The Archbishop of Toulouse returns to a disputed appointment

This appointment, announced on July 1, had quickly created the controversy. In 2006, Father Spina was found guilty of rape on a minor and was sentenced to prison sentence. His promotion-before the summer, Father Spina was only vice-chancellor of the diocese of Toulouse-had then seemed inadmissible to his victim, indignation which had found a large echo in the press and in the Catholic Toulouse community.

If the function of Chancellor is an administrative task, it is nonetheless an essential function within a diocese. It is indeed its mission to ensure the authenticity and validity of the acts of the bishop-in particular the appointments-and generally brings its counter-signature. Due to the sensitive nature of this task, the Code of Canon law specifies that the Chancellor must be “of an integrated reputation and above all suspicion”.

“Locating in a social death”

While the controversy grew, Mgr de Kerimel had considered on July 10 necessary to express themselves directly by a press release published on the site of his diocese, “without going through the distorting prism of the press or rumors”.

Recognizing that Father Spina had “sinfully sinned thirty years ago”, he invited rather to be “witnesses of divine mercy” believing that “a person’s conversion is possible”. “Not to have mercy is to lock up the author of the abuse in a social death; It is to restore a form of death penalty, “insisted the archbishop to justify the maintenance of the appointment.

However, and it is unprecedented, the criticisms of this decision exceeded the usual circles. While the bishops are usually particularly stingy with comments to the action of one of their peers, in the name of “episcopal collegiality”, one of them, Mgr Hervé Giraud, archbishop-bishop of Viviers, had spoke publicly. “The appointment of the Chancellor of the diocese of Toulouse is unacceptable and untenable,” he wrote blurry on July 21 on the Bluesky social network.

A position of the CEF

The load was further strengthened a few weeks later. In a declaration on something else – a trip to the Holy Land – the presidency of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) indicated that it had “initiated a constructive dialogue with Mgr Guy de Kerimel, Archbishop of Toulouse, inviting him to reconsider the decision he had taken about the appointment of the chancellor of his diocese”. “Such an appointment to such an important position, canonically and symbolically, can only revive wounds, awaken suspicion and disconcert the people of God,” said Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, president of the CEF, and Mgrs Vincent Jordy and Benoît Bertrand, vice-president.

Another case in Angers

Media pressure and peer pressure: the Spina affair also recalls the amplitude of the power of the bishop in his own diocese (“to the diocesan bishop returns, in the diocese entrusted to him, all the ordinary, clean and immediate power”, specifies article 381 of the code of canonical law) and consequently the absence of authority which could bring it back to its decision.

“Bishops cannot (…) limit their sacred power for the benefit of the episcopal conference”, insisted John Paul II in his motu owner SUOS APOSTULOS (1998). Thus, any president of the CEF that he is, Cardinal Aveline has no authority over Mgr de Kerimel to order him to return to a decision.

In his press release of August 16, the latter “asked for forgiveness to the victims” admitting that his decision could have been seen “as a camouflet against them”. Rather, he wanted to see “a sign of hope” for those who “had done their sentence and who live a very trying social death”. “There, I must ask forgiveness from the one I had named and to whom I trust, for not having known how to find the right place to which he is entitled,” says the Archbishop of Toulouse.

In addition to the Toulouse appointment, a similar case was emerging in the diocese of Angers where a priest condemned in 2017 for the detention of child pornographic images had been appointed notary and delegate for the social protection of the clergy. To avoid “misunderstanding” and “to add to the disorder of the faithful”, the bishop – Mgr Emmanuel Delmas – decided on August 12 to raise the concerned priest of his charges.