Leo Dupont

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The Venerable Leo Dupont, Apostle of the Holy Face

Leo Dupont (1797 – †1876), also known as "The Holy Man of Tours", or the "Apostle of the Holy Face", was a religious figure in the Roman Catholic faith who helped spread various Catholic devotions such as the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus and nightly Eucharistic Adoration. He has been declared Venerable by the Holy See and currently awaits beatification.

1 Early life
2 Religious focus
3 Holy Face Devotions
4 Death and Veneration
5 Legacy
6 Notes
7 References

[edit] Early life

His father was Nicholas Dupont, a wealthy and noble Frenchman who died when Leo was eight years old. He was schooled in Martinique and then in the United States while the French Revolution went on. Later Leo Dupont and his one brother Theobald studied law in Paris and then returned to Martinique. Theobald died when Leo was about twenty-four years old.

In 1827, Dupont married Caroline d'Andiffredi and in 1832 had a daughter Henrietta. However, Caroline died about a year after Henrietta was born. After the death of his wife, Dupont and his mother returned to France and eventually settled in Tours.

[edit] Religious focus

In 1837, while gazing at a picture of Saint Teresa of Avila he decided to become active in spreading the Catholic faith. He wrote a book on the shrines of Saint Mary, joined the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and contributed large sums of money to it. Shortly after his pilgrimage to La Salette in 1847, his daughter Henrietta died and thereafter the main focus of his life became religious activities.

In 1849, he managed to establish nightly Eucharistic Adoration in Tours, from where it spread within France. He helped rebuild the Basilica of Saint Martin (which dated back to 472) in Tours. His reputation as a Catholic activist and a helper of the poor spread within France and he was in contact with other French Catholic figures such as Saint Jean Vianney and Saint Peter Julian Eymard, who was also an active proponent of spreading the Holy Eucharist. Dupont’s charitable works and religious stance became so well known in France that he received many letters, often addressed to “The Holy Man of Tours” and the postmen knew how to deliver them. Pope Pius IX personally praised Dupont.

Dupont's mother lived with him most of his life in Tours and she died in 1860. After her death, from 1860 to 1870, he spent most of his time praying before the image of Veil of Veronica, often wearing a hair shirt under his clothes, until his health failed.

[edit] Holy Face Devotions

Apart from his other charitable activities, Dupont is perhaps best known for his impact on spreading the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. He is sometimes referred to as the Apostle of the Holy Face.

After he had heard of the reported visions of Jesus and Mary by the Carmelite nun Sister Marie of St Peter in Tours from 1844 to 1847, he started to burn a vigil lamp continuously before a picture of the Holy Face of Jesus based on the painted image on the Veil of Veronica. Dupont used that image because the existence of a clear image on the Shroud of Turin was not known to anyone at that time for the somewhat faded image of the face on the Shroud can not easily be seen with the naked eye and was only observed in May 1898 via the nagative plate of Secondo Pia's first photograph.

In 1851 Dupont formed the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face in Tours^[1]. He prayed for and promoted the case for a devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus for around 30 years. But the documents pertaining to the life of sister Marie of St. Peter and the devotion were kept by the Church and not released. Yet Dupont persisted. Eventually, in 1874 Charles-Théodore Colet was appointed as the new Archbishop of Tours. Archbishop Colet examined the documents and in 1876 gave permission for them to be published and the devotion encouraged, shortly before Dupont died. Duponts followers have attributed the release of the documents to the power of prayers of Dupont over the previous 30 years.

[edit] Death and Veneration

Leo Dupont died in 1876. Upon his death, his house on Rue St. Etienne was purchased by the Archdiocese of Tours and turned into an oratory. Archbishop Colet approved of an order of priests called The Priests of the Holy Face to administer to the chapel. The order was canonically erected in 1876 and Father Peter Javier, a friend of Dupont, was appointed as its director.

Father Javier wrote a biography of Dupont and one of sister Marie of St Peter and the Holy Face Devotion. These books were widely distributed and started the spread of the Holy Face Devotion. Years later they influenced Saint Therese of Lisieux. The Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus was approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1885.

The case for Dupont's canonization was presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1939. The Holy See later declared him Venerable and he now awaits beatification. His feast day is December 1st.

[edit] Legacy

The devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus that Dupont promoted continued to flourish after his death. In the 1930s, an Italian nun, Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli associated the image of the Holy Face of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin with the devotion. Pope Pius XII approved the new image in 1958 and declared the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus as Shrove Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday) for all Roman Catholics.

Today, the Roman Catholic Church uses the Holy Face of Jesus in conjunction with Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ with specific institutions with such focus, e.g. the Pontifical Congregation of the Benedictine Sisters of the Reparation of the Holy Face. In his address to this Congregation, Pope John Paul II referred to such Acts of Reparation as the "unceasing effort to stand beside the endless crosses on which the Son of God continues to be crucified".^[2]

Dupont's efforts in speading the Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus are chronicled in the book The Holy Man of Tours by Dorothy Scallan.