Maurice Dubourg (8 August 1878 – 31 January 1954) was a Franc-Comtois cleric of the Roman Catholic Church, diocesan canon priest, then bishop of Marseille from 1928 to 1936, and finally archbishop of Besançon from 1936 to 1954. During the Second World War, he recognized the legitimacy and values of the regime established by the French head of state, Marshal Philippe Pétain, but showed concern for the fate of Spanish refugees and workers subject to the Service du travail obligatoire (STO). After the war, he was behind the creation of the Notre-Dame de la Libération votive monument on Besançon's colline des Bois, and supported innovations in sacred art within the diocese of Besançon.
Biography
Childhood, studies and early career Louis Maurice Dubourg was born on August 8, 1878 in Besançon (Doubs). In the autumn of 1882, little Dubourg entered the Institution Sainte-Marie in the Saint-Jean district of the Comtois capital; still wearing the infant dress, he was then four years old. Here, now known as the Collège Saint-Jean, the future archbishop studied for his baccalaureate in philosophy. The young Dubourg then attended the Faculty (or School) of Law in Besançon. In Paris, he continued his studies as a student and trainee at the Conférence des avocats. Beginning his career as a young Parisian lawyer, he was also active in the Sillon, the political and ideological movement of journalist and politician Marc Sangnier, which sought to bring Catholics closer to the Republic and free workers from the influence of the anticlerical left. Dubourg was also a member of a Saint-Vincent-de-Paul conference, where he helped poor families of Comtois exiled to Paris. In 1903, the Abbé founded the famous Vesoul sports club, l'Avant-garde de la Motte. In 1906, Maître Dubourg entered the Parisian Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice, an institution of higher learning designed to train Catholic priests. After three years, he was ordained priest on July 3, 1909, at the age of 31, and began his career in Vesoul as curate.
Military mobilization During the First World War, Abbé Dubourg was an officer, military chaplain and stretcher-bearer. On mobilization, he joined the 7th Army Corps, and through his stubbornness and defiance of all regulations, managed to get himself assigned to the 170th Infantry Regiment, which belonged to an attack division specializing in "hard knocks". According to General Medical Officer Fourgereau, "courageous he certainly was; at times, he even seemed reckless... But no, M. l'Aumônier was not. l'Aumônier was not reckless; he was in charge of a service whose importance and complexity frightened me... But if Abbé Dubourg was courageous, with a calm simplicity, he was also courageous with a chic that was universally admired, and this chic was due above all to his legendary smile, which he never lost in any circumstance, however tragic". He was awarded the Croix de Guerre 1914-1918, and received five commendations for his "legendary bravery". Much later, only a few days before his death, he was named Commander of the Legion of Honor.
First works With peace restored, Abbé Dubourg returned to Vesoul. In 1919, he was appointed director of Œuvres de l'archidiocèse de Besançon, in the very Bisontine Rue de la Vieille-Monnaie where he worked alone with Abbé Gaillard. From 1919 to 1928, he was the reorganizer of the Ligue Féminine and the director and active rallying agent of the "Union des Catholiques du Diocèse", a union born of the "Association des chefs de famille" of the Besançon diocese, launched before the war to defend school neutrality.
During the same period, with Canon Dubourg multiplying groups, training chaplains and inspiring young personalities, youth movements resumed their activities (from 1919): the "Thom", the brilliant Union Comtoise and above all the Association catholique de la jeunesse française (A.C.J.F.). Within the Œuvres diocésaines, the "Comité régional" operated, with an average age of twenty. Nineteen twenty-two was the year of a new beginning for the A.C.J.F., which had known great hours before 1914. The motto was "Piety, Study, Action", within the following progressive framework: Family, Profession, City. "You will never pray enough", "Never stay a day, never a night, with a mortal sin, if you have to, go and wake up a priest", repeated Canon Dubourg, "so tenderly good", but "without weakness on principles". Under his aegis, Eucharistic Congresses were held in Gray (Haute-Saône) in 1924, Montbéliard (Doubs) in 1925 and Morteau (Haut-Doubs) in 1926. In parallel with the cercles d'études, which had more difficulty getting off the ground, Canon Dubourg founded a small Catholic sheet, Vers l'Avenir, a youth newspaper. It has 3,500 subscribers. The Regional Committee visits parishes, creates and animates groups, and tries to counteract the anti-clericalism back on the agenda. Committee meetings and so-called "mass" meetings score at least one point. Canon Dubourg likes to remind us: "Action is only a means, don't make it an end; know how to convince without offending; serve without thinking of receiving". One autumn evening, leaving the Kursaal in Besançon, an "immense monome of three hundred young people" walked along the Grande Rue and, facing Saint-Pierre church in the town center, prayed to the Virgin Mary to "forgive and enlighten". In 1923 (the first issue dates from January), Canon Dubourg also founded a new journal, Dieu et Famille, "le journal de l'Union des Catholiques", in order, according to J. Panier, to "give instructions, create, outside the parties, a specifically Catholic action". The paper was published monthly, dealing with family, school, agricultural and social issues, and subscriptions cost no more than two francs, making it affordable for everyone. On February 28, 1928, Institution Sainte-Marie welcomed its former pupil Dubourg.
Bishop of Marseille, then Archbishop of Besançon
On December 17, 1928, Canon Dubourg was appointed Bishop of Marseille. He was consecrated bishop on February 25, 1929 by Cardinal Charles-Henri-Joseph Binet, Archbishop of Besançon, and Paul Rémond, then Chaplain General of the Army of the Rhine, titular Bishop of Clysma (de). The new bishop was officially installed on March 9, 1929. On his way to Marseille, Dubourg donated his family home in the Besançon suburb of Gouille, the Villa Saint-Charles (later known as the Villa Episcopale), to the Besançon archdiocese for use as a retreat center. Thanks to NNSS Béjot and Pourchet (future bishop of Saint-Flour), the villa would host groups from Jeunesse étudiante chrétienne, Catholic Action, priestly retreats, school retreats. After Dubourg's appointment to Marseille, his successor at the Direction des Œuvres de l'archidiocèse de Besançon was Abbé Gaillard.
The new bishop's first ministry, lasting eight years, was marked by the crowning of the statue of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde in 1931 and the great Catholic Exhibition of 1935. On the day of his enthronement as Archbishop of Besançon, the President of the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce expressed the regret of all Marseillais, many of them protesting against the strange ecclesiastical organization which had turned a bishop of Marseilles into the Archbishop of Besançon.
Dubourg was appointed to the latter position on December 9, 1936, and was enthroned in the Comtois capital on February 18, 1937. Under his pontificate, the Maîtrise of Besançon's Saint-Jean cathedral was rebuilt, the future Collège technique Saint-Joseph was built in Besançon, a chapel was founded for the Valdahon camp, a catechetical center was opened, the L'Éclair Comtois newspaper was reorganized, a survey was carried out on Church singing and Marian piety, and "Journées liturgiques de malades" were created in Belfort. In 1937, Dubourg welcomed German veterans from Freiburg im Breisgau, who had been invited to Besançon, to the cathedral. Hundreds of young people took part in the tenth anniversary congress of the Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne and Jeunesse agricole catholique in Paris (1937 and 1938). A pilgrimage of a thousand men went to Lourdes in 1938. 1938, a Marian year to mark the third centenary of Louis XIII's vow, culminated in the Belfort Congress. In Meaux, Dubourg spoke at the anniversary of the Marne victory. In July 1939, Dubourg celebrated the eighth centenary of the Grâce-Dieu abbey, the centenary of the Refuge, the Gray-Mattincourt road inaugurated in honor of Saint Pierre Fourier, and the inauguration of a statue of Saint Colomband in the courtyard of the Luxeuil-les-Bains seminary. On March 19, 1938, Dubourg blessed the Collège Saint-Joseph, created by Abbé Gaillard.
The Second World War
The city of Besançon was occupied by the German National Socialist army on June 16, 1940; Dubourg expressed himself in two notes: the first, which he read in the church of Saint-Pierre on Sunday June 23, 1940, the second on June 27, 1940: "Let us say it loud and clear, it is a betrayal of the fatherland and honor to welcome as friends those who come to us, no matter how correct they may be, with the sole right of force. Let's give them what we can't refuse them: that's the law of war. Let us be correct, but not servile. Even more so, no smiles of complacency, no familiarity. Let us remain dignified... The war is not over. And no one knows what the future holds". These statements led to the seizure by the German occupiers of the Semaine Religieuse, which had published these texts, and to the ten-day detention of Vicar General Galland at the Kommandantur headquarters, where he was held responsible.
A few weeks later, at the "Journées Sacerdotales" in September–October 1940, Dubourg explained to his clergy the difficulties of pastoral practice under the new regime: "Does this mean that our ministry will not encounter enormous difficulties? Assuming that institutions are significantly improved, minds will not be changed any time soon. And certain measures of strict justice, such as the repeal of the 1904 law, far from calming minds, will serve as a pretext for new anti-clerical campaigns. We'll be watched, spied on, fought? What can we do? (...) We must not triumph as if we had won a battle". Dubourg felt that Marshal Philippe Pétain's government was legitimate, even after the landings of 1942. In front of his chapter, he declared in January 1941: "Submissive to religious authority as our faith makes it our duty, we respect, we venerate and we love the Head of State. We are not, and never will be, among those who presume to judge and condemn his decisions, when they know nothing of the reasons behind them". For months, every first Friday at 7 a.m., Dubourg received a group of men at his home to study the situation and the behavior the French should adopt.