Pontier tries to heal divisions in conference

Marseille Archbishop Georges Pontier, president of the French bishops’ conference, urged fellow bishops to avoid being “manipu­lated by social movements” when he opened their spring plenary meeting last week.

The meeting in Lourdes was overshadowed by different views about how to deal with a polarisation that emerged with last year’s anti-gay-marriage protests, with some bishops supporting the protests but many others keeping a discreet distance. Some organisers of that lay-led movement have since become active in conservative or far-right politics.

Differences flared again last month when the bishops’ conference’s Family and Society Council withdrew a conference invitation to a feminist philosopher after a traditionalist blog collected about 1,100 signatures denoun­cing her as a proponent of gender theory, which is incompatible with Catholic doctrine. That led to an internal debate about whether the council should have caved in to what the Catholic daily La Croix called “a minority, promoted to being thought police”.

There was no official statement on the closed-door discussions but bishops’ conference spokesman Fr Bernard Podevin told Le Figaro the Lourdes debate was “a moment of truth” marked by “fraternity” but also “methodological disagreement”. In his opening address, Archbishop Pontier diplomatically referred to the polarisation by urging “discernment” and stressing the Church’s message concerned both life issues like abortion, family and euthanasia and social issues such as justice, and support for immigrants. “The future can neither be in the promotion of eugenic behaviour nor in the perpetuation of an [exclusive] economic system,” he said.

The archbishop also touched on the growing role of what French media call the “Cathosphere”, the social media that mobilised pro-family protests last year and are increasingly used by militant conservative Catholics. “Modern means of communication, the development of social networks sometimes marked by violence, irresponsibility and a refusal to dialogue, have all profoundly modified individual and collective behaviours,” he said.

The latest incident highlighting differing views among Catholic officials was a visit to Moscow by a delegation close to the anti-gay marriage movement, including Bayonne’s Bishop Marc Aillet, to discuss measures to protect the traditional family with leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.
(See Jonathan Luxmoore, page 4.)