{"id":2753,"date":"2015-07-28T16:59:56","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T16:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bkpdefunts.smainternational.info\/?p=2753"},"modified":"2015-07-28T16:59:56","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T16:59:56","slug":"le-pere-ignace-lissner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/?p=2753","title":{"rendered":"Le P\u00e8re Ignace LISSNER"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Missions Africaines \u2013 Province des Etats-Unis<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"LISSNER<\/td>\nn\u00e9 le 6 avril 1867 \u00e0 Wolxheim
dans le dioc\u00e8se de Strasbourg, France
membre de la SMA le 21 d\u00e9cembre 1888
pr\u00eatre le 25 juillet 1891
d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 le 7 ao\u00fbt 1948<\/td>\n		\n

1891-1896 missionnaire au Dahomey
1896-1907 USA, qu\u00eateur
1907-1938 G\u00e9orgie puis Tenafly, USA
1938-1941 sup\u00e9rieur d\u00e9l\u00e9gu\u00e9 puis pro provincial
1941-1946 provincial
1946 d\u00e9missionne de sa charge de provincial<\/p>\n

d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 \u00e0 Teaneck, Etats-Unis, le 7 ao\u00fbt 1948
\u00e0 l\u2019\u00e2ge de 81 ans<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Le p\u00e8re Ignace LISSNER (1867 – 1948)<\/p>\n

A Teaneck (USA), le 7 ao\u00fbt 1948, retour \u00e0 Dieu du p\u00e8re Ignace Lissner, \u00e0 l’\u00e2ge de 81 ans.<\/p>\n

Ignace Lissner naquit \u00e0 Volxheim, dans le dioc\u00e8se de Strasbourg, en 1867. Il fit ses \u00e9tudes \u00e0 Richelieu et \u00e0 Lyon. Il fit le serment en 1888 et fut ordonn\u00e9 pr\u00eatre en juillet 1891. Peu apr\u00e8s, le p\u00e8re Lissner partait pour la pr\u00e9fecture du Dahomey. En 1892, au cours d’un voyage, il fut retenu prisonnier par les troupes dahom\u00e9ennes. On le crut d\u00e9capit\u00e9 et on c\u00e9l\u00e9bra la messe pour le repos de son \u00e2me. Mais le p\u00e8re revint, bien vivant, et c’est alors qu’il accompagna un corps exp\u00e9ditionnaire anglais \u00e0 travers le Soudan et ainsi atteignit l’Egypte. En 1896, le p\u00e8re Lissner est de retour en France.<\/p>\n

En f\u00e9vrier 1897, il part pour le Canada, afin de trouver quelques ressources pour la pauvre mission du Dahomey. Du Canada, il passe aux Etats-Unis, qui \u00e9taient pourtant le territoire de prospection du p\u00e8re O’Sullivan. Il y eut quelques difficult\u00e9s, mais les catholiques am\u00e9ricains furent si g\u00e9n\u00e9reux que les deux qu\u00eateurs eurent d’abondantes aum\u00f4nes.<\/p>\n

De qu\u00eateur pour les Noirs d’Afrique, et sp\u00e9cialement du Dahomey, le p\u00e8re Lissner allait devenir le grand ap\u00f4tre des Noirs aux Etats-Unis. Depuis bien des ann\u00e9es, le besoin de pr\u00eatres pour les Noirs, surtout dans les Etats du sud, se faisait sentir. L’\u00e9v\u00eaque de Savannah en G\u00e9orgie, s’ouvrit de ce grave probl\u00e8me \u00e0 Rome. Il voulait une Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 qui avait l’exp\u00e9rience des missions chez les Noirs. L’\u00e9v\u00eaque s’adressa aux Missions Africaines et s’entendit avec le p\u00e8re Lissner. Mgr Pellet accepta le nouveau champ d’apostolat, dont le p\u00e8re Lissner fut nomm\u00e9 sup\u00e9rieur (1907) Aid\u00e9 de ses confr\u00e8res, le p\u00e8re Lissner fonda des paroisses pour les Noirs en G\u00e9orgie: \u00e0 Savannah, Augusta, Atlanta, M\u00e2con; en 1925, c’est Los Angeles qui a sa paroisse et en 1940 c’est Tucson dans l’Arizona.<\/p>\n

Depuis 1922, le p\u00e8re Lissner a \u00e9tabli son centre d’action \u00e0 Tenafly (New-Jersey). En 1916, il fonde \u00e0 Savannah la congr\u00e9gation des Servantes du C\u0153ur tr\u00e8s pur de Marie et, en 1938, il ouvre dans le Maryland un s\u00e9minaire pour la formation du clerg\u00e9 noir.<\/p>\n

Ind\u00e9pendamment du travail du p\u00e8re Lissner et des p\u00e8res alsaciens, les p\u00e8res de la province d’Irlande avaient fond\u00e9 aussi quelques paroisses pour les Noirs, v.g. East Saint-Louis et Caire dans l’Illinois. Il convenait de fusionner les deux \u0153uvres de la m\u00eame Soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Ainsi fut cr\u00e9\u00e9, en 1938, le district d’Am\u00e9rique qui devint province en 1941.<\/p>\n

Le p\u00e8re fut vice provincial, puis provincial de 1941 \u00e0 1946. Alors, le p\u00e8re Lissner se retira. Il avait bien m\u00e9rit\u00e9 des nombreux Noirs aux Etats-Unis.<\/p>\n

Malgr\u00e9 tous les obstacles que l’on disait insurmontables, le p\u00e8re Lissner r\u00e9ussit \u00e0 cr\u00e9er des paroisses et des paroisses florissantes. Pour r\u00e9ussir, le p\u00e8re a toujours travaill\u00e9 m\u00e9thodiquement, avec une patience inalt\u00e9rable. Il a surtout eu foi en Dieu, dont il accomplissait l’\u0153uvre car, en entrant aux Missions Africaines, il ne pensait pas devoir passer 40 ans de sa vie aux Etats-Unis. Le p\u00e8re Lissner a toujours commenc\u00e9 par l’\u00e9cole. Par l’\u00e9cole, il atteignait les enfants, et par les enfants les parents.<\/p>\n

Father Ignace LISSNER (1867 – 1948)<\/p>\n

Ignace Lissner was born in Wolxheim, in Alsace, in the diocese of Strasbourg, on April 6, 1867.
He died in Holy Name Hospital, Teaneck, New Jersey, USA, on August 7, 1948.<\/p>\n

Ignace was the youngest of nine children \u2013 four of whom became priests or religious and three of whom served their country as soldiers \u2013 born to Nicholas and Anna Marie (Nee Spehner). Nicholas was a convert from Judaism and of Polish extraction. Ignace attended the minor diocesan seminary of Zillisheim, in Alsace. He then went to the SMA\u2019s apostolic school at Clermont-Ferrand, in France, where he completed his secondary education (1881-1887). Next he was promoted to the SMA major seminary, at Cours Gambetta, Lyons, France, where he studied philosophy and theology (1888-1891). Ignace was received as a member of the Society on December 21, 1888 and was ordained a priest in the seminary chapel at Lyons on July 25, 1891. The ordaining prelate was Mgr. Jean Baptiste Chausse SMA, Vicar Apostolic of the Vicariate of the Bight of Benin (Lagos).<\/p>\n

After ordination Ignace went to West Africa, to the town of Whydah, in the colony of Dahomey. Some months after his arrival a war erupted between France and Dahomey. While the Sisters and two of the Priests escaped to Agoue, a French Protectorate, Ignace remained in Whydah where he was held hostage by King Behanzin for five months. Eventually he escaped, only to re-enter the town as a chaplain with the victorious French army on December 8, 1892. The only fragment of information about his remaining time in Dahomey is that he built a church at Grand-Popo, which he dedicated to St. Joseph.<\/p>\n

In March 1897 Ignace was assigned to raise funds among American and Canadian Catholics for the Society\u2019s works in West Africa. He traveled widely in the USA lecturing in the principal cities and also visited Quebec. On his return to Europe in 1899 he was posted to the Society\u2019s missions in Egypt where British influence was in the ascendant and French missionaries were distrusted because of their nationality. Here, during a period of six months, he traveled into the British Sudan, visiting Kartoum, Omdurman, Fashoda and Sobat River. He was also instrumental, during this time, in obtaining a modus vivendi for the Catholic Missionaries (mostly French) from the Sudan Government administered then by Sirdar Wingate, successor to Lord Kitchener.<\/p>\n

Returning from Egypt early in 1901 Ignace was again dispatched to North America to collect funds. In the course of his earlier visit and during the next five years he met many bishops and priests and gained first-hand knowledge of the American Church. The USA was still \u2018mission territory\u2019, under the remit of Propaganda Fide, its Church largely composed of poor, illiterate, foreign-born peasants, poorly-instructed in their religion and still ill-at-ease in a new culture. In particular he became aware of the plight of African-American Catholics, so few in number, blighted by poverty, racism, religious prejudice and pastoral neglect. Lissner\u2019s arrival in America coincided with a growing concern on the part of Church leaders both in America and Rome about the absence of pastoral care for African-Americans and the fading opportunity for large-scale conversions in the wake of the Civil War. Efforts to recruit European specialist missionary agencies for the \u201cColored Apostolate\u2019 had been made since the 1870\u2019s. But progress was painfully slow. It was against this background that Bishop Benjamin Kiely of Savannah-Atlanta was informed by Rome that pastoral provision for Blacks in his diocese was wholly inadequate that that he should recruit the Society of African Missions to take on the task. Thus it was that on December 17, 1906, Ignace received a letter from Bishop Keiley offering the exclusive pastoral charge of the diocese\u2019s African-American population to the Society.<\/p>\n

In January of the following year two priests of the Society \u2013 Gustave Obrecht and Joseph Dahlent – under Fr. Lissner\u2019s direction, took possession of the Church of St. Benedict the Moor in Savannah, while Lissner himself went to Rome where he laid before Propaganda plans for the establishment of \u2018Colored Missions\u2019 in the principal cities of Georgia. Receiving the blessing of Pius X for himself and his collaborators and for their work in Georgia, he returned to America and during the next six years established six Churches and seven Schools in Georgia: St Benedict the Moor\u2019s Church, Savannah (1907); Church and School of Immaculate Conception, Augusta (1908); Hatches Station School (1909); Church and School of St. Anthony, Savannah (1909); St. Mary\u2019s School Savannah (1910); Church and School of Our Lady of Lourdes, Atlanta (1912); Church, School and Convent of St. Peter Claver, Macon (1913). Later, in 1926, he founded St. Odilia\u2019s Mission in Los Angeles, while his last foundation, Blessed Martin Porres Mission in Tuscon, Arizona, was established in 1940. None of this was easily accomplished. Apart from the coolness of local clergy and threats from the Klu Klux Klan, there was a chronic shortage of financial resources and personnel to staff the new foundations. Ignace showed remarkable courage and resilience in the face of all difficulties.<\/p>\n

In addition to this extraordinary contribution to the African-American apostolate, in 1916 Ignace was instrumental, with Mother Theodore Williams, in founding a religious congregation for African-American women, the Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary. Established in Savannah, this institute found it difficult to survive in the South and transferred to New York in the early 1920\u2019s. Equally significant was Ignace\u2019s attempts at developing an African-American clergy. He was directly responsible for the education of six African-Americans who became priests, two of whom trained in an inter-racial seminary which he founded at Tenafly in 1921. Of the six all found it extremely difficult to achieve acceptance in America, even in the SMA parishes, and almost all of them were eventually compelled to work in other countries. Founding the seminary was intended, among other things, as a means of staffing the Society\u2019s works in Georgia. When this failed \u2013 the seminary closed in 1927 – Ignace saw that reliance on the Society would need to continue far into the future, until attitudes had changed and an African-American clergy was permitted to develop. And with the growing responsibilities of the Society in Africa he was aware that the \u2018American Works\u2019 could not depend indefinitely on a steady supply of priests from Europe. Peter Harrington of the Irish Province who had established similar missions in the diocese of Bellville from 1921 \u2013 situated at East St. Louis and in Cairo, Illinois – came to similar conclusions. Equally, Society leaders in Europe favored an upgrading of the SMA\u2019s status in the USA, not least because America had long been regarded as an important source of finance. Thus both in Europe and America the idea began to gain currency that the \u2018American Works\u2019 should be erected as a Province of the Society, with its own capacity for recruiting and training students and its own missions, in Africa as well as the USA. During much of the 1930\u2019s Ignace\u2019s efforts were focussed on this project. Eventually, in 1939, a Pro-Province (a Province in everything but name) was established with its own Novitiate and Major Seminary at Silver Spring, Maryland (1938), its own Pro-Provincial (Ignace) and its administrative Council. In 1941 the progress of this foundation was such that the Society\u2019s Generalate sought full Provincial Status from Propaganda Fide and this was granted by Cardinal Fumasoni-Biondi in a decree dated March 7th.<\/p>\n

Ignace was in his 74th year and fifty years a priest when he was appointed first Provincial. He was to remain in charge of the Province until April 1946 when ill-health and weariness led him to resign. His term of office roughly coincided with American involvement in the Second World War and wartime constraints were to provide a constant headache for him during these years. Recruitment of candidates for the Province was inhibited by the military draft, while the logistics of introducing priests from Europe \u2013 to maintain staffing levels in the seminary and mission-parishes proved problematic. Moreover travel restrictions with the USA made it difficult for the Provincial Council to convene on a regular basis. Nonetheless as Provincial Lissner succeeded in maintaining the existing works in Georgia, Illinois and Los Angeles and managed to weld the Irish and Alsatian members – so different in culture and background \u2013 into a working unit. He also did much to attract support for the Province from clergy and laity who had seen and admired his work over decades. Perhaps the most important accomplishment of Lissner\u2019s administration was the putting in place of an infrastructure from which a post-War expansion of the Province might proceed. He overcame numerous difficulties including the destruction of the original Silver Springs seminary by fire in March 1943. His administration not only re-established the seminary but developed a preparatory College and House of Philosophy in Boston.<\/p>\n

Four months before his death \u2013 he died August 7, 1948 \u2013 Ignace had celebrated his eighty-first birthday. His last days before entering hospital were spent at Tenafly where his niece, Eugenie, was near at hand to help him with correspondence and to tend to his infirmities. His death came peacefully after a short illness. One of his Alsatian confreres, A.J. Gall, summed up his life in the following rather terse but eloquent tribute, written almost two decades after Ignace\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Fr. Lissner’s vocation was to work among the Coloured. A gifted builder he erected many schools, knowing (as he often repeated) that through those schools he would be able to reach out to the children and through them to their parents. But such work called for many sacrifices. The segregation of White and Black was the law of the land in the South. His strong determination to continue this work found opposition from the Klu Klux Klan, some White leaders and local priests and sometimes even from bishops. But Fr. Lissner was a man of steel. He braced himself against all opposition and criticism. Silently he suffered all kinds of injustices and continued tenaciously to preach the Gospel to his people. As superior of the society his suggestions and orders were straight forward and often misunderstood or rejected. But time would prove the soundness and fairness of his judgement.<\/p>\n

Ignace may not always have suffered silently but he was certainly a man of steel. And it was this quality which made him one of the outstanding figures in the Church\u2019s modern ministry to African-Americans. The title \u2018Apostle of the Negro\u2019 conferred on him in obituary notices and panegyrics was fully merited. His leadership of the Society\u2019s American branch was to earn him another title, this time from his colleagues, that of \u2018Founder of the Province\u2019. From the earliest years he had always maintained that the creation of a Province was the key to tacking effectively the apostolic mission entrusted to his Society by the Holy See. In conclusion, Ignace Lissner\u2019s contribution to the African-American community can rightly be set alongside that of one of his greatest supporters, Saint Catherine Drexel.<\/p>\n

He is buried in the SMA Community Plot, Mount Carmel Cemetery, Tenafly, NJ, USA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Missions Africaines \u2013 Province des Etats-Unis n\u00e9 le 6 avril 1867 \u00e0 Wolxheimdans le dioc\u00e8se de Strasbourg, Francemembre de la SMA le 21 d\u00e9cembre 1888pr\u00eatre le 25…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-necrologe-sma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}