The French Church has begun issuing a new celebret, the ID card proving a priest can administer the sacraments, to ensure tighter security amid continued revelations of sexual and spiritual abuse.
The credit card-sized celebret is linked via QR code to a national database of French priests meant to indicate which privileges and constraints a priest has.
French bishops agreed to the new card in November 2021, one month after the shocking Sauvé report estimated a total of 330,000 children abused in the Church since 1950, two-thirds of them by clerics.
“The bishops … voted measures to continue and intensify the fight against sexual violence in the Church,” an episcopal conference statement said.
One of them was “a national celebret model, updated regularly, for all priests, secular or religious”. That comprises all priests “incardinated or carrying out their mission in France, as well as permanent deacons”.
The Bishop of Troyes Alexandre Joly, the conference spokesman, told journalists: “Families need to know that the Church is not a place of danger.”
Until now, it was issued on paper and varied according to the diocese, country and religious order.
The new card was accepted as a modernisation but some priests were sceptical.
“In 26 years, I’ve never had to present my celebret in France,” said Fr Benoist de Sinety, a prominent Paris priest now in Lille. “This card will not prevent those who abuse from continuing to do so.”
The new card shows a priest’s basic information – name, photo, birthdate, ordination date and place of incardination. It carries a QR code and personal identification code and provides information in French, English and Latin.
By flashing the QR code with a smartphone, it is possible to see the priest’s current activity and whether he has full faculties or any limitations on his ministry.
To find out more, the four numbers of the personal code opens a detailed list of faculties, such as celebrating Mass, preaching and hearing confessions, and of any canonical and civil limitations and reasons for them.
According to the statement, the limitations can be on supervising young people alone, being alone with youths even in public and giving media interviews. There is an empty box for additional sanctions and reasons.
Bishops and superiors are now collecting data for all 13,000 priests in France, both secular and religious, and 3,000 permanent deacons. Cards should be distributed later this year.
The national card will standardise the celebret for all ordained in France, allow “authorisations and restrictions in real time” and prevent forgeries, the bishops’ statement said.