Faced with insecurity, nuns leave Nantes city center

“Even yesterday (Tuesday February 28), during my teaching in the church, we had to solicit the audience to get a person out of the street who had entered in a state of intoxication. And it smelled of cannabis in front of the church. It is a sad reality of our daily lives. »

Sister Marie-Anne Leroux, 56, a member with Sister Agathe Dutrey, 46, of the Benedictine Apostolic Fraternity, testifies to weariness in the face of the climate of insecurity she describes in downtown Nantes. Tired, they announced, Sunday, February 26, their departure from the parish of Notre-Dame de Nantes, where they had been welcomed for more than eight years.

The two nuns have the mission of bringing life to a place of prayer in the Sainte-Croix church in the historic district of Bouffay in the city center, animating the liturgy of the hours, times of prayer and teachings. However, as Sister Marie-Anne, a Benedictine Oblate (also a columnist in the “Religion and spirituality” section of La Croix) assures us, “we can no longer carry out our mission in these circumstances”. “We are always on the alert, spending time giving statements to the police. We are at the end of it, ”she admits.

Especially since in his eyes the situation tends to worsen: incivility, people coming to drink a beer in the church, “explosion” of the consumption and sale of drugs in the middle of the street… Facts that directly disturb their activities since “the people of Nantes do not dare to respond to proposals in the evening and during the day incursions into the church disturb the atmosphere of prayer”, explains Sister Marie-Anne.

“No more police and cameras”

However, the town hall and the police are not inactive. “There are more police, cameras and street mediators who are doing a very good job, but that does not solve the root of the problem,” she laments. In October 2022, a demonstration against insecurity in Nantes brought together nearly a thousand people.

In this context, they made the choice to leave, despite the sadness of leaving the parishioners. “We are not ‘Franciscans of the Bronx’ and we are not called to be security guards, even if we have taken some lessons in ‘self-defense’, they write in a message addressed to the parish community. (…) We not only looked for solutions, but also acted in many ways to try to temporize, to regulate these daily problems. »

If she assures that the parishioners understand their choice, Sister Marie-Anne remarks that their announcement arouses “reactions, turmoil”. In addition, she says she is aware that their departure “can be used politically”. However, the nun affirms: “We say what we see. Growing insecurity is a fact. »

An upcoming location in Reims

For its part, the diocese “regrets this departure” – Sister Marie-Anne is also a member of the diocesan formation service – and “notes the insecurity in the center” of the city. However, he specifies that this climate “will not prevent the parish from continuing its action in the sector”.

What future now for the Benedictine Apostolic Fraternity? The sisters, former members of the Word of Life, will leave Nantes in July to first join their “source place”, the Benedictine monastery in Saint-Thierry (Marne), “probably over a year”, before building a project in the heart of the city of Reims.

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