FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE – The 2022 edition of the Mission Congress will be held in Paris on September 30, October 1 and 2. Jean-Benoît Harel and Antoine Jaron explain the importance of this event, a meeting place between believers and non-believers.
The 2022 edition of the Mission Congress will be held in Paris on September 30, October 1 and 2, in various locations in the capital, in particular Stanislas College (VIe). Since 2015, this great gathering, which includes workshops, round tables and debates, aims to publicize the abundance of initiatives undertaken by young Catholics and to allow everyone to meet lay people, religious and priests involved in the life of the Church. Find all the practical information on the Mission 2022 Congress on: www.congression.com.
Jean-Benoît Harel and Antoine Jaron, authors of this text, are the spokespersons of the Mission Congress.
While the number of Catholics in France will soon fall below the 50% threshold, the Mission Congress, which opens its doors in Paris this Friday, September 30, wants to breathe a missionary impulse into French Christians. Gathering of all Christian initiatives, the Mission Congress returns to Paris. More than 6,000 people are expected to share their experience of meeting non-believers, and discussing with other Christians engaged in evangelization.
According to a recent survey published by the journal Assignment – and it is obvious to say it -, fewer and fewer French people are baptized today. In 2012, 65% of 18-24 year olds declared themselves baptized compared to only 59% in 2022. The observation is even more striking with 25-34 year olds: they were 70% in 2018 compared to 63% in 2022. The erosion of the number of Catholics in France imposes itself as an alarming reality for French Catholics.
There is no doubt that the French have other concerns: the war in Ukraine marked a historic turning point in Europe, generating concern about world security but also fear about living conditions with the announced energy crisis. Moreover, the fight against global warming worries the French and especially the youngest.
Do these many anxieties put the spiritual quest on hold? No, the drop in the number of baptized is far from signifying an abandonment of spirituality.
The decline in the number of baptized is far from signifying an abandonment of spirituality.
Jean-Benoit Harel and Antoine Jaron
The ever-living hope in a supernatural reality continues to fuel the research of the French, whether it involves the diligent practice of an identified religion, well-being techniques or any other ritual in search of transcendence.
The Notre-Dame fire revealed this questioning of the French, and, in the words of political scientist Jérôme Fourquet, awakened this “spiritual and theological unconscious”. Under the influence of emotion, many French people remembered, during a brief moment of emotion, their distant baptism, a baptism that they had not denied but simply forgotten.
Heirs to a God who has made himself close, Christians must not only in turn make themselves close to the world but live in the world and prove that in France the desire for God is not dead.
Jean-Benoit Harel and Antoine Jaron
However, the Church struggles to dialogue with this unconscious, this invisible base, while its future inevitably passes through the reunion between the Church and this unconscious. “If she intends to build the future – especially her own – the Church must renew the threads of dialogue” with this unconscious thus summarizes the historian Andrea Riccardi.
The French do not naturally turn to the 42,000 churches, which are used less and less for Christian worship and are sometimes redeveloped into sports halls, buildings or shops, when they are not completely destroyed. The Church in France no longer attracts. It has, moreover, suffered from the crimes of abuse of all kinds revealed by the report of the CIASE.
We claim the right for all our fellow citizens, without discrimination, to know God. Heirs to a God who has made himself close, Christians must not only in turn make themselves close to the world but live in the world and prove that in France the desire for God is not dead.
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“The Mission Congress in Paris, a privileged opportunity to discover the vitality of the Church”