“The reception of catechumens renews our church”

More than three years after the saved report (Ciase, October 2021), victims of sexual violence in Catholic establishments manifest themselves, in Betharram (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), but also in Finistère, in Savoy. Is it endless?

The Ciase estimated at 330,000 since 1950 the number of victims in the Catholic Church, a third of which would have been by lay people, and many in schools. In 2016, we set up listening cells in the dioceses in 2016, in order to collect and encourage the release of speech. But we must respect the time of victims.

For their word to be possible, it is often a catalyst, a first victim who speaks and who manages to lead others, and a social atmosphere capable of receiving these testimonies. Catholic education is mobilized so that these facts, largely of the past, cannot be repeated. Collectively, we discover that one must be more vigilant vis-à-vis the others.

Bishops have been implicated for sexual assault in recent years: Mgr Santier, Mgr Collomb and Mgr Reithinger. The slowness of developments in these cases leaves the impression that the institution is protecting itself …

In the case of Mgr Santier, I tell myself retrospectively that we should have discussed more clearly with the SEIR. But I remind you that CEF is not a hierarchical body.

When a bishop is implicated, it is the archbishop responsible for the province (the “metropolitan”) and the STI of directly who intervene, and the seat holds! Regarding Mgr Reithinger and Mgr Collomb On the other hand, the accusations are the subject of legal inquiries still in progress, and both have withdrawn from their functions.

Humiliation may arise humility

What spiritual sense do you see to awareness of the magnitude of sexual violence?

According to the Bible, the mercy of God is to bring to light sin so that it can be seen and repenting it. Whether the church is put before what it was carrying partly without knowing it, or without wanting to know it, or without being able to know it, it is already a liberation, a promise of healing, I am convinced.

Humiliation can arise from humility, and humility, it is the path that Christ tells us. We want to serve people, not dominate them and even less abuse them.

Pope Francis pointed to clericalism, the deviation of authority, as one of the causes of sexual and spiritual abuse. The episcopate has taken up the synodal practice, which gives way to the baptized?

Several moments have been chained: the revelation of the abuses led the pope to call to fight against clericalism, then to trigger the world consultation on synodality. The Church has undertaken this great work of revision and undoubtedly renovating the authorities. In France, our plenary assembly of November 2021, one month after the publication of the Sauvé report, had a decisive experience of synodality.

It was planned to listen to people in precariousness, as part of our program on ecology, since Laudato if the “clamor of the earth and clamor of the poor”. To hear them say what they expected from the Church, what they found there, all the bishops said themselves “we have nothing to defend, we have to serve all these people”. This has contributed enormously to the reception of the words of people victims of abuse, also on the program of this assembly.

What marked the episcopate’s relationships with the government?

The containment of March 2020, and the law reinforcing the principles of the Republic, of August 2021. Overall, I had fairly effective and cordial labor relations with the various governments. With the President of the Republic, religious leaders are well received, and I had the feeling of being listened to. But the fear of what the president was able to call Islamist separatism led to a transformation of the 1905 law which appeared to us serious, and continues to seem serious to us.

It allows increased control that could become tatillon if an upcoming government wanted it. This is why, with the other Christian churches, we have made an appeal to the Constitutional Council. The Constitutional Council rejected it, but recognized that there was an attack on freedom, even if it judged that it was proportionate to the purpose of public order. The 1905 law, implemented as a law of freedom, has become a control law. This changes the relationship with the public authorities.

We become a catechumumeal church

45,000 young people from France participated in Lisbon WYD, 50 % more than expected. Baptism requests of adults are increasing. How do you interpret this data?

To the WYD come from young Catholics already involved with parishes, movements. Those who ask for baptism, and who we receive as a gift from God, represent a slightly different phenomenon. The dechristianization may result in a renewed interest in religions. Some, at the age when we make personal choices, want to become Christians.

The catechumens that wrote to me last year before their baptism all said, in one way or another, that the approach of Christ had appeased them, made capable of different relations with the others. We become a catechumenal church, after being a church in family transmission. If young people come to us, it is to put their lives in the light of God.

Priests try a presence on social networks. It’s complicated for theEChurch?

What makes the charm of social networks is precisely their quirky side. Priests, laity publish content there that can be very interesting. But should we validate them?

The option of the Conference of Bishops was rather to know these actors, to make them meet. When it is a priest who holds a successful account, the question arises to assume him in humility. If it comes from the Holy Spirit, then the initiative makes it grow in communion with others, in the love of the Church.

Christ created the Church to carry the Gospel

The traditionalist pilgrimage of Chartres brings together more and more young people around Latin mass according to the old rite. The bishops failed to understand the issue of a common liturgy for the unity of theEChurch?

The pilgrimage of Christianity plays on an ambiguity. Undoubtedly at the start, the participants came to seek there what the organizers promoted, that is to say, comfort themselves in the cult of the allegedly traditional form of the Roman rite. But today, many are in search of an atmosphere, of an exceptional moment during which they can assert themselves as Catholics, French, with flags, banners, and the challenge of a physical effort, which had gradually faded from the pilgrimage of students to Chartres, which ended up disappearing.

The organizers, they harden, I have the concern, in an understanding of the tradition which ends up being false. And the challenge today for us bishops is to express in clear terms with the youngest what the tradition of the Church is: above all the act of Christ which is transmitted, gives itself.

It is not the perpetuation of customs, of manners. It is not the tradition of the ancestors, but the tradition of Jesus that engages on the cross and in the Eucharist. I also note a political ambiguity: Christ has not founded the Catholic Church to create Catholic States, or even a Catholic society. Christ created the Church to carry the Gospel to the world, and that it is a ferment of spiritual freedom.

A pedagogy more difficult to do today ?

No, because we find a large part of the young people who go to the pilgrimage of Christianity, to the WYD, where there is no problem of liturgical celebration, and in all kinds of gatherings in our dioceses.

The organizers of the pilgrimage of Christianity pride themselves on their success, it is a good war, but it is advertising war. I think success is partly based on this ambiguity: they are aiming for a goal that is not what a large part of the participants are looking for.

Laudato if ‘is a founding text, very important

How did the action of Pope Francis, his orientations, his impulses, made the Church of France move during these six years?

Pope Francis made the whole church move and it is happy. The Church of France was very enthusiastic by Evangelii Gaudiumhis very first text, whose strong expressions – “the Church, country hospital”, “go to the outskirts” – marked. In his very personal and stimulating way, he expressed the mission movement initiated from the council. On the other hand, Laudato if ‘ is a very important founding text.

This is the way in which humans is understood in their relationship to all other beings who is at stake, beyond the question of the climate and the future of the planet. I think that our humanity is experiencing a big change: it is called to get out of an anthropocentric conception and to recognize itself in communion with all beings.

Christianity can nourish this very strongly. And then, Pope Francis imposed a deeply evangelical theme, attention to what people in precariousness have to say. In all questions, we have to question ourselves: what will be the consequence for the poorest?

Read theology every morning you “Refresh”you said to our colleagues The cross. What is the last theologian you have read a text?

(A moment of silence). I read a book by Ilia Delio, an American Franciscan: “The humility of God”.

“The humility of God, a Franciscan perspective”, Ed. Franciscans, 280 p.