Mieczysław Cardinal Ledóchowski

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Count Mieczysław Halka Ledóchowski, (October 29, 1822—July 22, 1902), cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was born in Górki (near Sandomierz) in Russian controlled Congress Poland.

Son of Count Josef Ledóchowski and Maria Zakrzewska. Uncle of St. Ursula Julia Ledochowska, Bl. Maria Theresa Ledochowska and Fr. Wlodimir Ledochowski, Superior-general of the Society of Jesus.

After studying at Radom and Warsaw, he entered the Jesuit Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici in Rome in 1842, and was ordained priest on July 13, 1845. He became domestic prelate of Pope Pius IX in 1846, auditor of the papal nunciature at Lisbon in 1847, Apostolic delegate to Colombia and Chile in 1856, nuncio at Brussels and titular Archbishop of Thebes in 1861, and finally in December of 1865 became Archibishop of Poznań and Gniezno and Primate of Poland (then known as Posen-Gnesen and a part of Prussian controlled Poland).

In 1873, the Prussian government began the implementation of German Kulturkampf policies and forbade the use of Polish in instruction in Poznań. Archbishop Ledóchowski urgently protested this order, and ultimately issued a circular ordering the religion teachers at higher educational institutes to use German in their teachings to the higher classes but to preserve Polish in their teachings to the lower classes. The religious instructors obediently followed the archbishop's order and were subsequently deposed by the Prussian government. After repeated fines for outlawed activity, the government demanded Ledóchowski's resignation. The archbishop responded that no temporal court could deprive him of an office granted to him by God, and he was jailed in the Ostrów Wielkopolski dungeon in February of 1874. In March, the Pope created him a cardinal, and in April the government declared him deposed. In 1875, Ledóchowski was released and banished and thereafter ruled his see from Rome. He resigned in 1885. In 1892 he became Prefect of the Propaganda, an office which he held until his death. An official reconciliation between the cardinal and the Prussian government took place when Emperor Wilhelm II visited Rome in 1893.