Louis Cardinal Billot, S.J. (1846–1931): Thomist, Anti-Modernist, Integralist

Largely forgotten today, the French Jesuit Louis Billot was “the most important Thomistic speculative theologian of the late nineteenth century.” He taught generations of students at the Pontifical Gregorian University during the pontificates of Leo xiii and Pius x. His neo-Scholastic manuals remained influential until the Second Vatican Council. Having made a major contribution to the church’s anti-Modernist campaign, Billot was made a cardinal in 1910. He served on various Vatican congregations, including the Holy Office, during three pontificates. In the 1920s, Billot ran afoul of Pius xi for refusing to retract his support for the neo-monarchist, nationalist movement Action Française, led by the agnostic Charles Maurras, that had sought an alliance with French Catholics to defeat the anti-clerical Third Republic. Compelled to resign his cardinatial dignity, the only prelate in the twentieth century to incur this humiliation, Billot lived his last years in quiet retirement outside of Rome.