His name was François de Foucauld, like the saint – his great-grand cousin. He would have turned 50 a few days later and had been a priest for 18 years in the diocese of Versailles. This Friday, July 8, his funeral will be celebrated at 3 p.m. at the church of Vésinet, about twenty kilometers from Bois-d’Arcy, parish of which he had been the parish priest for seven years, from 2014 to 2021.
“Father François de Foucauld ended his life. His body was found last night in the forest of Rambouillet », announces the short press release from the diocese signed by the hand of Bishop Luc Crépy, before specifying “Following difficulties in the exercise of his ministry, he had no mission since September 2021 “.
The press release from the diocese appears all the more brief as, on social networks, the death of Father François provokes many reactions. Many cite the column, written by the deceased and published by The cross last December, which suddenly takes on the appearance of a posthumous letter. He reports on abuse of power, and details the mechanisms leading to these abuses on the part of his hierarchical superiors, but also of a “a small circle of clerics and lay people around the bishop who assumes the last word”.
A missionary zeal
On the Facebook social network, some denounce his difficulties in his former parish, the complicated relations with the diocese; others tell of the complex personality of the priest, whose “his intransigent temperament lent him little to concessions, to compromises, convinced that it was his duty to contribute to the awakening of a Church seized with deadly torpor”, writes on his personal blog René Poujol, former director of the weekly Pilgrim and longtime friend of the priest.
All, in any case, agree on the missionary zeal of Father François, endowed with “many pastoral qualities, having the concern for a renewed, missionary Church, which has always sought to make the Church closer to others, more alive”, recalls Luc Crépy, Bishop of Versailles, in a video published on Wednesday July 6 on the diocese’s website.
The death of François de Foucauld provoked emotion and incomprehension. But above all, she shocked. “A suicide is always dramatic. It plunges us into disarray. But the suicide of a priest is even harsher because a priest is a bearer of hope”, explains Luc Crépy in his video, before specifying “suicide is tragic when this priest no longer sees a way out in his ministry, in his personal and ecclesial mission. »
“We wonder what we missed”
Superior of the French pontifical seminary in Rome for a few more weeks, Vincent Siret has seen several generations of priests pass by. “Like in a family, when one of us suffers so much to the point of making this decision, it reverberates all over the body. We wonder what we didn’t do, what we missed, how we could have prevented it. » However, the suicides of clerics are unfortunately not so rare. Everyone remembers the two acts in 2018 of the young priests Jean-Baptiste Sèbe and Pierre-Yves Fumery in the dioceses of Rouen and Orléans, only a few days apart.
Isolated cases or victims of a system? “If we could count the number of suicides since the year 2000 among priests, men and women religious, monks and nuns, members of new and lay communities on ecclesial mission… and if we calculated the percentage of suicides in relation to at the number of people “in activity”, we would be horrified”, maintains Yann Vagneux, priest of the Foreign Missions of Paris (MEP) currently in India and fellow seminarian of François de Foucauld… but also of Jean-Baptiste Sèbe. The priest of the MEP does not hesitate to use the adjective “structural” to evoke this phenomenon.
Former superior of the Carmelite seminary, where Jean-Baptiste Sèbe and François de Foucauld, among others, studied, Robert Scholtus makes the same observation. “On my small scale, over several generations of priests and religious, I count four suicides of priests and two of religious. » Taboo in society, suicide is even more so in the clergy. “There are no statistics, we never talk about it, each death is treated as a special case… Of course, there is a fragility, a pre-existing personal vulnerability. But I think that the suicide of priests and religious men and women is a systemic phenomenon. »
The impression of being only pawns
The priest of the diocese of Metz nuance however: the causes are multifactorial. Vulnerability can come into play, especially since being a priest requires a certain sensitivity. But, among the priests and religious who committed suicide around him, Robert Scholtus recognizes common traits: “They had a spiritual ambition, great pastoral and intellectual inventiveness, a broad outlook. But, for different reasons, they one day discovered that they could not go further. »
The former seminary superior describes men who did not feel respected in their charisma, their singularity, “who felt that their generosity and their ability to work were being abused. The impression of being basically nothing but pawns in the service of the salvation of the institution in danger. »
“It is important not to generalize”, insist Bérénice Gerbreaux and Béatrix Bréauté, both Talentheo coaches. Since 2006, this network of 80 professional coaches has voluntarily accompanied priests, bishops, superiors of congregations and their teams in the exercise of their ministry. Priests, they meet many. “Suicide is a very complex issue. There will always be something that will escape us in this act of incredible violence. Anyone in extreme pain can be overtaken by death urges. »
A Radically Different Exercise of Ministry
Each suicide has a part of mystery. The conditions for taking action are so complex that it would be dishonest to establish a standard pattern, to look for someone responsible. What can be said, on the other hand, is that in a society where religion no longer plays the social role it once did, the conditions for exercising priestly ministry are radically different.
“To be a priest today is almost to be condemned to be a priest… And this priest does not have his little village, his church, his garden as in the past. He almost becomes the little bishop of an immense territory”, analyzes Robert Scholtus, who speaks of the priesthood as a “job of manager which places you in the institutional, the organizational, depriving the priests of the immediate relationship, of the contact”.
“The relationship to authority is also no longer the same”, insists Luc Forestier, professor of theology at the Catholic Institute of Paris, who speaks to him of the crisis of the episcopate. The bishop is the only intermediary between the parish priest and the pope. “The Second Vatican Council stipulates that the episcopate is the fullness of the sacrament of orders, that the bishop must be for his priests a father, a brother and a judge, remaining vigilant on questions of abuse. But it’s impossible ! Everything in the diocese depends on the bishop! » Difficulties of which the latter are aware when they are appointed: the rate of refusal to the appointment of bishop would be around 50%.
Others evoke the decline in vocations, therefore the ordination of men who are sometimes fragile, whose flaws open up in the exercise of the ministry; the loneliness and isolation of priests imposed by the extended territorial network; dechristianization; the “man-sandwich” side between the bishop on one side and the parish community on the other, all in the context of synodal reform and the fight against clericalism.
Some priests, endowed with great inner freedom, manage not to let themselves be overwhelmed by all this, to make decisions that allow them to play another role, to be a pastor… “But inner freedom cannot be learned from books! observes Robert Scholtus. This obliges us to consider that the collapse of the system of Christianity is a catastrophe in the etymological sense, that is to say, it obliges us to change direction, to understand the Church differently, to invent new communities more smaller and more humble. »
Psychological and spiritual support
In these difficulties encountered by priests, what about their psychological and spiritual support? Required in religious communities, spiritual accompaniment is only recommended for diocesan priests. Many of them don’t benefit from it – or don’t take the time to benefit from it.
“It all depends on the idea they have of the priest, explains Vincent Siret. They can have an image of the overhanging, magnificent priest, of a superpriest. It’s hard to recognize that you need help. » Nevertheless – and perhaps this is due to the fact that the vast majority of seminaries offer psychological support for candidates for the priesthood – Vincent Siret affirms that the younger generations of priests are much more in need of spiritual and/or psychological support. . “Young people, anything that can help them, they are takers. »
“What the disappearance of Father de Foucauld questions are precisely the places where priests can lodge and express their discomfort”, insists Béatrix Bréauté. Noting the strong pastoral charges, exhaustion, relational dysfunctions and above all the need to share even more, Talentheo has planned to open, as of next year, sessions for priests and consecrated persons with the aim of dealing with burnout and the pre-burnout. “The proposals are there. Now they have to get it. »
After the suicide of François de Foucauld, questions about the malaise of priests