Lourdes, November 2022. Since the spring, there have been around a hundred of them – lay people, priests, nuns, bishops –, commissioned by the French episcopate, to reflect on the future of the Church. Or how to respond to the issues raised by the Sauvé report published in October 2021. The members of these nine working groups are invited to provide an update during the fall meeting. But the revelations concerning Mgr Michel Santier, the former bishop of Créteil, whose resignation had been modestly presented as linked to a health problem, come to strike each other in their commitment. “How can they ask us to work with them and keep hiding such huge deals? What are we playing? “says a member of the working groups.
This episode, undoubtedly the most electric of this year of unprecedented reflection, is emblematic of the will of the hundred members involved in these groups who, despite everything, persevered. And present these Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 60 concrete proposals to the bishops to get out of the crisis. “What we have experienced is an example of what the Church of tomorrow could be, men and women, religious, priests and lay people, young and old, reread today Elisabeth Pelsez, magistrate in professional life. This is not naivety on our part, but an awareness that this crest line where we find ourselves oscillates between the risk of discouragement due to the revelation of several cases and the hope of a Church capable of putting an end to these abuses. »
Formation of groups
In charge of the group on “the analysis of the causes”, Elisabeth Pelsez affirms that she was able, like the other pilots of the nine groups, to constitute her team in complete freedom. In his, two victims, a statistician, Christophe Jadeau, lay people involved in their dioceses, the sociologist Céline Béraud… With also, as in each group, the presence of a bishop, “in the same way as any member “.
“We were totally free to form the groups,” confirms Bertrand Galichon, a doctor and member of the Christnacht commission who, since 2016, has been advising bishops on the measures to be taken for convicted priests. He found himself in charge of the group which worked on “the accompaniment of the priests, men and women religious involved. »
Experiential knowledge
It remained to organize, from March 2022, the meetings with regard to the roadmaps sent by the bishops to each group. Most chose to meet physically in Paris, which was demanding for members from the provinces. Videoconferencing could also be used. Placed under the responsibility of a coordinator, Hervé Balladur, retired leader of an advisory group, and with the support of Father Hugues de Woillemont, secretary general of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF), the groups were relieved of all material matters, but organized their work as they saw fit.
A large part was given to the hearings of professionals of health, justice, canon law, sociology, but also to an often overwhelming listening to the victims. “Experiential knowledge was crucial in our thinking,” says Élisabeth Pelsez.
Brigitte Navail was a victim of sexual assault in the church setting: a member of the Faith and Resilience collective, she took part in the work of group 6 which reflected on “support for priests”. “We wanted to listen to people, she insists, priests, lay people, vicars general, community superiors, psychologists, social workers…” A large panel which, according to her, made it possible to identify concrete recommendations “It’s not revolutionary but operational. »
A bit of the leitmotif of the different groups, not only in the recommendations but also in the organization of the reflection: “We have found a real way of working together, that is synodality”, insists Brigitte Navail who only wishes one thing is that the method continues after the Plenary Assembly, “but there is always resistance to change…”.
Culture of debate
For Céline Béraud, a sociologist and ex-officio member of group 8 (1), “there was a great freedom of tone in our very horizontal exchanges. All members felt empowered to speak. It is truly a culture of debate that has been experienced, which until now has not been the forte of French Catholicism. »
According to the director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), “the faithful present in the group spoke without false precaution respecting authority with a form of maturity. The scandal undoubtedly made possible a rather unprecedented critical voice in the Church of France. »
A German Synod?
“Authority is an unthought in the Church, not recognizing that the priest, the bishop, exercise power prevents any debate”, reports a participant. After the hearings, debates and analyses, the groups drew up a summary of their work, which remained behind closed doors, at the start of 2023. “It was more the victims who asked us not to disclose the content of the exchanges”, explains a pilot, even though the Conference of Bishops of France also did not wish to make the terms of the debates public too soon. “It has even been suggested to us, in recent weeks, to be ‘reasonable’, as an invitation to self-censorship”, is surprised a member who feels like a fear of a “German-style synod”.
In a short essay (2), Archbishop Pascal Wintzer, Archbishop of Poitiers since 2012, relies heavily on the effect of the nine working groups: “These groups work to propose operating reforms; recent events and the Assembly of Lourdes confirm their absolute necessity. I hope everyone in the Catholic Church in France understands this. The Assembly of Lourdes will have to receive this and not be finicky. Maybe then we will have been the men carrying this step. Perhaps this is, indeed, a generation of bishops scarred by sexual assault.
Mobilization of the faithful
The presence of the bishops in these various projects no doubt augurs another posture. And if the life of the groups imposed itself as a style? Chosen for their skills, the group members also made it known that this aspiration to debate was present even in the smallest parishes.
“What the bishops took a long time to understand is that the scandal affected the most devout of the faithful, those whose children still attend youth movements, chaplaincies, catechism”, observes Céline Béraud. Before completing their work, each group was sent to meet the bishops of an ecclesiastical province. A kind of “crash-test” before the Plenary Assembly: “The question does not arise in terms of power, comments Élisabeth Pelsez, we are deeply convinced that if there is not an opening of a world on the other, there will be no future. »
Accompaniment of priests, good practices in the event of questioning, confession and spiritual accompaniment… To the nine groups has been added a tenth which pre-existed: the group in charge of the “memory process”, created in November 2021, to invent a way of inscribe in time the memory of the victims of abuse in the Church. “It is no longer just a question of defining a place of memory, of planning celebrations, but of deploying the memory of sexual assaults to avoid any recurrence and not to forget what has been experienced, explains Guillemette de La Borie who is leading this band. It’s often just common sense…” Brigitte Navail, also participating in this group, stresses the importance of a “new way of being, of rethought relations between priests and lay people”.
A shared responsibility
Present in Lourdes, this tenth group, whose conclusions do not appear in the final document, will be like the high point of the meeting, the expression of a commitment of the laity on questions which concern everyone. “We all have to work on these questions which are human, psychological but also theological, pastoral. It is the responsibility of the community of believers and not only of the representatives of the institution”, emphasizes Bertrand Galichon. During the assembly examining the 60 or so proposals resulting from this long work, only the bishops have the right to vote, but the groups will have two days to defend their work and convince them.
——
Workshops on the 60 proposals
Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 March, the working groups will present to the bishops their reflection accompanied by 60 proposals which they will rework together.
The bishops will vote on Thursday on these proposals which were sent to them on 15 March.
Among the 60 proposals, among others: the creation of a committee of experts to assist the bishop in his decisions on cases of sexual assault; the medico-psychiatric care of the implicated priests with human support; a systematic psychological evaluation of future priests with training in general affective and sexual life; the publication of the “banns” between the announcement of the appointment and the ordination of the new bishop, to allow possible victims to declare themselves; the association of lay people with the work of the Conference of Bishops of France; the request addressed to Rome to open the diaconate to women and ordination to married men; better control of associations of the faithful…
:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/7ZUUSYRU35DH3KRWTDXJTZFIZQ.png)
:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/6N7IPVPLQZBALPANU3BM4FOKNU.jpg)
:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/5GKTLBEA7REJRBHWK3O7E5DFN4.png)
