Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, the son of a railway worker from Benin became at one stage the most powerful African in the Roman Curia, yet campaigned vehmently and consistently against “career-hungry bishops”. Gantin, who himself had in 1960 been appointed the first black Roman Catholic archbishop in Africa, encountered this breed while head of the Pontifical Congregation for Bishops, which oversees the appointments of Catholic bishops across the world.
While there, Gantin expressed open distaste for the “amazing careerism” of some bishops whom he said had “definitely pressured him” to be appointed to what they considered to be the more “important” dioceses.
He later declared that the modern bishop travelled too much, but should stay put to enjoy instead a “matrimonial bond” with their dioceses. Speaking to an Italian publication in 2006, Gantin said it was crucial for bishops “sit down, listen, pray” with their own believers, and said the canon law stipulating a Bishop must reside within his diocese meant they could be “an example” to their own priests.
Bernardin Gantin, whose family name means “iron tree” in his native language, was born in 1922 in the French colony of Dahomey. He was ordained a priest in 1951 and following canon law studies in Rome, was appointed at the age of 34, auxilary bishop of the diocese of Cotonou. One of his first priorities was to subdivide the diocese to ensure more efficient management, and Gantin fast became a symbol of an emerging generation of native African church leaders, taking over from the colonial missionaries. He was one of the small number of youthful African bishops who took part in the groundbreaking 1960’s Church council Vatican II, where he made significant contributions to Ad Gentes, the Vatican decree promoting evangelisation in other countries that is respectful of local peoples and cultures.
In 1971, Pope Paul VI summoned him to Rome as number 2 at Propaganda Fide (now the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples) the Vatican congregation charged with activities in the missions. Three years later he was made vice president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. A year later he became its president, and in 1977 Paul VI named him a Cardinal. The following year, the short-lived John Paul I appointed Gantin president of Cor Unum, the pontifical council charged with distributing humanitarian aid. Six years later, another pope, John Paul II (with whom Gantin had been friends since their meeting at Vatican II) appointed him to one of the most important posts in the Roman Curia as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
During his 14-year tenure, Gantin faced several crises, quelling the resurgence of pro-liberation theologian prelates in Latin America, and in French-speaking circles, the schism of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who refused for theological reasons to accept the translation of the Mass from Latin into the vernacular tongue following Vatican II. In protest, Lefebvre founded the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), which was devoted to worship exclusively in the Tridentine Rite, a liturgy used by the Catholic Church worldwide from 1570 until the 1960s and set up a seminary to train priests in it at Econe in Switzerland.
Gantin, who knew Lefebvre well from his tenure as the papal delegate to Francophone Africa, was charged with dissuading him from ordaining Econe seminarians as priests, because Rome had expressly forbidden it. Lefebvre ignored the ban and went ahead, an act that ensured Gantin had no choice but to excommunicate him. Another disaster was the affair of the Bishop of Evreux, Mgr Jacques Gaillot. His outspoken liberal views (regarding the use of condemns, and obligatory clerical celibacy) and acts including the blessing of a homosexual union ensured that he fell foul of Rome. Gantin offered Gaillot a choice: to retire from Evreux and remain emeritus bishop, or being removed from the see and be demoted to bishop of Partenia, a diocese in Algeria which has not existed since the 5th century. Gaillot, never media-shy, opted to return to France and without first warning Gantin, issuing a press statement giving his version of events and talking of the "threats" hanging over him. Gantin remained bitter long afterwards.
In 1993, Gantin became the first African to be made Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, a prestigious position which, had he retained it, would have meant that he oversaw the funeral of John Paul II and the subsequent conclave to elect his successor. But a condition of the post is that the dean must reside in Rome, and Gantin, who kept sculpted African wood chairs in his Vatican offices, yearned for Africa. In 1998 he retired from the Congregation of Bishops, and in 2002, he petitioned John Paul II to let him retire as Dean. Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) replaced him. Gantin was free to become, as he said with a certain irony “a Roman missionary in Africa.” He retired there in relative poverty, explaining: “Materially I don’t have anything anymore. Better that way! This material poverty helps me to live spiritual poverty better.”
Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, former prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, was born on May 8, 1922. He died on May 13, 2008, aged 86.
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