Dictionary of Glengarry Biography

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====== Léger, Paul-Émile, Cardinal ====== 
 (25 April 1904-13 Nov. 1991), clergyman. Born at Valleyfield, Que. Died in Montreal. Parents: Ernest Léger and his wife Alda Beauvais. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1929, in Montreal. Fr Léger was rector of the Pontifical Canadian College at Rome from 1947 to 1950, archbishop of Montreal from 1950 to 1967, and cardinal from 1953. In 1967 he resigned from the Archdiocese of Montreal to become a missionary in Africa. He was the brother of Governor General Jules LÉGER.The Léger family lived at Lancaster village, GC, during the youth of the future cardinal. A spiritual experience of Paul-Émile Léger at Christmas Eve mass, in St. Joseph’s Church, Lancaster, in 1920, led him to enter the priesthood. Even when a cardinal, he continued to revisit St. Joseph’s every year. The priest at the time at which the Léger family lived in Lancaster was Fr John J. Macdonell (called Father Johnny Jack). Sgt. Marc Léger, who grew up in Lancaster village and was killed while serving with the Canadian forces in Afghanistan, 2002, belonged “to the same family” as Cardinal Léger and his brother Governor General Léger. (//Glengarry News// 1 May 2002)


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<fs small>Evidence on Lancaster years, as in life of Jules LÉGER * Villeneuve, 249-250 * Mgr Rudolph Villeneuve, quoted in Sophia Reyes, “St. Joseph’s: a Parish That Stands United,” //Standard Freeholder// 10 Feb. 1996 * James Duggan, //Paul-Émile Léger// (1981) 10 (with portrait, c. 1925)
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