| Editor: Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard | N° 94 – July 2010 |
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THE ROMAN DERELICTION OF DUTY
One of our friends gave us the testimony that he had sent to Mgr Stenger after our Father’s funeral. An exchange of correspondence followed, which gives a few explanations and specifies certain points. That is why this correspondence fits in well with the letters that we published in previous issues.
Your Excellency,
I learn today, from the pen of Mr. Laville in l’Est Éclair, that you, Your Excellency, the apostle of ecumenism, refused Christian burial to the Abbé de Nantes, who died in the midst of his Little Brothers and Little Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Maison Saint-Joseph in Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes.
As a youngster from Villemaur, the son of a farmer, I was seven years old when the Abbé de Nantes arrived at Villemaur in 1958, appointed parish priest of Villemaur, Pâlis and Planty by Mgr Le Couëdic after the pious death of Fr. Besançon a few months earlier.
For five years, Villemaur’s parish priest taught catechism to his youngsters from the parish, as well as love of God, of Our Lord, of the Most Blessed Virgin, of St. Joseph, of the saints, in a word love of the Church, love of their parents, respect… From seven to twelve years of age, this youngster would be his parish priest’s altar boy along with others from the parish. He enthusiastically attended catechism, the teaching of the Bible, and youth clubs in the woods with the seminarian brothers Bruno, Gérard and Christian. Even at his young age, he also participated in life’s dramas, such as seeing Bruno, Gérard and Christian leave for Algeria. Christmas 1961 saw a procession of parishioners put donations and gifts in an immense basket before the crib for the poor of the Sahara, at Igosten, where the camel-rider Bruno had become the teacher of these little youngsters of the Sahara. The Abbé de Nantes’ love for those small boys caused him to be expelled from Villemaur by his bishop, on 15 September 1963. On that day, the parishioners and the children of Villemaur wept… without really understanding what was happening to them, they lost their pastor…
[The years passed.]
Having become a farmer in his turn in 1985, the boy, who had become the father of a family, put himself, along with Marie-Christine, at the service of Brother Gérard to manage the bicycle camps, at which the brother taught the children the love of God, of Our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Joseph, of the saints, love of the Church, love of their parents, respect… as the parish priest of Villemaur had taught his younsters thirty years earlier. This time, Brother Gérard’s extreme charity cost him, in 1999, the closing of a camp in Brittany with the return of the children to Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes, surrounded by gendarmes, on orders from the Ministry of Youth and Sports. I had forgotten that in the meantime, this quest for Christian virtue had caused our little flock to be added to the list established by the parliamentarians to target sectarian groups. Under these circumstances, our Father, the Abbé de Nantes, exiled to Switzerland by Mgr Daucourt, and seeing all his approaches and appeals rejected by simple dereliction of duty, confided his small flock to the Immaculate, Mother of the Church, in 1996.
I bear witness to our Father’s attachment to the Church of Our Lord, to the Church of Peter, to the Church of all the holy Popes for two thousand years, up to the one from whom we were expecting help, the holy Pope John Paul I […].
I appeal to you, Your Excellency, to have the whole work of the Abbé de Nantes judged, as he demanded during his lifetime, for forty years. His faithful, and many others, are waiting for light to be shed on this so that dereliction of duty will give way to the Truth.
In the name of Faith, Hope and evangelical Charity, I dare, Your Excellency, to quote in conclusion these words of St. Augustine: « In matters of necessity let there be unity, in matters of doubt liberty, and in everything charity. »
Finally, according to the teaching of our Father, we will remain faithful to the maxim of St. Pius X: « Do your duty and all will be well. »
In union of prayers in the most Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
and his wife, Marie-Christine Broquet
REPLY FROM MGR MARC STENGER.
Dear Mr. Broquet,
I would not like to delay any longer in thanking you for the beautiful testimony that you sent me about your former parish priest of Villemaur who accompanied you on the path of your childhood and your first commitments in life. I will have you know that what you wrote to me deeply touched me. Whatever may be said in other respects, it will be taken into account for the Abbé de Nantes to have been, on the paths of many men and women, a point of reference, a pillar, a support for their faith.
I will not pass judgement on the Abbé de Nantes, all the more so because today he is before the God of justice who will be able to re-establish what must be re-established. The Church pronounced canonical sanctions against him. I have confidence in the Church to the service of which I have chosen to consecrate my life. You speak about « dereliction of duty » concerning the Church’s conduct. I would like to know in the name of what could one speak about dereliction of duty. Do not confuse the measures taken by society and the judgements of the Church. The former are based on human views, the latter on a divine mission. If, however, you are able to tell me where the « dereliction of duty » was in the sanctions taken by the Church, I am ready to hear you.
I would also like to make a clarification. It was not I who refused the funeral in the church of Saint-Parres to the Abbé de Nantes. It was the Nunciature that expressly demanded that it not take place in the church. There was no question of my evading this demand, the more so because it rests on objective facts. He nevertheless was buried in Christian soil. Maison Saint-Joseph is not sanctioned with interdict. From what I know, he was buried by a Catholic priest in communion with Rome. Finally, the day of the funeral, I celebrated the Eucharist for his intention. Moreover, I also have the intention of going to pray at his gravesite on the day I go to Saint-Parres, even though Brother Bruno taxes me with hypocrisy for this.
You wish me to judge the work of the Abbé de Nantes in order that the Truth may come out. I am ready to do so. In order for the Truth to come out, however, a humble heart is required in order to welcome it. Now, I hardly see humility in the CCR’s continual attacks on the Pope and the Second Vatican Council.
I have the impression that we should meet one another. You might be able to give me with lights that I do not have. Perhaps I would be able to tell you a certain number of things that would allow you to understand better the mind of the Church. I will have you know in any case that for my part I neither judge nor condemn. I would have liked to have met the Abbé de Nantes. There were several attempts that all ended in failure and whatever might be said to you, it was never on my part.
In union of prayers.
ROLAND BROQUET’S REPLY
Your Excellency,
In turn I thank you for your friendly response full of solicitude, to the point of proposing a meeting where we could “exchange”.
It was in fact the announcement that was made in l’Est-Éclair by Mr. Laville concerning the refusal of a Christian burial that motivated my testimony in reaction to such an injustice. My letter was written, as it were, in one go on the same day, which explains my lack of knowledge of the correction that was made in the following days by the bishopric.
I take note as well with relief that « Maison Saint-Joseph is not sanctioned with interdict »… As for the canonical sanctions of which the Abbé de Nantes was a victim, you place yourself, rightly so, behind the confidence that you have in the Church’s « judgements ».
[This is precisely the question. After having recalled the example of St. Joan of Arc – canonically judged… a heretic and a relapsed heretic! – and St. Joseph Calasanz condemned as a heretic by the Holy Office and imprisoned, Roland Broquet asks for verification of whether the judgement in question was pronounced against his parish priest according to the law. He continues by showing that this is not so. ]
There were « canonical sanctions », it is true… but no judgement! This is where the dereliction of duty lies. I read the text of the suspens by Mgr Le Couëdic, the disciplinary decrees of Mgr Daucourt… they are sentences, sanctions, but not judgements!
Thus, if you want to convince me that there was no dereliction of duty towards the father of my soul, Your Excellency, it will be easy for you to do so: tell me expressly his errors, not by allusion, but precisely by quoting the texts. Show me the exchange of correspondence or the minutes of your predecessors’ meeting with him to expose their grievances, hear his defence, and give a verdict with the grounds stated. Then show me that his right of appeal was respected.
To be honest, I am convinced that you will find it difficult to find these proofs! I fear that you will postpone our meeting sine die.
You have certainly carefully read the declaration of the Secretary of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura that dismissed the Abbé de Nantes’ appeal, even though it was rendered before your arrival at Troyes. It certainly did not escape your notice that the appeal was dismissed, not because the Secretary found fault with the Abbé de Nantes on the substance of the case, but because there had not been a judgement of appeal rendered on the matter. In fact, the Secretary considered (but after having exceeded the canonical time-limit for a response… he seemed to have difficulty finding a pretext!?) that the letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that Mgr Daucourt had presented to the Abbé de Nantes as though it were a reply to his appeal, was not a reply!
As the Apostolic Signatura only rules on the decisions of other Roman congregations… the Secretary could only dismiss the appeal. You also remarked, however, that the secretary nevertheless was honest enough to specify, in the last paragraph before the declaration: « that the offences against the Faith remain to be judged according to the terms of article 52 of this same Apostolic Constitution… » In other words, for the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the case is not closed… Yet the Abbé de Nantes is already reputed guilty, treated as an excommunicate! – without having been judged and without any action being taken concerning his appeal. That is where the dereliction of duty lies, it seems to me.
Your Excellency, you speak about humility, and you are right in doing so. I, however, learned from my parents that fundamental humility consists in acknowledging the truth. Otherwise it is no longer humility but servility, which is unworthy of a Christian. Humbly, your duty as a pastor seems to me to be to obtain the judgement from Rome. Humbly, the duty of the Community and its friends to whom I have the honour of belonging will be to submit to it if it is obtained according to all the rules that guarantee us the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, you have no right a priori to doubt our fidelity to the Church and our submission in order to justify a further delay in making the truth manifest.
I thus persist in appealing to you, Your Excellency, re-reading your words: « I have confidence in the Church, to the service of which I have chosen to consecrate my life… », which is what our Father, the Abbé de Nantes, unceasingly proclaimed, for he did not imagine for a single moment being separated from her: « Outside the Church there is no salvation. » This boundless love of our Father for his Mother the Church certainly deserves a reply from her to his request, to our request, in order to make the light of the Truth shine forth.
In union of prayers in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
REPLY FROM MGR MARC STENGER.
Dear Mr. Broquet,
I have received you letter replying to mine. I understand well your argumentation and I would like to reply to a few points.
1) sanctions, but no judgements.
I made inquiries. According to the custom of Rome, the motives for the sanctions were indicated to the Abbé de Nantes. If there was no judgement, it is because the Congregation concerned did not deem it useful to open a trial.
2) I was not the bishop of Troyes at that time. In our archives we do not have the copies of the exchange of letters between the Roman congregations and the Abbé de Nantes. Do these letters exist? It is my understanding from a conversation that I had with Mgr Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at that time, that they do exist. Insofar as it is a question of an exchange of correspondence, they must exist in the archives of the CCR.
As for the meetings (rare, I have been told) of the Abbé de Nantes with my predecessors, they were all without witnesses and without minutes, except for the one with Cardinal Lefebvre, on behalf of the Holy Office; we have a brief summary by Canon Moreau, chancellor, who was present at the discussion as a notary.
3) Concerning delays: Roman congregations have many causes to treat and a delay is always possible.
If the CCR desires that offences against the Faith be judged, it is its responsibility to ask the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, not mine. One can address oneself to it directly without going through the bishop. Moreover, this is what the Abbé de Nantes did in the past.
4) Where did you see that I expressed a priori doubts about your fidelity to the Church? I have the impression that it is you who have doubts with regards to the rules guaranteeing the assistance of the Holy Spirit by the Roman tribunals.
This doubt was the Abbé de Nantes’ constant position. Was this not what upset the congregations? As far as you and your family are concerned, I know your fidelity and it never entered my mind to doubt it.
In union of prayers.
Bishop of Troyes.
OUR COMMENTARY
This letter from Mgr Stenger is a page from an anthology. It provides a “radioscopy” of our episcopate. I cannot put my indignation into words. Let us remain calm and go through each point:
1. « The motives for the sanctions were indicated to the Abbé de Nantes » ? There must consequently be documents in the archives that have preserved some trace of this… Otherwise, the person who “informed” Mgr Stenger is a liar…
If « the Congregation did not deem it useful to open a trial » because the charges against the Abbé de Nantes are not serious, it is profoundly unjust and scandalous that this priest be sanctioned with « interdict » and slandered!
If, however, the charges are grave, and this is indeed the case because it is a question of accusations concerning the Second Vatican Council and pontifical teachings, the Congregation does not have a choice; it must judge, as is recalled in the “procedure for doctrinal examination” decreed by Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation, on 29 June 1997, repeating moreover, the article of the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus that defines the role and the functioning of the Congregation:
« The principle remains, however, that the Holy See can always intervene and must do so when the influence of a publication exceeds the boundaries of an individual Episcopal Conference, or when the danger to the Faith is particularly grave. »
Its intervention must follow a procedure that requires an exchange between the Congregation and the accused in order to establish his errors and to refute them… this is obviously where the shoe pinches the Holy See!
To write that the Congregation « did not deem it useful to open a trial » is thus an admission of dereliction of duty all the more grave… because a trial was opened by the Congregation in 1968, and it is still awaiting a judgement that alone can terminate it. How can we not call this « oversight » concerning an attested official proceeding a lie by omission.
Mgr Stenger’s letter thus allows any honest man to assess the iniquity that weighed and still weighs on the Abbé de Nantes and his work: either he was sanctioned unjustly, or too severely for a minor offence, or Rome refused him due process despite the inviolable dispositions of the law, in defiance of the obligations of a responsibility received from Christ Himself, refusing to say where the truth lies… out of attachment to error. Has such dereliction of duty on the part of the supreme judicial Authority ever been seen in history?
2. In so grave a matter, involving the doctrine of the Faith, the reputation of a priest, of the communities that he founded and the faithful who follow him, one does not merely content himself with having an « understanding », it is necessary to know: if Mgr Bertone gave Mgr Stenger to understand that « an exchange of correspondence between the Roman congregations and the Abbé de Nantes » exists, passed over in silence by the CCR, it is necessary and sufficient that the Congregation give a copy of it to Mgr Stenger in order to open our eyes and bring us back to the fold. For there is a liar in this affair: either the Abbé de Nantes or… Rome!
The simple reading of Mgr Stenger’s letter makes the naked truth shine forth: the fact that he acknowledges that he has no record in his possession of the meetings between the Ordinary or his representatives and our Father is the proof that no trial respecting canonical regulations took place. This letter of Mgr Stenger to Roland Broquet marks a milestone in the history of this dispute without precedent in the history of the Church. It suffices to establish the nullity of all the sanctions of which the Abbé de Nantes was the victim! Methinks that Rome is going to find this bishop “clumsy”…
As for the « meetings », the complete inventory of them was published in the CCR: with Cardinal Joseph Lefebvre (Letters to My Friends no 226-227, May 1966); with Cardinals Marty and Etchegaray on 13 June 1978 (Pour l’Église, Vol. 3, pp. 501-508); with Mgr Daucourt on Thursday, 1 August 1996 (Pour l’Église, Vol. 4, p. 422).
3. The « delays » involved here are not those made in the treatment of the file. They are breaches of the time-limits provided for in the Code of Canon Law for receiving a complaint or an appeal. Not to take them into account entails the nullity of the procedure in any self-respecting society.
Are tribunals exempt from respecting the law that governs them… only in the Church?
Once the proceedings are opened according to the time-limits, the Congregation can take its time, as is the custom in Rome, but at least the plaintiff or the accused knows that his affair is running its course, which is the minimum required for the most elementary justice.
Mgr Stenger cannot say that he is not concerned, because it was Mgr Daucourt, his predecessor, who decreed, without prior judgement, the interdict that still weighs on our community.
It is up to the Bishop of Troyes to recognise the nullity of this sanction instead of discrediting us to whoever asks for information. As Cardinal Poletto, Archbishop of Turin told us at the time of our pilgrimage last 15 May: « As a consequence of the information that arrived from the Diocese of Troyes with regards to the ecclesial position of the organisation to which you belong… no celebration is possible in a place of worship in our archdiocese. » Again, the Archbishop of Besançon, giving a refusal to « Mr. Gérard Cousin » who solicited his agreement to organise a camp at Faverney: « Given the canonical status of your community, outside of the ecclesial communion, you will not be surprised that Mgr the Archbishop cannot accede to your demand ».
We received the same “excommunication” on the part of the Bishop of Tulle, refusing us a stay at the sanctuary of Belpeuch, not only because of « our situation of dissidence towards the Church and thus of a rupture of communion (sic!) », but also because of our being labelled « a sectarian group, rightly or wrongly, in a just or unjust manner », by « the French parliamentary report of 1995 »…
How can Mgr Stenger tell us to address ourselves to Rome after having written to us a few lines above that Rome deemed it useless to open a trial? Whom are they trying to fool? Moreover, Rome replied by the intermediary of the Nunciature refusing the church of Saint-Parres to the mortal remains of the Abbé de Nantes. “The interdict” is rigorously observed, in complete dereliction of duty, from top to bottom in the Church. The knell did not toll for the Abbé de Nantes. Alas! It tolls for the Church!
4. We have seen that Mgr Stenger doubts our fidelity to the Church when he claims that the Abbé de Nantes would not submit to the judgement that he demanded from her. This is to reverse the roles, for there is one certitude that does not admit of any doubt since this letter of Mgr Stenger: the Roman tribunals do not respect any of the rules that guarantee them the assistance of the Holy Spirit…