France’s bishops kneel in penance for decades of Church abuse

Senior members of France's Catholic hierarchy knelt in a show of penance at the shrine of Lourdes Saturday, a day after bishops accepted the church's responsibility for decades of child abuse.

Published: 7 November 2021 10:08 CET

Archibshop of Reims Eric de Moulins-Beaufort kneels as a sign of penance during a ceremony at the sanctuary of Lourdes. Photo: VALENTINE CHAPUIS / AFP

But some of the victims of the abuse — and lay members supporting them – said they were still waiting for details of compensation and of a
comprehensive reform of the church.

In Lourdes, a place of pilgrimage for Christians worldwide, some 120 archbishops, bishops and laymen gathered at the unveiling of a photo showing a sculpture representing the head of a weeping child.

At the request of the victims, the clerics did not wear their religious clothing for the ceremony.

The wall featuring the photograph will serve as a “place of memory” for the victims. The photo itself was taken by one of the victims of abuse, and the suffering he had endured was detailed in a passage read out by another survivor.

At Saturday’s ceremony, Hugues de Woillemont, spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of France, said: “We want to mark this place of Lourdes for a first visual testimony that commemorates so much violence, drama and attacks.”

Just a day earlier, following a vote at their annual conference, France’s bishops finally formally accepted that the Catholic church bore an
“institutional responsibility” in the many thousands of child abuse cases.

The abuse, stretching back to the 1950s and affecting at least 216,000 minors, was detailed in an independent report released a month ago, which spoke of the “veil of silence” cast over the scandal.

The conference also acknowledged that the church had allowed the abuses to become “systemic”, said Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the France’s Conference of Bishops of France (CEF).

‘It’s a sham’

One victim of abuse, Veronique Garnier, said she had been moved by the ceremony.

Garnier, who has worked closely with the CEF, said it was important that justice be done for the victims.

But Father Jean-Marie Delbos, who as a child was a victim of abuse, angrily dismissed the ceremony.

“The repentance, it’s a sham,” the 75-year-old priest said of the ceremony.

Speaking to journalists he called for the priest who had abused him to be punished and defrocked.

Some 20 lay members of the faith, purple ribbons tied around their arms or necks, gathered underneath a banner calling for “The Four Rs” — recognition, responsibility, reparation and reform — from the Church.

“We have our role to play,” said one of them, Anne Reboux, 64, from the southwest city of Toulouse.

The more lay members took an active role in the church, the less the hierarchy would be tempted to abuse their power, she argued.

In Paris, a few dozen people, some of whom identified themselves as victims of abuse, gathered outside the CEF headquarters.

“We hope, by our presence … to be taken into account in the elaboration of a plan of action and a calender that is going to have to be put in place to come up with compensation,” one of the organisers, Yolande Fayet de la Tour, told AFP-TV.

A decision on compensation for the victims of the abuse is expected at the final day of the CEF conference, on Monday.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.