Abuse in Church: gathered in Lourdes, bishops try to respond to “the Santier affair”

Bishops come together from this Thursday in Lourdes to work on “concrete proposals” in order to improve transparency in the measures taken against abuse authors.

by

Under the demanding eye of faithful and victims of sexual violence in the Church, bishops meet from Thursday, November 3 in Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées) to work on “concrete proposals” in order to improve Transparency in the measures taken against clerics.

The subject was initially not planned for the program of this plenary assembly which brings together the around one hundred and twenty members of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) until Tuesday. But the episcopate had to review its work plan, due to the revelations, in mid-October, on the former bishop of Créteil (Val-de-Marne) Michel Santier.

Party for retirement in 2021, the ecclesiastics had been sanctioned in November of the same year by the Vatican authorities for “spiritual abuse having led to voyeurism on two adult men”, committed in the 1990s in the Framework of the confession, while he was a priest in Coutances (Manche) and director of a training school at prayer for young people.

A year after the publication of the Commission report saved on the extent of pedocrime in the institution, these revelations created anger among victims and among the faithful, who denounced “the silence” of the bishops of the bishops Around this sanction.

Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the CEF, admitted “to hear the request for greater clarity on [the] canonical procedures [of the law of the Church] and the measures which can result from it”. And promised to think, from the session of Lourdes, “to changes in our procedures, in our way of carrying them as to communicate the results”.

a promise of “concrete proposals”

Concretely, “an initial exchange time” is scheduled for Thursday, opening day, said Hugues de Woillemont, secretary general of the CEF. Friday will intervene “an expert in canon law and a criminal lawyer” to shed their light. Saturday, a “work will be carried out to develop concrete proposals”, which will be “subject to the vote” at the end of the assembly, he detailed.

“The expectation of people victims is great, as well as among the faithful and among the priests”, according to him. The challenge is to “restore confidence” and “continue the work launched a year ago” after the saved report.

The collective of faithful act for our church, which organized rallies of angry Catholics last weekend in different cities of France, made several proposals. For example: that “any opening of investigation or former conviction [of a clerk implicated] be announced to the parish council”.

For his part, the collective of victims to speak and revive several requests, in a letter to the bishops on Wednesday. He thus suggests “that each of these cases gives rise to a call for systematic witness (…) to seek other possible victims”. And warns that it will be “attentive (…) to” exercised “acts through all the dioceses”.

Among the other themes of this session, the bishops will work on “the place of traditionalist communities in the Church of France”, according to Hugues de Woillemont. They will attend a “stage point” of nine working groups led by laity whose mission, by spring 2023, to deepen the recommendations on the saved report (“accompaniment of the priests implicated”, “Training of future priests”, “governance”, etc.).

They must also vote the final statutes of a national canonical criminal court, an unprecedented structure in France which must open in early 2023. Finally, the episcopate will reflect on “actions” to be taken “on euthanasia”, a subject to which he is strongly opposed, while a possible change of law on end of life is envisaged.

/Media reports.