He succeeds Bishop André Marceau, who had reached the age of 75 in May 2021.
Bishop Jean-Philippe Nault, who is an agronomist by training, was born in 1965 in Paris. He entered the seminary in the 1990s after carrying out a cooperation service in Lebanon at the end of the civil war that was then tearing the country of the Cedars apart. He was ordained a priest for the diocese of Belley-Ars in 1998 and made a permanent commitment to the Jean-Marie Vianney Society in 2002.
After becoming the parish priest of the cathedral of Bourg-en-Bresse, he was appointed by Pope Francis as bishop of Digne, Riez, and Sisteron on November 7, 2014. This relatively small and rural diocese, which corresponds to the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, has only about thirty priests serving a population of approximately 160,000 inhabitants.
The diocese of Nice has 45 parishes, covering an area with a population of over a million inhabitants. About 150 diocesan priests and 50 religious priests were counted in the 2019 census.
During his episcopacy, Bishop Marceau accompanied his diocese through the many tragedies that affected the city of Nice and the department of Alpes-Maritimes. The Promenade des Anglais attack on July 14, 2016, and the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption Basilica attack on October 29, 2020, deeply traumatized the people of Nice. The local Church was also heavily involved after the floods of October 2020 that devastated several villages in the Roya and Vésubie valleys.
Christian Estrosi welcomed Bishop Jean-Philippe Nault:
I would like to thank Bishop André Marceau, who resigned due to age, for his dedication to the faithful of Nice. He was able to accompany them daily but also during the painful moments that struck our city.
— Christian Estrosi (@cestrosi) March 9, 2022
