Jadot RIP

Ten days after his successor in the post died in Rome, the former apostolic delegate to Washington Archbishop Jean Jadot died this morning in his native Belgium.

The Holy See's representative to the Stateside church from 1973-80 -- when he was transferred back to Rome as head of the Vatican Secretariat for Interreligious Dialogue -- Jadot (shown below with Paul VI, in an undated photo) would've marked his 100th birthday in November.

SVILUPPO: From Louvain, via Rome, comes the following notice from the archbishop's biographer, John Dick, formerly of the American College:

With family and friends near him, Archbishop Jean Jadot died peacefully at his residence in Brussels this morning 21 January 2009.

He had received communion and the last rites a couple days before his death; and Archbishop Karl-Josef Rauber, the Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium, had come to his bedside with a special papal blessing from Pope Benedict XVI. Jean Jadot was born in Brussels on November 23, 1909 and had been a priest for 75 years (ordained on February 11, 1934) an honorary canon of the St. Rumbold Cathedral Chapter in Malines Belgium and a bishop for 41 years (ordained by Cardinal Suenens on May 1, 1968). Strong spiritual influences on Archbishop Jadot were the Belgian priest sociologist Msgr. Jacques Leclercq and the Benedictine ecumenist Dom Lambert Beauduin. An exceptionally bright student, Jadot completed a doctorate in philosophy, magna cum laude, at the Catholic University of Louvain when he was just twenty-one. He then entered the archdiocesan seminary in Malines. As a young priest Jadot was actively involved in youth ministry and ministry to the Belgian armed forces. Before becoming Apostolic Delegate to the United States in 1973, Jadot had been Nuncio in Bangkok, covering Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, (1968-1971) and in Yaoundé covering Cameroon and Gabon (1971-1973). From 1973 to 1980 he was Apostolic Delegate to the United States, where he distinguished himself as a Vatican II visionary and extremely pastoral-minded Apostolic Delegate. Pope Paul VI specially commissioned Jadot to be close to the faithful in America and to build new bridges between U.S. Catholics and Rome after the Humanae Vitae trauma of 1968. In 1980 Archbishop Jadot was called to Rome by Pope John Paul II and appointed Pro-President of the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians. Since 1984 he had been in active retirement in Brussels. Archbishop Jadot leaves two surviving sisters and thirty-eight nephews and nieces.

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