Dieudonné Yougbaré

Dieudonné Yougbaré ( born February 16, 1917 in Koupéla, Burkina Faso; † 4 November 2011) was a Burkinabe clergyman and Roman Catholic Bishop of Koupéla. He was the first indigenous Bishop of West Africa.

Life

Dieudonné Yougbaré attended from 1923 to 1928, the Catholic School of Koupéla and then the minor seminary in Pabré and the major seminary in Koumi. On April 8, 1945 he was ordained priest. He was trained as a teacher and taught in Pabré. After serving as vicar he became pastor in 1948 in Ouagadougou, later in Pabré. In 1954 he was nominated by Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, the apostolic envoy to the French-speaking parts of Africa, to the bishop.

Pope Pius XII. appointed him on 29 February 1956 to the first bishop of the newly erected diocese Koupéla. The Archbishop of Lyon, Pierre -Marie Cardinal Gerlier, donated to him on 8 July 1956, the episcopal ordination; Co-consecrators were André- Joseph- Prosper Dupont MAFR, Bishop in Bobo-Dioulasso, and Emile -Joseph Socquet MAFR, retired Archbishop of Ouagadougou.

Dieudonné Yougbaré was a Council Father of all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council of 1962 until 1965. He founded a partnership of dioceses Koupéla and Lyon. On 1 June 1995 Pope John Paul II accepted his resignation age-related.

Dieudonné Yougbaré was blinded to onchocerciasis (river blindness).