On April 15th, Notre Dame de Paris caught fire and extensive damage was done to the centuries-old cathedral, known and loved as a religious and cultural symbol throughout the world. On Easter Day, the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, celebrated mass in nearby Saint Eustache, a church whose architecture was inspired by Notre Dame.
In his sermon, the Archbishop thanked the firemen of Paris for their courage and devotion. He also asked, “Where is the body of Christ?” During this Lenten and Easter season, this has been a difficult question for the Catholic Church of France, shaken by scandals, lawsuits, and a much publicized court case involving its highest ranking dignitary, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.
In the United States, the scandal of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church exploded onto the national scene in 2002 with the Boston Globe’s exposé of abuse within the archdiocese of Boston. The paper’s investigation resulted in the prosecution of five priests. It also served as a catalyst, giving many victims who had longed remained silent the courage to speak out. At that time, a Gallup survey’s findings revealed that, after the Boston scandal, 22% of American Catholics were considering leaving the Church.
This year, on March 13th, a day after the sentencing of Cardinal Pell of Australia to six years in prison for the abuse of two choir boys in Melbourne, another Gallup poll revealed that 37% of American Catholics surveyed expressed their desire to leave.
The Catholic Church in France has recently been shaken by the same type of scandals, yet in some ways the situation is more dire. If we compare figures, keeping in mind the variations in reliability of surveys in general, 23.9% of Americans (about 72 million) identify themselves as Catholics, and 39% of them say they attend mass on a weekly basis. In France, 53%, or about 35 million people, declare themselves Catholics, yet only between 2% and 6% of the general population attend weekly mass. This boils down to about one and a half million faithful in a nation with a population of over 67 million.
These figures, in terms of religious practice, make Catholicism a minority religion, alongside Islam and Protestantism, in a nation where most citizens declare themselves agnostics or atheists. Today, for the French, Catholicism represents a vague cultural identity, and few who call themselves Catholic understand the workings of their faith.
Also, the exposure of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church came later to France, in part because victims were too often ignored by Church hierarchy. A case in point is that of the priest Bernard Preynat, today 73 years old. Between 1970 and 1991, Preynat, very active in the Catholic boy scout movement, raped and molested dozens of boys. Only in 2016 was he indicted for sexual assault against minors by a person exercising authority.
Father Preynat, still a priest but without a parish, living under court supervision in Lyon, France’s third largest city, is expected to be brought to trial later this year. His case, however, has had serious repercussions on the Archdiocese of Lyon and on its bishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.
On March 7, 2019, the Cardinal was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison term for the non-denunciation of sexual assault. In other words, the French courts accused him of covering up the crimes of Preynat, of which he was apparently aware. On March 18th, Cardinal Barbarin presented his resignation to Pope François, who refused it. The Pope gave as his reason the presumption of innocence, as Cardinal Barbarin is appealing the case.
In a nation like France, whose revolution was fought against both King and Church, this scandal has heaped more discredit on an institution already struggling to keep its foothold. In a French film called “Grâce à Dieu,” “Thank God,” released in February 2019, director François Ozon reconstructs the events of the Preynat case. The film's title is based on the words of Cardinal Barbarin who, in a public interview, declared that “grâce à Dieu,” certain accusations brought against the pedophile priest remain outside the reach of the courts because of the statute of limitations.
On the eve of this year’s Lenten season, another sexual scandal was placed under the national spotlight. On March 5th, a documentary was aired on Arte, a Franco-German public TV station. Its title: “Religieuses abusées, l’autre scandale de l’Eglise,” “Women religious abused, the other scandal of the Church.”
This documentary is based on two years of interviews and research by Marie-Pierre Raimbault and Eric Quintin. Its findings, once again, reveal coverups by Church hierarchy, too blind or too proud to identify the corruption in their midst. The most damning accusations concern two brothers, both Dominican friars, Marie-Dominique and Thomas Philippe, who, according to the women religious they abused, instituted a system of sexual slavery. Marie-Dominique Philippe, who founded a charismatic religious community in the 1970’s and died in 2006, was a close friend of Pope John Paul II, and there are those who believe the pope was aware of his behavior.
The year of 2019 may well be France’s “2002,” a year like no other concerning sexual abuse and hypocrisy within the Catholic Church. A French journalist and researcher, Frédéric Martel, recently published “Sodoma, enquête au Coeur du Vatican.” Translated into English, the book’s title is “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.” Though you may not have heard of the book, it is not difficult to realize what it is about.
After four years of inside investigation, with solid evidence to back him up, Martel accuses those church prelates who most decry homosexuality, be it in France or elsewhere, to be practicing homosexuals themselves. Though the book is often repetitive, it delivers ample proof of the Church’s double standard regarding homosexuality and sexual mores in general.
All of the above have made 2019 a painful year for the French Catholic Church. Yet, at the grassroots level, parish priests labor on. In direct contact with parishioners, they often bear the brunt of charges directed against their higher-ups. Many are responsible for several churches. Those who are reaching retirement age must often look towards French-speaking Africa if they hope to be replaced, as the number of vocations has radically fallen in France.
As Notre Dame burned, Father Jean-Marc Fournier, the chaplain of the firefighters of Paris, entered the church and saved the Blessed Sacrament. But, after decades of sexual scandal and a refusal by hierarchy to admit the sexual hypocrisy in its midst, can the Catholic Church save itself?
