Santier case. how the French Catholic bishops finally recognized the “lie”

Dear Reader, Dear Reader,

The Catholic Church is once again thrust into the news as the French episcopate plunges into a serious crisis.

We could summarize the episode in a simple way, but that does not allow us to get to the root of the problem. Church moral scandals have hit priests, they are now affecting bishops.

Let’s start talking about the facts as accurately as possible, because it’s time for confusion. Then we will try to identify deeper reasons.

This topic will make some people feel tired. The news of the Church has been swimming in these murky waters for several years now. His bet, however, is fundamental to the future of the Catholic Church in France.

This letter is the longest I will write to you because this new episode is of absolute gravity for the immediate future of the Church of France, which is losing its credibility outside, but also within the community.. The faithful are still welded around their priests, but this time trust in the institution has been broken.

Therefore, I tried to collect all possible factual elements so that we can see more clearly. Writing this letter to you has also been helpful for me to understand this topic better.

Thanks for reading.

The context

The child abuse crisis, which affects a minority of the Church’s priests, even if the child abuser is a very priest, has significantly discredited Catholicism despite its significant efforts to eradicate this evil.

Beginning around the 2000s, it reached its climax for our country a year ago, in October 2021, with the publication of the CIASE report, an independent commission funded by the bishops and the French Religious Conference (CORREF). 2.6 million euros responsible for investigating these abuses.

This report should have marked the beginning of the way out of the crisis. For now, he seems to be in a hurry. After priests, the episcopal rank is now on the hot seat from mid-October 2022.

in fact In addition to the indignation caused by these “episcopal” abuses, a scandal was added to the scandal.. In connection with the Santier case (read below), some episcopal leaders, no less, consciously practiced omerta in 2021 and 2022.while these same officials promised their knee-jerk clarity on this type of affair in Lourdes in October 2021…

This silence has caused unprecedented anger among many moderate classical Catholics. in the world of priests and even among bishops, because many are left out of the information.

Thus, the young laymen started the “acting for our church” collective. Their motto is “#take out the trash”. was taken before the churches of half the dioceses of France. Which is nothing. The image of a waste disposal center is rough, but it hits the mark.

To complete it, a clumsiness of the tongue of the diocese, in Lourdes, on November 7, gave one gets the impression that 10% of the bishops, there are a hundred of them, were “challenged” by justice. with moral issues!

The confusion is complete. After the shocking numbers of pedophile priests, after the highly questionable INSERM survey of the CIASE report in October 2021, which conveyed a picture of a “systematic” corporate church of mass sexual abuse, which is false because 95 to 99% of people. Priests are not child abusers. now there is a new startling proportion of bishops who are allegedly involved in abuse. Which is not true.

So there is three levels in these episcopal affairs :

• a personal level which reaches specific bishops
• a institutional level In the Santier case scandal, the diocesan leadership falsified the real reason for the departure of Bishop Santier in 2021 and 2022, who did not leave his post “for health reasons”.
• a level of communication The episcopate gave the impression that 10% of the bishops were challenged by justice.

Facts:

a rapid case inventory essential to fully understand what is being said, as confusion reigned after the diocese suggested that ten bishops had been “challenged” by the justice. There are four case typologies.

“Bishops” are involved :