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

Under the demanding eye of the faithful and victims of sexual violence in the Church, the bishops are meeting 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 not initially planned on the program of this plenary assembly which brings together some one hundred and twenty members of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) until Tuesday. But the episcopate had to review its work plan, because of the revelations, mid-October, on the former bishop of Créteil (Val-de-Marne) Michel Santier.

Having retired in 2021, the ecclesiastic had been sanctioned in November of the same year by the Vatican authorities for “spiritual abuse leading to voyeurism on two adult men”committed in the 1990s as part of the confession, when he was a priest in Coutances (Manche) and director of a prayer training school for young people.

A year after the publication of the report of the Sauvé commission on the extent of child crime in the institution, these revelations have created anger among victims and among the faithful, who have denounced ” the silence “ bishops around this sanction.

Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the CEF, admitted “hearing the demand for greater clarity on [les] canonical procedures [du droit de l’Eglise] and the measures that can result from it”. And promised to reflect, from the Lourdes session, “to changes in our procedures, in our way of carrying them out and of communicating the results”.

A promise of “concrete proposals”

Concretely, “a first time of exchanges” 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 light on them. Saturday, a “work will be carried out to develop concrete proposals”which will be “to be voted on” at the end of the meeting, he explained.

“The expectation of victims is great, as well as among the faithful and among priests”, according to him. The issue is to “restore trust” and of “continue the work started a year ago” after the Sauvé report.

The collective of faithful Agir pour notre Eglise, which organized rallies of angry Catholics last weekend in different cities in France, made several proposals. For example: that “any opening of an investigation or previous conviction [d’un clerc mis en cause] be announced to the parish council”.

For its part, the group of victims Parler et revivre detailed several requests, in a letter to the bishops on Wednesday. He thus suggests “that each of these cases gives rise to a systematic call for witnesses (…) to search for other possible victims.. And warns that it will be “attentive (…) to deeds” exercised “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 ” waypoint “ of nine lay-led working groups whose mission, by the spring of 2023, is to deepen the recommendations on the Sauvé report (“accompaniment of implicated priests”, “formation of future priests”, ” governance “etc.).

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