LEMIRE, JULES

French priest and legislator; b. Hazebrouck (Nord), April 23, 1853; d. Hazebrouck, March 7, 1928. As a young teacher he was impressed by the social doctrines of Frédéric le Play and Cardinal Henry Edward manning; he dedicated to Manning his book Le Cardinal Manning et son oeuvre sociale (Paris 1893). In 1893 he was elected as a Christian Democratic deputy from his native department in opposition to a conservative. Soon after, he was wounded in the Chamber of Deputies during an anarchist uprising. He projected the image of a progressive priest—a "democratic pastor"—and sat in the assembly with the anti-clerical party on the left during the open conflict between Church and State. His candidacy for reelection was first disapproved and then forbidden by the archbishop of Cambrai. In 1914, when he was triumphantly reelected and named vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies, he refused the latter office but incurred ecclesiastical suspension nonetheless. This was lifted in 1916 by Benedict XV. Lemire remained in the position of deputy until his death.

Lemire dedicated his oratorical talent and his zeal to spreading the doctrine of rerum novarum and the ideals of Christian democracy. He established innumerable workers' gardens. In the Chamber of Deputies, he addressed himself to the defense of the family in opposition to the individualistic conception of the Code Civil. Indefatigable in his interventions, he helped to secure the first family benefits: civil service allowances, marriage assistance, and the protection of family property against unjust seizure. He was the first to petition for the establishment of a ministry of labor. In 1901 he encouraged the priests' congress of Bourges to introduce young priests to the social teaching of the popes and its early accomplishments. In his last years he was an outstanding mayor of his own town of Hazebrouck.

Bibliography: j. dorigny, L'Abbé Lemore: Sa carrière parlementaire (Paris 1914). j. r. and g. rÉmy, Une grande figure et un grand coeur: L'Abbé Lemire (Paris 1929). c. droulers, Chemin faisant avec l'Abbé Lemire (Paris 1929).

[h. rollet]