Background
Louis Billot was born in and studied at the seminaries in Metz, Bordeaux, and Blois.
cardinal university professor Catholic priest
Louis Billot was born in and studied at the seminaries in Metz, Bordeaux, and Blois.
Raised to the cardinalate in 1911, he resigned from it in 1927, the only cleric to have done so in the twentieth century. Billot did pastoral work in Paris from 1875 to 1878, and then in Laval until 1879. In 1885, Billot became a professor of dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
In addition his academic post, he was named a consultor to the Holy Office on 19 June 1909.
His strong influence on Catholic theology was created by his numerous published works and his many students. Henri Le Floch, rector of the French Seminary in Rome.
Pius X created him Cardinal Deacon of South. Maria in via Lata in the consistory of 27 November 1911. Billot was one of the cardinal electors in the conclave of 1914, and later participated in that of 1922 as well.
He was also one of the three Cardinal-Presidents of the Pontifical Academy "South. Tommaso" in Rome, together with Benedetto Lorenzelli and Michele Lega.
Billot"s support for the deeply conservative movement eventually created tension between him and the Vatican. Billot expressed strong disagreement with the decision, saying that the political activities of monarchist Catholics ought not to be censured by Rome. After a stormy meeting with Pope Pius XI Billot submitted his resignation from the cardinalate on 13 September 1927, and the Pope accepted it eight days later, on 21 September.
He was the only cardinal to resign that rank during the twentieth century.
However, Cardinals Hans Hermann Groer, an Austrian monk and Vienna"s then-Archbishop, and the Scot Keith O"Brien, then-Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh, were asked by the Pope (Groer and Pope Saint John Paul II, in the 1980s), or eventually agreed with the Pope (O"Brien and Pope Francis, in the 2010s) to relinquish all of their rights and privileges of that office (O"Brien, who now lives south of Scotland in England, was allowed to retain the title of Cardinal and the honorific "His Eminence").
A keen proponent of Thomistic scholasticism, Billot became a leading figure in metaphysical and speculative theology.
He was appointed a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on 6 February 1923.