Tiny participation denies legitimacy to Synodal Process in France

French Archbishop: Church must move away from prohibitive image

(Cathcon: rather they must bless all that is true, beautiful and good and condemn evil in no uncertain terms)

Bishops' Conference President Moulins-Beaufort: Church is heard, but considered backward-looking - Difficult to mobilise faithful for church reform - Archbishop of Reims admits mistakes in dealing with abuse

The President of the French Bishops' Conference would like to see more relevance of the Catholic Church back in the socio-political discourse. "We are listened to and even asked to express ourselves. But people have got used to the Church just saying that it is forbidden," said Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort in an interview in the new April issue of the monthly magazine Herder-Korrespondenz. "You listen to that and then you carry on as usual."

Moulins-Beaufort also said that most MPs, "while respectful of the voice of the church, simply consider it backward-looking." The challenge is to make it clear that the Catholic Church is not simply about prohibitions, but that it has something essential to say "from the perspective of Faith" about being human and living together as humans.

At the same time, the Archbishop of Reims observes that there is much in common with the other religious communities in France in the way they view society and human beings. Proof of this was a recent interview in the "Journal de Dimanche" with him as a Catholic and with one representative each from Islam, Protestantism and Judaism; this had left "a certain impression".

Moulins-Beaufort also praised the cooperation between the religious communities on other political issues. The Church, for example, is committed to combating anti-Semitism and works "with Muslims to promote the integration of Muslims into French society". Relations are good, "especially at the level of those in charge". Among the population, however, it is still "another matter".

Little interest in synodal process

On the subject of church reform, the President of the French Bishops' Conference said he saw problems in mobilising the faithful for it. "Some say: people don't understand why this is important," Moulins-Beaufort said, referring to the Catholic World Synod. After all, he said, this is the first time such a global consultation has been held in the Catholic Church.

The life of the Church takes place not only at the level of Bishops and lay officials, Moulins-Beaufort stressed, but in everyday life, in the Christian communities on the ground. "You can decree a lot and introduce big changes. But things have to get moving on the ground." In France, for example, he said, priests had participated very little in the worldwide survey of the faithful, as had young people under 40.

The Archbishop of Reims admits that it is difficult to make the substantial "voice of the people" audible in the global synod papers. "It is true: The text produced by the Synod Secretariat in preparation for the continental meetings is similar to the text that we French produced at the national level, and it is similar to the texts produced in each Diocese," Moulins-Beaufort said. "So we had already written roughly the same text three times before the continental meeting in Prague."

What will really be decisive is how the synod meetings in October 2023 and October 2024 will proceed, the bishops' conference president said. He assessed the Synod as a stage in a great process of ecclesiastical change. Historians would then be able to judge later on "what role the Synodal Process has played in this process".

Mistakes in dealing with abuse

In an interview with "Herder Korrespondenz", the President of the French Bishops' Conference once again admitted to earlier errors of judgement in dealing with sexual abuse in the Church. "I only realised this in 2016. Before that, I had even explained in an article why the phenomenon is a bigger problem in Australia and the USA than in France," Moulins-Beaufort said. But then, he said, those affected in France began to speak. "Maybe I was blind, I didn't see the reality - and neither did the French population." In the meantime, he said, it is clear, "as it is in Germany", that there are many more cases than assumed.

The President of the Bishops also admitted mistakes in dealing with the resignation of Michel Santier as bishop of Creteil. At the beginning of 2021, the Vatican had accepted the resignation, allegedly for health reasons. But in October 2022, it emerged that Santier had sexually and spiritually abused two men.

"Formally speaking, we as the bishops' conference have complied with the regulations," Moulins-Beaufort said. Rome had not contradicted Santier's official justification. And the bishops' conference is not authorised to intervene when a bishop resigns, he said. "The bishops' conference can only disseminate the information it receives from the Holy See," the Archbishop of Reims said. "But de facto it was the case that we kept silent so that the real reason for his resignation would not become known. That was a mistake."

A Bishop is a public person; "and therefore the transgressions of a bishop are public facts," Moulins-Beaufort said. "One cannot want to be a man of public responsibility and at the same time insist on being treated like an ordinary citizen." The archbishop continued, "The scandal this has caused must be a lesson to us." In France, 2021 had debated whether the legal obligation to report abuse cases also applied to confession. At the time, Moulins-Beaufort, as chairman, had a run-in with the interior minister because he had said that the secrecy of confessions was above the laws of the republic.

Asked what he himself would do if he learned of such an incident in confession, the archbishop said that if an adult confessed to an abusive act against a child, he would "do everything to get him to report himself". And he would also only absolve him of his sin if he agreed to self-report. If a child told him in confession that he had been a victim, Moulins-Beaufort said, he would try to "get him to talk to me again outside confession". That way, he would "no longer be bound by the secrecy of confession".

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