Green Shoots in the French Desert

Perhaps all hope is not lost for the French after all:


French Catholics Protest The Da Vinci Code by Deal W. Hudson



Paris: "Yes, there is without doubt a Catholic revival going on in France right now." Thus spoke Jean-Paul, one of the seven seminarians I interviewed near the southern coast of France.

"Then why do Catholics in the U.S. view the Church in France as dead?" I asked. Mathieu, an Oratorian from Lyon, answered, "Because it is not a matter of numbers but a renewal of the Catholic mentality -- our sense of Catholic community and identity is becoming stronger in France."

These seminarians, from the diocesan seminary of Frejus-Toulon, see themselves as part of a Catholic revival that started in the early 70's. At the heart of the revival, they explain, are the 100 "charismatic renewal communities" that have been founded in France over the past 30 years. (By "charismatic" the French do not mean communities that speak in tongues, although it is not uncommon.)

Jean-Marie Guenois, religion editor of the Catholic daily La Croix, emphasized the same point during lunch near his office on the Rue de Bayard in Paris. "When the leaders of all the renewal communities met in the Vatican on Pentecost Sunday with the Holy Father, nearly 150 out of the 250 new communities were French!" Guenois added that these movements, which are more scarce in Italy and Spain, are indicative of France's deep spiritual roots.

This point was made more emphatically by Fr. Laurent Sentis, the moral theologian (Thomist!) who heads the academic program at the seminary in Toulon. "This country has been impregnated with the Catholic faith for centuries." The chief cause, he said, of the Church's eclipse was its failure to grapple directly with the founding document of the French Revolution, the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. "It contained no reference to the family or tradition, but instead of arguing back, the Church just put it on the Syllabus and ignored the beginning of modernity."

There was little doubt that those roots of which he and Jean-Marie Guenois spoke were blooming once again in the vocations of the seminarians in Toulon. In fact, the city was literally full bloom when I arrived at the seminary to meet the Bishop of Frejus-Toulon, Msgr. Domenica Rey.

The seminary building sits in the midst of an old French estate -- with an active winery -- given by the owners decades ago to the diocese for "the formation and care of priests." The Domain of Castille, as it is called, is worth a visit: A bed and breakfast can be found in the old chateau adjacent to the seminary and winery (yes, the wines are quite good.). The profits from the winery and the B&B go to support the seminarians and the retired priests who live on the property.

Bishop Rey was the first priest from a charismatic renewal movement to be appointed a bishop. A priest and leader of the Emmanuel Movement, Rey had achieved some visibility as parish priest in the heart of Paris.

At dinner, and later over a small glass of Chartreuse in his home, we talked about the evolution of the renewal movements in France. "It is important to see that we have become institutionalized -- we are part of the Church," he said. When asked about the state of the Church in France, he replied with a smile that warmed the entire room, "The Church is not dead; she sleeps, and it is my job to wake her."

Bishop Rey is obviously someone who can rouse the spiritually dead. His vitality and humility are contagious. For example, when I inquired about new French Catholic intellectuals, he mentioned a name, disappeared for a few minutes, and returned with a phone. The Bishop had the scholar on the phone so I could talk to him.



One of the Bishop's favorite themes is identity. The success of the renewal movements, he said, is the "strength of its Catholic identity -- without that everything turns to dust." As a result, the biggest obstacle to renewal is the "secularism inside the Church."

I also asked him about his years in Paris, specifically about the bar in Pigale I read about where he ministered to prostitutes. "Yes, that was run by the Emmanuel Community. It was in an awful part of the city, filled with glaring lights. The prostitutes came into the bar because the light was softer."

It was also a place, he said, where the Community sought "to touch a lot of people by assuming their identity." That is exactly how I felt having spent a long evening with Bishop Rey. Any skepticism I felt toward the seminarians' claim of a Catholic revival was dispelled by the charisma of this remarkable servant of the Church.

The mood of the Catholics I met with in Paris was not so positive. The revival, from their point of view, was making its way north very slowly. But it was in Paris that I witnessed an outbreak of Catholic fervor that corroborated what I had heard in Toulon.

I was standing in line to see The Da Vinci Code on the night it opened in Paris. (I have not read the book.) It was my visit to the actual Church of St. Sulpice that prompted me to see the movie a few blocks away. I had been told that the pastor of St. Sulpice was being pestered by Da Vinci Code readers anxious to see the spot where the priest was slain. So much for the reply made by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks to critics that the movie is obviously "fiction."

As I took my place in line, I heard the sounds of singing and chanting coming up St. Germain des Pres. Then I noticed that there were a number of police cars nearby and found out from one of the policemen that the sounds were coming from a demonstration against the movie. Calling themselves the "young Catholics of France," the demonstrators were chanting the Ave Maria and singing hymns. In a few minutes a phalanx of twenty-something Catholics, mostly young women, appeared smiling and handing out fliers listing the lies of The Da Vinci Code.

I never thought I would be handed a religious tract on the streets of Paris, especially on the West Bank!


The flier prompted some laughter from the young couple behind me, so I turned to ask what they were laughing about. The couple, Antoine and Catherine, believed precisely the claim of Dan Brown's book -- the Church was hiding the fact that Jesus was married and had children. Antoine exclaimed, "His marriage proves he was fully human, and the Church is afraid to admit it."


I don't have room in this article to recount the entire conversation, which lasted over twenty minutes, but here is the final interchange:

"Antoine, are you married to Catherine," I asked. "No," he said nervously glancing at her. "Then," I replied, "according to your own argument, you are not fully human." Catherine erupted in giggles, while Antoine tried to explain how his situation was different from Jesus.

We walked into the theater in good humor, and I waved goodbye to them as I walked out after two-thirds of the film. I have never seen a piece of popular entertainment as blatantly anti-Catholic. In my opinion, Director Ron Howard and actor Tom Hanks should publicly apologize to the Church and to Opus Dei. That they could watch this film and not see the gross injustice of its "fictional" depictions is impossible to understand.

No other religious or ethnic group would ever be treated in such a way without a mighty roar of protest from the mainstream media.

Ron Howard evidently didn't realize that he was dealing with Batman-like caricatures from Dan Brown's novel and should have treated them as such.

Apart from being a terrible film, The Da Vinci Code, reveals the face of our nation's persistent anti-Catholicism in all of its self-deluded ugliness.

I could see in the demonstration against The Da Vinci Code an example of what Bishop Rey said at the end of our evening together. What holds all the renewal communities together, he said, is that "the more we identify with Christ, the more we assume the rupture between faith and unbelief."

Americans often scoff at how the French settle important matters by taking to the streets. This is one time when it was a very good idea