Insecurity pushes nuns to flee the center of Nantes

“Even yesterday (Tuesday February 28, editor’s note), during my teaching in the church, we had to ask 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 life. Sister Marie-Anne Leroux, 56, a member with Sister Agathe Dutrey, 44, 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 keeping the Sainte-Croix church alive in the historic district of Bouffay, animating the liturgy of the hours, times of prayer and teachings. However, as Sister Marie-Anne, a Benedictine Oblate (columnist in the notebook “Religion and spirituality” of La Croix) assures us, “we can no longer carry out our mission in these circumstances”. Welcoming many people in psychological distress was not part of their vocation and their project.

Especially since in his eyes the situation tends to worsen: people coming to drink a beer in the church, “explosion” of drug consumption in the middle of the street… Facts that directly disrupt their activities since “Nantais do not dare to respond to proposals in the evening and that during the day, incursions into the church disturb the climate of prayer”, explains Sister Marie-Anne. 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. The two nuns therefore made the choice to leave. “We are not ‘Franciscans of the Bronx’ and we are not meant to be security guards, even if we have taken some ‘self-defense’ lessons”, they wrote in a message to parishioners.

If she assures that the parishioners understand their choice, Sister Marie-Anne remarks that their announcement arouses “reactions”. 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. »

For its part, the diocese “regrets this departure” – Sister Marie-Anne is a member of the diocesan formation service. However, he specifies that this climate “will not prevent the parish from continuing its action in the sector”. What future for the Benedictine Apostolic Fraternity? The sisters, alumni of the Word of Life, will leave Nantes in July to first join their “source place”, the Benedictine monastery in Saint-Thierry (Marne), before building a project in the city of Reims.

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