A two-page full-page article titled “In the Name of Father and Vice” (April 15 edition of Le Monde), the analysis of the book Zoom on the Dirty Money of the Holy See (April 13 edition) and the publication recently (June 28) of another article devoted to a report emanating from this strange community called the Brothers of Saint John do not give a very engaging image of the Catholic institution. For those for whom the Sauvé report or the program of La Chaîne Parliamentary (LCP) on the Vatican’s billions of euros sheltered in tax havens had already raised some questions, the publication of the articles cited must have represented an additional explosion. !
Having been educated in this tradition in the early 1950s, like many other young people of my generation, I take the liberty of looking back on these events to find myself surprised that apparently such actions, in particular those of the two Dominican brothers Thomas and Dominique Philippe, do not arouse more indignation or reactions in the circles concerned.
But it is above all to say aloud that if such actions are possible, it is because of the influence that the religious, at least in this tradition, was able to exert on the minds of his faithful. How was it possible that in the name of spreading the “good news” such abuses were perpetrated? We can evoke the human ambiguity (see Roger Fauroux) from which the religious have no reason to escape more than the others.
More deeply, we can consider that a whole discourse based on the fundamentally sinful state of man, his salvation by the only goodness of his God and the key role of the mediators that would be the clerics made possible this domination and this influence ( under the effects, especially of “direction of conscience” or confession).
There is no question here of denying the spiritual dimension of man but rather of encouraging our contemporaries to free themselves from such a hold on religion. Already a number of groups, such as certain commissions resulting from the Sauvé report or this initiative launched by Anne Soupa, candidate for the succession of Bishop Barbarin, are working on this. The Catholic tradition has been wrong enough that 21st century minds have no qualms about questioning it!
Without going back to the Inquisition, we can cite in the more recent past the silencing of worker-priests, the institution’s “above ground” attitude on birth control and its catastrophic consequences (with, among other things, the spread of AIDS in developing countries), not to mention his own current mistakes! And the same tradition continues to err just as much by continuing to impose celibacy on its clerics!
On this last point, how is it that the celibacy in question, instituted in the 12th century (Second Lateran Council) to preserve the patrimony of the Church (the succession pronounced for the benefit of the children of the monks would have dispersed it), either still in force, while other equally Christian traditions (Protestant, Orthodox) have not considered it essential in any way?
Making this celibacy optional would undoubtedly avoid many setbacks. How is it that this questioning is so little talked about? To parody Stéphane Hessel, let’s say: “Let’s be indignant”!
Jacques Périé, Bigoulet-Auzil (Haute-Garonne)
