Trial of the Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray attack: sentences of 8 to 13 years in prison for the accused
The verdict of the trial of the attack of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray was awaited. He fell on Wednesday March 9, 2022: Jean Philippe Steven Jean Louis and Farid Khelil were respectively sentenced to 13 and 10 years in prison, two-thirds of which were suspended. Yassine Sebaihia, he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. All three were found guilty of criminal terrorist conspiracy. The cross recalls that they were not considered accomplices of the two Islamist terrorists, Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean. These two men had been killed by the police shortly after having assassinated Father Jacques Hamel and seriously injured Guy Coponet on July 26, 2016. During one of the 17 days of hearing, the latter, survivor of the attack, had launched, in the direction of the dock of the accused: “You will not have my hatred.”
Vatican: canonization of Charles de Foucauld
It was Sunday, May 15, 2022. Nearly 45,000 faithful from all over the world gathered that day in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for the canonization of ten Church figures, reports France News. Among them, Pope Francis proclaimed three French religious “saints”: Marie Rivier (1768-1838), César de Bus (1544-1607) and the desert hermit Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916). The latter, a former cavalry and military officer leading a dissolute life, then became a Trappist monk at the end of the 19th century and then a hermit in Palestine, before being assassinated in 1916, had been beatified in 2015 by Pope Benedict XVI.
Synod on synodality: 150,000 participants in France
It opened in October 2021. The Synod on synodality invites the faithful, whether lay people, deacons, priests or bishops, lists The cross, to reflect together on the future of the Church. In 2022, notes the daily, the consultations took place at the level of parishes and dioceses. In France, during this first field phase, the Church estimates that this reflection mobilized approximately 150,000 participants. “The work is now lived at the continental level, until spring 2023, before a first session in Rome next October (2023)“, written The cross.
Protestant Federation of France: a new president at its head
He had been elected president in the fall of 2021. Christian Krieger took over as head of the Protestant Federation of France (FPF) on July 1, 2022, reports The cross. This 58-year-old pastor, a man of dialogue and a convinced European, declared in an interview with the Catholic daily newspaper on June 11, 2022: “The links with evangelicals are at the heart of the mandate of the president of the Federation, especially since 26 of the unions of churches out of the 28 that make up the FPF are evangelical. To be president of the Protestant Federation of France is to be the representative, the spokesperson of the Protestant family in France – even though there exists within this family a diversity which is sometimes also expressed by tensions.” And to emphasize: “It is a rich family of great diversity and we know that we need to continually heal the bond that unites us..”
The Church faces new scandals
New scandals erupted at the end of the year. On October 14, 2022, Christian family revealed the existence of sanctions, which were hitherto unknown to the general public, against Bishop Michel Santier. The latter had been sanctioned in October 2021 by Rome for spiritual abuse for sexual purposes perpetrated on two adult men in the 1990s. Less than a month later, on November 7, 2022, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard confessed to his ‘to be “misconduct with a 14 year old girl” while he was parish priest of Sainte-Marguerite in Marseille. An announcement that came in full plenary assembly of the bishops in Lourdes. Then on November 16, it was Mgr Jean-Pierre Grallet, Archbishop Emeritus of Strasbourg, who admitted having had “inappropriate gestures towards a young adult woman” in the late 1980s.
2022: five religious events that marked the year – Regards protestants