a doctorate in sacred theology in 1934 with a thesis entitled Le pape Nicolas II et le decret de 1059 sur l'election pontificale.
Jean-Marie Villot was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Paris on 19 April 1930 by Archbishop Alfred-Henri-Marie Baudrillart, rector of the Institut Catholique.
Jean-Marie Villot taught at the Clermont seminary and the Catholic University in Lyon, serving as vice-rector of the latter from 1942 to 1950.
Jean-Marie Villot succeeded Cardinal Gerlier as Archbishop of Lyon on 17 January 1965.
Jean-Marie Villot was named Prefect of the Congregation of the Council on 7 April 1967.
Jean-Marie Villot was named Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church on 16 October 1970, the first non-Italian to hold the office in half a millennium, a further testament of Pope Paul's insistence on expanding the role of non-Italians at the highest levels of the Vatican bureaucracy.
Jean-Marie Villot was present at the death of Paul VI in Castel Gandolfo on 6 August 1978.
Jean-Marie Villot noted that Villot himself had suggested that the first non-Italian pope in centuries might want an Italian as his Secretary of State.
Jean-Marie Villot remained in office until his death in March 1979.
Jean-Marie Villot participated as a cardinal elector in both the August and October conclaves of 1978, which elected John Paul I and John Paul II respectively, and presided at the conclaves because he was the senior cardinal bishop in attendance.
Jean-Marie Villot died at age 73 from bronchial pneumonia on 9 March 1979, in his Vatican City apartment, the day he returned from a four-day hospital stay.