A significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism in France, he was recognised as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem for his efforts to protect Jews from the Nazi Holocaust.
[1] He wrote a pastoral letter condemning the Nazi deportation of Jews in the summer of 1942 in which he said: "I give voice to the outraged protest of Christian conscience and I proclaim… that all men, whatever their race or religion, have the right to be respected by individuals and by states."
Marie-Rose Gineste transported a pastoral letter from Bishop Théas of Montauban by bicycle to forty parishes, denouncing the uprooting of men and women "treated as wild animals", and the French Resistance smuggled the text to London, where it was broadcast to France by the Radio Londres service of the BBC, reaching tens of thousands of homes.
[2] Théas continued to oppose the Nazi policies culminating in a fiery sermon in his cathedral in 1944 in which he condemned the "Cruel and inhuman treatment of one of our fellow men".
[3] The group, initiated by Marthe Dortel Chaudot, aimed at first mainly at the reconciliation between France and Germany, but in 1952 it was recognized by Pope Pius XII as an official Catholic Peace Movement.