Pope sends two archbishops to 'inspect' French diocese

The Pope has dispatched two archbishops to the French Diocese of  Fréjus-Toulon in France to inspect ecclesial governance.

The Apostolic Visitation led by Archbishop Antoine Hérouard of Dijon and Archbishop Joël Mercier, former secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, began on 13 February.

According to the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, the Vatican has already sanctioned the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, Dominique Rey, for welcoming new communities regarded as having sectarian tendencies.

Bishop Rey’s discernment in ordinations has also been questioned. He stands accused of ignoring the advice of close associates.

In June 2022, all ordinations in the southern diocese were suspended by the Vatican, following a visitation by Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseilles.

In 2003, Bishop Rey ordained Fr Nicholas Buttet, founder of the Eucharistein Community.

The Swiss priest, who has been credited as being spiritual director to the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, was recently stripped by Rey of his faculties to celebrate Mass, hear confessions or have contact with the community in France or Switzerland.

Fr Buttet founded in 1996 and led it until 2020.

In 2021, a canonical inquiry found that “the exercise of authority within the fraternity was marked by a pyramidal, abusive, infantilising system” whose “authoritarianism” was “reminiscent of that of a religious community in the 1950s”.

Fr Buttet, who is now in a French monastery, disputes the inquiry’s findings. Bishop Rey is accused of lax oversight of the fraternity.

The 70-year-old bishop has been ordinary of Fréjus-Toulon since 2000. A member of the Emmanuel community, a fruit of the charismatic renewal, he has long sought to instil his diocese with the missionary vitality.

Fifty Catholic communities now reside in the Diocese. Some have emerged from the charismatic renewal. Others follow the Tridentine liturgy.

There are 300 priests in the Diocese, which has enjoyed a reputation for unusually abundant vocations.

The visitation is scheduled to end on 10 March this year.