Dismay, fear, disgust but also hope for justice, prayer of consolation for the victims… All at once and in disorder, faced with the facts revealed in the third report on the actions of Abbé Pierre. Sordid facts, immensely destructive for the victims and degrading for the magnificent work of the Companions of Emmaus.
For almost a decade, the Church of France has been shaken by the scandal of abuse and sexual violence. We want to believe that she is gradually coming out of it; we realize that it will be long and still painful. Because tomorrow again, new victims who will make themselves known, until now themselves incapable of speaking or even remembering, there will be some, that's certain. Predators not yet revealed, unfortunately, are to be feared. Systems of predation not yet revealed, as in Italy or in other countries which today claim not to have been affected by this scourge, are to be expected.
But on the way in which the influence is established, the silence which covers it and the means that the victims and their loved ones have at their disposal today to make themselves heard and demand justice, on all these subjects, the essential has been deciphered, which constitutes a light in the mass of darkness.
Let us therefore remember the operating methods of predators: maintaining the aura to which they are subject, choosing their victim from a group, which can be a simple family, taking care to be irreproachable with other people so that the testimonies are contradictory, multiply lies and dissimulations, perversely transform the aggression suffered into moral complicity that makes the victim feel guilty.
-All this is well documented, as is the silence of the heads of the various institutions where these acts were carried out. The story of Abbot Pierre does not add anything really new to the phenomenon but emphasizes one point: no personality, no matter how saintly he appears, can be excluded from serious critical examination.
Which means that, in the Church today, we must absolutely ensure that no smokescreen appears for anyone, behind which the gates of hell can be hidden for the victims. We must have sure praise and not parlor words, repeated without vigilance. Because a part of the faith is in danger: we must believe, and this is my case, that God continues to largely pour out his holiness on his people of the faithful. Yes, there are many saints around us, I am convinced. But they are not in the limelight, bathed in praise and superlative adjectives. Because, in reality, the purest holiness makes the one who wears it invisible.
