Extraordinary appointment by Bishop of Lourdes

Tarbes: former moderator of Verbe de Vie appointed general secretary

Monsignor Micas, Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, today informed his diocesan colleagues that Jean-Paul Perez has been appointed General Secretary of the diocese.

He will be the last moderator of the Verbe de Vie community, appointed in 2019, before the community is dissolved in 2022 following a total failure, as Monsignor Touvet, Bishop of Châlons, wrote: "240 members have left the community in 30 years. All attempts to clarify the charism, to give themselves a stable rule of life, to ensure serene governance, and to guarantee respect and trust within the Verbe de Vie, have failed". Following this, Monsignor Touvet asked for forgiveness for the excesses experienced within the community - including various matters of morality.

Jean-Paul Perez, a father of six and a member of the Verbe de Vie since 2011, having joined in 1994, is a former doctor and resuscitator in a military hospital. He is a trustee of the En Casa association in Lourdes, which helps disadvantaged people regain their social independence and find accommodation. He is also one of the administrators of the Assumption centre, also in Lourdes, and a referent for the situation at the INIRR - the independent national body for recognition and reparation, which pays out-of-court reparation to recognised victims of sexual abuse by the clergy, when the action is time-barred.

He has a long CV linked to the armed forces health service: he was director of the Percy military hospital from 2015 to 2017, an executive in the armed forces health service at Vincennes, at the Legouest military hospital in Metz, previously head of the intensive therapy department at Clamart (1999-2010), briefly director of a military hospital unit in Kabul (2010), anaesthetist at the Val de Grâce (1991-99), military doctor with the 1er groupe de chasseurs in Reims, etc.

From now on, this experienced doctor will have to look after the Diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes, which has been shaken by a series of scandals and is in the throes of de-Christianisation - the Tarasteix affair, whose perpetrator is now in prison and has been dismissed from the clergy, being just the tip of the iceberg.

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See more details for this Scandal Magnet 

See also Background

The Verbe de Vie community has elected its new general moderator: Jean-Paul Perez. A retired doctor and father, he has been a member of the community with his wife since 2010.

It was at Baye, in the heart of the Marne, in their community house Notre-Dame-de-Vives-Fontaines d'Andecy, that the members of the Verbe de Vie met for their community chapter from 23 to 28 April. They elected the new General Moderator, Jean-Paul Perez, and the members of the Community Council for a five-year term. The father of six children and grandfather of three grandchildren, Jean-Paul Perez, now aged 59, was a hospital anaesthetist in the Paris region. He has also "exercised managerial responsibilities in the healthcare world". He is now retired and has settled with his wife near Lourdes.

Founded in France in 1986, at Aubazine Abbey in Corrèze, the Verbe de Vie community was born out of the Charismatic Renewal and is present in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Brazil and Mali. The name Verbe de Vie and the vocation of the community are inspired by the words of Saint John: "What we have heard...seen...contemplated...touched by the Word of Life...we proclaim" (1, Jn 1-3). A school of spiritual life, both contemplative and missionary, the Verbe de Vie is based on three essential foundations: prayer, the teaching of the Church and community and fraternal life. It brings together members from different walks of life: lay people, consecrated persons and clerics. All are called to live the same spirituality in a fraternity that is both simple and profound, either in a residential life or in the world.

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