His may not be so famous in Italy, but he boasts a world class status within the universal Catholic Church. Apart from the fact he is over a hundred – he turned 102 last January – he is also the oldest bishop in the world and played a key role in the Second Vatican Council.
The 106 year old Vietnamese archbishop, Antoine Nguyễn Văn Thiện, who had been the oldest living bishop until his death about a month ago, has now been replaced by Géry-Jacques Leuliet.
While France is not letting this juicy occasion go unnoticed, the bishop himself is eagerly accepting meetings and interviews and seems completely unphased by his notoriety. “So much fuss over nothing!” he told La Voix du Nord, stating that it is no use “wallowing in the past;” we must face the present.
Whoever asks him for a description of the past gets the following response: “It is a bit like watching a slow-motion playback of a tennis match: one is able to observe all the tiny details they had previously missed. By doing this one perceives the true meaning of what happened. But if we are to live in peace, we must always accept the mistakes we make and not consider ourselves to be perfect because we cannot deceive ourselves.”
Mgr. Leuliet – who was ordained priest in 1933 and bishop in 1963 – currently lives in a retirement home for elderly priests in Saint Vaast, where he follows world news on a daily basis by reading newspapers and watching television. He spends the rest of his time praying and reading the Gospel.
His ideas regarding the most important changes to the Council are very clear: “The most important change was the scrapping of Latin as the only language used in mass celebrations and the introduction of local languages. The Word of the Lord thus became accessible to all. We must remember that the Bible was written in Jewish, while Latin came much later and the first translation was into Greek; but many people forget this.”
And on the subject of Latin, he could not fail to mention the etymology of the word “bishop” which comes from the Latin episcopus, meaning “to watch over, to supervise”.
So it can be said that elderly bishops have the task of “standing by and watching” what goes on, accompanying everyone in prayer.”
"May he keep watch over things, for a long time to come, along with us,” Francoise Tourbe said.