François Charrière (1 September 1893 – 11 July 1976) was the
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
bishop of
Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg from 1945 to 1970.
Biography
François Charrière was born into a peasant family in the village of
Cerniat
Cerniat (; ) is a former Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Gruyère (district), Gruyère in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Fribourg (canton), Fribourg in Switzerland. On 1 January 2014 the former municipaliti ...
on 1 September 1893. He studied at the Collège Saint-Michel in Fribourg and then under the Capuchins at the Collège de
Stans
Stans () is the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Nidwalden (Nidwald) in Switzerland.
The official language of Stans is German language, German (spoken there in the variety of Swiss Standard German), but the main language is the ...
, earning his baccalaureate in 1913. He spent the next four years at the major seminary of the diocese and was ordained a priest on 15 July 1917. His first pastoral assignment was at the parish of Notre Dame in Lausanne for three years. He then renewed his studies at the
Angelicum
The Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (PUST), also known as the ''Angelicum'' or ''Collegio Angelico'' (in honor of its patron, the ''Doctor Angelicus'' Thomas Aquinas), is a pontifical university located in the historic center of R ...
, earning his doctorate in canon law in 1923 with a thesis titled "De interdicto". After a brief term of pastoral work in Lausanne, in April 1924 he became professor of moral theology and sociology at the major seminary there. He taught canon law from 1929 to 1938, teaching for several of those years at the
University of Fribourg
The University of Fribourg (; ) is a public university located in Fribourg, Switzerland.
The roots of the university can be traced back to 1580, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg ...
as well. Alongside his teaching duties, he led the diocesan retreat office and led charities directed especially at young women. He also promoted missions in Asia and Eastern Europe. In 1941 he assumed direction the local Catholic journal ''La Liberté''. In 1944 he established a French-language version of the Catholic news service Katholische Internationale Presse Aktion (KIPA).
[
He was teaching at the seminary when ]Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...
appointed him bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg on 20 October 1945.Filippo Bernardini
Filippo Bernardini (11 November 1884 – 26 August 1954) was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. He spent almost his entire career in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and was given the rank of archbishop in 1933. He was Apostolic Del ...
, Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland.
In 1969, near the end of his tenure in Fribourg, Charrière gave Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre (29 November 1905 – 25 March 1991) was a Catholic Church in France, French Catholic prelate who served as Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dakar, Archbishop of Dakar from 1955 to 1962. He was a major inf ...
permission to establish a seminary within his diocese in Écône
Écône is an area in the municipality of Riddes, district of Martigny, in the canton of Valais, Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by It ...
. On 1 November 1970, Charrière issued a decree that established Lefebvre's Society of St. Pius X as a "pious union" for six years "by way of an experiment", to be extended for another six subject to the intervention of the bishop of Fribourg. The decree anticipated that after 12 years the Society "will be able to be definitively erected" by the diocesan bishop or the appropriate body within the Roman Curia
The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use ...
.
His service in Fribourg ended when he was 77, with the appointment of his successor, Pierre Mamie
Pierre Mamie (4 March 1920 – 14 March 2008) was a Swiss prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the bishop of the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg from 1970 to 1995, following two years as auxiliary bishop there. His earlier career ...
, on 29 December 1970.
He died on 11 July 1976.
Notes
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Charriere, Francois
1893 births
1976 deaths
People from the canton of Fribourg
20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Switzerland