Posts tagged Bishop Christian Nourrichard
Thiberville Videos with English Subtitles
Jan 22nd
For those who are interested, the videos of the recent events in Normandy are available with subtitles in English. The arrogance of the Bishop defies belief!
- Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/user/cathobuzz#p/a/u/1/c143C70nMi8
- Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/user/cathobuzz#p/a/u/0/szXs2lwofv0
Another titbit (fictitious) – source (my translation): http://www.renaissancecatholique.org/Ite-missa-est,175.html
Ite missa est : End of the Mass?
This is a fictitious dialogue between a diocesan bishop and a parish priest written a few years ago, written by Michel De Jaeghere, Ite Missa Est, a disturbing private conversation between Father Dubost, modest country priest holding onto his cassock and the Mass of his ordination, and his ordinary, Bishop Gallorme, who tells him he wants him out of his parish. The dialogue is “truer than nature” and has an amazing note of authenticity for someone who has followed the Thiberville affair. Michel De Jaeghere had even imagined a visit to the Nuncio.
* * *
Fr Dubost – Is this why you sent for me? To tell me you wanted me to leave Saint-Symphorien’s?
Bishop Gallorme – I was happy to see you again, but I don’t want to take sides with you: yes, it was also for that.
Fr Dubost – I thought the Church was short of priests.
Bishop Gallorme – That’s what the media’s saying. The Church has new needs, which fly in the face of statistical logic.
Fr Dubost – Have you already chosen my successor?
Bishop Gallorme – No, because in truth, I don’t intend to appoint one.
Fr Dubost – I don’t understand.
Bishop Gallorme – It’s not because there is a presbytery at Saint-Symphorien that I’m going to appoint a priest. What I want is for Christians to take themselves in hand. Excuse me, Father, but I think you have taken excessive care of your parishioners. Since I was appointed to this Diocese, eleven priests have died or have retired. I didn’t replace them.
Fr Dubost – I thought it was because there weren’t enough vocations.
Bishop Gallorme – Do you know what has happened in these eleven parishes? Well, I’m not afraid to say it, a new Pentecost. Everywhere, Christians have accepted the task of becoming the craftsmen of their future themselves. They have taken charge of the life of the Church. They have become responsible. What a shining sign of spiritual vitality! This is how Catholicity is re-made. Not in arrogance and triumphalism, like in the times of our forebears, but through responsibilities that take the baptised in hand. This reversal of perspectives is full of promises. It will give the Church a new harvest.
* * *
The reality is like in my village, and all the other villages round about: a locked church and less than ten people present at the monthly Mass or “service in the absence of a priest”. Ugh! I would prefer the Calvinists! At least they’re more honest.
More from Thiberville
Jan 18th
Damian Thompson has just published a new article about the ongoing saga of Thiberville, the parish in Normandy where the modernist bishop decided to remove the parish priest as a part of his terra cremata “pastoral” methods.
This bit is positively harrowing:
Watch a woman parishioner tugging at the bishop’s yucky rainbow chasuble (a calculated insult to the conservative worshippers) and asking what he thought he was doing wearing it. But the real highlight is the little altar server, who had earlier walked off the sanctuary, going back and telling Bishop Nourrichard that he’ll never be a server for him again.
A small boy is not filled with hatred or ideology. Children are particularly sensitive to injustice and hypocrisy. I don’t think that bishop should be sleeping soundly at night! That is unless he is a psychopath (people without conscience or empathy for other people, usually criminals).
Could the Bishop have a legitimate reason? After all, isn’t a bishop responsible for organising his diocese as efficiently as possible to cope with the shortage of priests? He says that one priest for 5,000 faithful, whilst other bigger parishes have no priest, is a luxury the diocese cannot afford. If that was a true and sincere reason, the Bishop would have given him more parishes and more faithful. It turns out that Bishop Nourrichard intended to appoint Fr Michel as a chaplain of an old folks’ home, so he would be a priest for 50 to 100 faithful. This appointment could be in conjunction with the idea of sending Fr Michel to be assistant priest at the parish of Vernon, where the parish priest is on record as saying that Fr Michel “should never have been ordained” on account of his non-conformity with the ideology. With my experience of French Catholicism, I could only conclude that the move was probably intended to destroy Fr Michel’s vocation, break his personality and compel him to leave the priesthood. The only meaning for the Bishop’s decision is therefore ideological.
See the report on French television.
Again, this is a good reason why our Personal Ordinariates will not be in the hands of the diocesan bishops. And don’t think the modernists are going to “die off” any time soon. Born in 1948, Bishop Nourrichard is a baby-boomer spring chicken of 62. The “biological solution” will not do – the Church needs a counter-reform.
The future Ordinariates, along with a solution for the Society of St Puis X (see Deborah Gyapong’s article of a few days ago), are the first step in that direction. With an alternative in place, it might then be possible for the Pope and those Catholic Bishops loyal to him to demolish the power of the liberal tyranny.
Fr Michel is still in his parish. Bishop Nourrichard desperately seeks a way out, only to say in a cynical fashion “It’s the Pope’s problem. He put me here. I didn’t ask to be Bishop here”. Ooh! Gag me (says I pointing a finger towards my open mouth)!
The Bishop of Evreux has backed off!
Jan 10th
I am informed by the Forum Catholique article that Bishop Nourrichard has backed off, after having seen the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Luigi Ventura, recently appointed to France by the Pope. This Nuncio was previously in Canada, and this much-loved prelate was known to our Canadian TAC Bishops, as Bishop Peter Wilkinson has told me.
The new priestly team appointed by Bishop Nourrichard will not minister in Thiberville and the 12 other churches of the parish group, and Fr. Michel is to be allowed to continue his ministry.
Bishop Nourrichard spent the day last Thursday in Paris with the Nuncio. The scandal of Thiberville had taken on international dimensions.
Many priests in France in France and elsewhere have refused to be moved from their parishes. What is now happening is that Benedict XVI wants parishes and the stability of their priests to be respected by diocesan bishops.
The tide has turned. Deo gratias! And may this be an encouragement for us all.
Damian Thompson, Blogging and Episcopal Accountability
Jan 6th
I had the idea of contacting Damian Thompson via Facebook, and fed him with all the information I have on Bishop Nourrichard and what has happened in France. He would have then made his own investigation and found the press articles and video clips using the links I gave him and others. He then published this article on his blog.
Some have called this brilliant young English journalist a blood-crazed ferret. Others attribute the failure of Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds and expert parish-closer to get the See of Westminster to Mr. Thompson’s relentless blogging. Here is his Stop Roche campaign. It would seem that this journalist and his blog are highly influential, even with the Roman Curia. Since the Bishop Williamson affair, the Roman Curia has adapted to the new internet information culture and has learned about its importance. Write well, and they will take notice, for the better or the worse.
The blog (especially in the hands of a professional journalist of traditional Catholic sympathies) has been a great boom to flushing out the cult of secrecy and lack of accountability. When a Bishop decides to make changes in his diocese, his rights are not absolute. He must justify them and know that he will have to pay for wickedness and injustice, because there is nothing secret that will not be shouted from the rooftops.
Here is his article on Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St Pius X. Mr Thompson was also merciless with the Legionaries of Christ affair and the revolting corruption of its “saintly” founder the late Fr Marcial Maciel. Damian Thompson does remind me somewhat of some of the zealots in the early twentieth century who denounced suspect theologians to the Pope! He is taking the Christian commitment of his Confirmation seriously.
Blogging is a ministry of the word, a huge amount of power vested in individuals – with very few checks and controls. We have to blog responsibly and morally, being careful not to destroy the reputations of persons without either their deserving it or a greater common good coming out of it. It is a big responsibility, as much as ordinary parish ministry.
The acts of some of the sleazy prelates occupying Anglican and Catholic diocesan sees today can be “outed”, published in blogs worldwide for everyone to see. Sometimes in this way, justice is done by the hierarchical superiors of those bad bishops. A good blog can be an instrument of reform. Oscar Wilde once said of the journalists in his day, “In old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press”. Journalists can be cruel and unjust, or can begin movements of reform and correction of wrongs. There are also evil journalists or men and women motivated by ideology. This is human nature and it happens in every walk of life. Let us support good journalists!
The Anglo-Catholic has a role that is more educational than anything else. Sometimes, like Damian Thompson with his razor sharp wit and zeal, we have to denounce evil to bring out a greater good. That is the freedom the Internet gives us, and we ask God for the grace to use it well and responsibly.
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Damian Thompason’s article: The fight against Futurechurch: blogging
The Catholic bishops’ Magic Circle wants to close down this blog. In fact, it has a whole list of Catholic blogs it would like to suppress. Why? “Misleading information,” say the bishops. I don’t think so. It’s accurate information they don’t want to leak out.
A few nights ago I joined a group of Catholic bloggers in a pub in Victoria. They included the world-famous Fr Z from America, Fr Tim Finigan and Mac McLernon (”Mulier Fortis”). We felt like a group of East European dissidents swapping samizdat literature in the 1970s.
There are liberal Catholic bloggers out there, but it is persecuted traditionalists who have seized control of cyberspace in the English-speaking world, with disastrous results for the secretive Futurechurch project.
Every vindictive move against the traditional liturgy is reported. Every slip is exploited. And, worst of all, conservative Vatican rulings can no longer be concealed from the faithful. No wonder the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales discussed controlling blogs at its last meeting.
Let me give you an example of the sort of thing the liberal bishops hate. Yesterday, following a story on this blog, Mgr Robert Reardon of Cardiff was revealed as the “Monsignor X” being lined up as Bishop of Menevia despite having acted as witness at the wedding of an unlaicised priest years ago. Reardon’s unbelievable comment: “If someone can show me the church law I am supposed to have broken, I would be interested, but I’m not aware of it.”
Well, he is now. Dr Edward Peters, a Catholic canon lawyer who writes a blog called In the Light of the Law, immediately provided chapter and verse. The heading of his post: “Well, here’s what’s wrong with assisting at the invalid marriages of AWOL priests.”
Ooh, that was disrespectful! Magic Circlers such as “Bob” Reardon aren’t used to the sardonic tone of traditionalist bloggers. Why, I even hear rumours that Bishop Arthur Roche has taken offence at my references to his figure-skating past. (Don’t worry, Arthur - that black-and-white footage of you taking a tumble at the 1972 Blackpool Tower Holiday on Ice is safe with me!)
The case of +Arthur is an interesting one, I think you’ll agree. If it wasn’t for the internet, the public wouldn’t know about his shockingly high-handed closure of thriving churches in West Yorkshire. Nor would people in the diocese realise just how much money goes down t’drain at Hinsley Hall, the magnificent HQ of Arthur’s curia.
Follow the money: that’s good advice for traditionalist Catholic bloggers. There is so much to be learned about the Magic Circle mafia by, for example, exposing the links between dioceses and the publishing companies owned by the composers of dreary litrugical ditties.
But let’s move on to the wider issue of Pope Benedict’s programme of renewal for the Catholic Church. It is partly thanks to priest-bloggers such as Fathers Zuhlsdorf and Finigan that orthodox Catholics know the chapter and verse of Summorum Pontificum.
Just think: if it wasn’t for the blogosphere, the Bishops of England and Wales might be able to claim that they were implementing the Motu Proprio. But a quick review of the blogs reveals that they are dragging their heels in the most shameful way.
Some blogs are more serious than others. The New Liturgical Movement, for example, is positively magisterial in its coverage of conservative reform. This is where you find small items of news that liberal bishops’ conferences would rather not see get out, such as yesterday’s announcement that Pope Benedict has appointed enthusiasts for the Old Rite as his personal liturgical advisers, clearing away the last remnants of the Piero Marini regime admired by “Blubby” Mickens of the Tablet.
OK, I’ll shut up now. I think you get the picture. Traditionalist blog posts are like hand grenades thrown into the headquarters of Futurechurch. Magic Circlers, having grown up in the 1960s, tend to have a romantic view of guerilla wars of liberation. Let’s see how they cope with being on the receiving end of one…
The New Pastoral Vision
Jan 6th
The events of Thiberville have provoked me to a reflection about the pastoral ministry in the diocese and the parish. I find parishes and pastoral matters as fascinating as theology and liturgy. I think this issue is highly relevant in our present Anglican communities and the future Ordinariates we hope to become in the near future. I have touched upon the issue of Thiberville, which is not that of the traditionalist reaction, but rather a conflict between two ecclesiologies and pastoral visions. We are moving towards the communion of the Catholic Church and must be open-eyed about what this means, both at the level of the Universal Church and the local diocesan Churches.
We know that what is distinctly Catholic about the Church is the liturgical and sacramental life that owes everything to the Apostolic Priesthood. If there were no priesthood, there would be no Eucharist, and without the Eucharist, there is no community or communion. This Catholic notion of the Church is founded upon the presence of the incarnate Christ in the Church on earth.
Now, one big question to be asked is whether the Church must learn to adapt to a new way of living without priests or with so few priests that Mass becomes a very rare event in the life of a parish? The other main question is knowing why there are no new vocations. Most diocesan bishops put this down to the mutations of post-modern life and the lack of interest in Christian commitment. The reality is that the new pastoral vision is incompatible with the notion of the priestly vocation.
Ecclesiastical Sundries
Jan 6th
- The Tablet reports that the Holy Father will visit the UK in September. The Pope will arrive in England on 16 September and travel to Scotland on 19 September (spending only nine hours there and likely meeting the Queen) before returning to Rome. The Beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman will take place at Coventry Airport.
- The bishops of England and Wales make their ad limina visits to Rome later this month. There have already been several attempts (subtle and otherwise) on the part of persons connected with the Bishops’ Conference to undermine Anglicanorum Coetibus to which the CDF has swiftly responded. The English bishops should expect that the intent of the Holy Father in the recent Apostolic Constitution will be reiterated in no uncertain terms.
- Bishop Christian Nourrichard, the Bishop of Evreux in Normandy, France, was admitted as a Sarum Canon at Salisbury Cathedral. This happened back in October, but as Fr. Chadwick has been following the lamentable story of this arrogant bishop’s attempt to remove a faithful parish priest in Thiberville, I thought I’d share the tidbit. The Bishop of Salisbury said after the installment service, “I am keen that we learn from Evreux’s imaginative solutions to the problem of having only a quarter as many clergy as we do to minister to an area the same size. In particular, their use of lay people in positions of responsibility and leadership is a pattern I would like us to explore.” I wonder how many other faithful priests have been forced out so that Bishop Nourrichard’s “pattern” could emerge?
- The Shroud of Turin will be on exhibition from 10 April to 23 May 2010. The Archdiocese of Turin has an online reservation system here. Admission to the Cathedral is open without a reservation but the Holy Shroud may only be viewed from a distance without a (free) reservation.
News from Thiberville
Jan 3rd
Father Michel in his parish church at Thiberville
Only the French and Bishop Moyer in Pennsylvania!!!
See http://www.leforumcatholique.org/message.php?num=525069 and the thread if you read French.
Everyone has been watching this fervent parish in Normandy where the parish priest is far from being extreme. He is simply a Catholic loyal to the Pope. The whole parish community of brave country folk came to protest its anger against the planned euthanasia of a vibrant parish by one of the most “progressive” and anti-clerical bishops in France, Bishop Nourrichard of Evreux.
The bishop arrived at Thiberville this morning with Fr. Vivien, his Vicar General and parish priest of Bernay, to announce the removal of a priest he judged to be too Catholic for his taste. The church was packed. The local Mayor and his council were there in the front pew.
The Bishop began his Mass, which was an improvised mess. Parents took away their children who were serving Mass and the local authorities got up and left the church. All that remained of the hundreds of persons was a small group of 21 and only 3 from the parish of Thiberville. The Bishop was confronted with the anger of the simple country people he despises. They don’t understand the Council – he said. The people suggested that His Lordship would do well to revise his catechism!
Fr. Michel announced that he would celebrate Mass at Bournainville-Favrolles, one of his other parish churches. The crowd of people followed, and the church wasn’t big enough for everyone. It was a reform of the reform (ordinary form) Mass, facing God. The Bishop was in a rage, but was prevented from approaching the sanctuary of the church. During this time, Fr. Michel announced that he remained the parish priest, something a Roman decision would certainly confirm as soon as an appeal is made against the Bishop’s decree. In canon law, a sentence becomes effective only after the definitive judgement.
Everything happened before the French television and local journalists. There were also Parisian journalists one would not call traditionalists, yet they were amazed by the Bishop’s complete mismanagement of the situation he had provoked, and that he should logically resign his See.
Let us continue to support this brave priest in our prayers, and I will try to contact him shortly to tell him about our own combat.
* * *
Sunday evening update:
There is another side, however, to this story. Fr. Michel has been pastor of this parish for more than 20 years, and the policy in French dioceses is to move priests every five or six years, to prevent people from becoming attached to their priest. The stability of the parish priest is a thing of the past, and people have to get used to dealing with an administrator, a bureaucrat, rather than a spiritual father.
I have known priests who have been in their parishes for thirty or forty years. This makes the difference between a “hireling” and a pastor. Never have bishops and priests been less pastoral than over the past forty years! A petition to support Fr. Michel has collected 4,000 signatures.
It is unfortunate that there has been open conflict between Fr. Michel and his Bishop. He might win an appeal to the Apostolic Nuncio here in France, a conservative and a Ratzinguerian, or directly to the Roman Curia. If such a thing had occurred before 2005, the diocesan Bishop would win every time however unjust and anti-pastoral he was – and resistance has been the only way, as I have seen in other parishes. Perhaps under Benedict XVI, episcopal tyranny in the dioceses will have its limitations. A bishop’s authority is limited by the purpose of his episcopal charge. If authority is used for anti-Christian purposes and for maintaining the ideology of the “hermeneutic of rupture”, then that authority can be resisted and disobeyed.
It is a difficult one. The disobedience of a priest to his Bishop is a serious matter. So is the fact of an anti-Catholic bishop! This crisis in western Catholicism is going to continue until either something is done about the method for vetting and selecting candidates for the Episcopate, or until the old diocesan and parochial structures are dead and the mission must begin anew. This episode goes to show that many people have ceased to attend church because of the dictature of relativism and that clergy which would prefer to die than return to classical Catholicism and loyalty to Rome.
The battle of Thiberville is not won, but people are being woken to the reality!
* * *
Update of January 4th: – A French layman, a friend of mine, says on the Forum Catholique a day later:
The Bishop has manifestly lost two battles:
On the terrain he has shown to his whole diocese that he had lost the love of his flock, rich and poor alike, that he is not welcome.
Not one moment did the Bishop say that he should reconsider his position, that he without doubt badly communicated with his faithful. No, the faithful stalled. The new pastor confirms on the TV that it will be difficult to make the faithful understand: they are stupid. Both [Bishop and Vicar General] did the worst thing in terms of winning trust in the parish.
In the media: the reports do not take the side of the Bishop, who normally represents order and stability, and who seems to be in his rights. No, they remain neutral and say that the people and the secular authorities are against him [the Bishop]. On the internet, had it not been for his status as Successor of the Apostles, he would have been lynched by a number of Catholics. Curiously, searches on Google show that nobody shows him any support. The Episcopal Conference remains discreet and not even any progressive group flies to his rescue. However, a Bishop who gets booed and whistled at in church, refused a single step further forward – is extremely serious and unusual, above all when shown on television.
The churches of the pastor of Thiberville seem to be fairly full. The parish priest is well accepted and has the support of the Mayor. We suppose that the situation is viable financially. As one cannot call on the Police without the consent of the Mayor, one cannot imagine why things should change, even if the Bishop attempts a canonical and civil lawsuit. We enter into a situation of long duration like at Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet or Port-Marly[1]. The example of Niaffles can also show us how force is effective to fight against an Episcopate that reminds me of the Communist Party: long-winded ideology without purpose and gallons of black ink.
Indeed, the events of 20 years ago behind the Iron Curtain are reproduced in the Church! The Old Guard will crumble, and there will be freedom of conscience to worship God. If things were functioning normally in the diocese, the Bishop’s position would be legitimate, with the parish priest’s commensurate duty to obey. As things stand, if this priest is removed, the parish will be dead within less than one month.
I hardly see how Rome can ignore this one!
[1] A church in central Paris occupied by traditionalists in 1977 and the other, near Versailles, occupied in 1987.
A Harrowing Story from Catholic Normandy
Jan 2nd
I relate the following story from the French Forum Catholique not in a spirit of any revolt against the Catholic Church, but to illustrate the combat that lies ahead for the Holy Father and orthodox Catholics. We as Catholic Anglicans will shortly be called to the front lines of this battle in the respective countries where we live and minister. Our future Ordinariates will be directly under the jurisdiction of the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and attempts by ideologically-motivated diocesan bishops to snuff out the Apostolic Constitution, in the same way as they do with Summorum Pontificum for the traditional Latin liturgy, have been smacked down.
Note, the Diocese of Evreux is a suffragan of the Province of Rouen (I live in the Archdiocese of Rouen), and the famous Fr. Montgomery-Wright was in that diocese.
Write your reactions and comments, and I will post them on the Forum Catholique to support this fine priest on behalf of us traditional Anglicans. Many French traditional (loyal to Rome) Catholic priests have expressed their support to the TAC on Rome’s doorstep, and are ready to welcome us and give us whatever help they can.
Communiqué: At Thiberville, the Bishop of Evreux wants to suffocate the Motu Proprio
The Diocese of Evreux is one of the most damaged in France. After Bishop Gaillot and Bishop David, Bishop Nourrichard is presiding over the bankruptcy of a formerly Christian land, where the churches close one after the other, catechism classes no longer attended, vocations discouraged, finances dried up.
In this desert, a priest, Fr. Francis Michel, is in charge of the most vibrant parish, Thiberville. It happens that this parish priest, who is not a product of the traditionalist world, but who is deeply traditionally-minded, a Catholic, anticipated the application of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI, many long years ago. Masses are celebrated in his church is the form now called “extraordinary”, and other Masses in the “ordinary form”, but in a way that complies with the wishes of Benedict XVI and “turned” towards the Lord. The result? Thiberville and the 14 other villages Fr. Michel serves form the most vibrant and missionary Catholic ministry – the only one still alive – of the Diocese of Evreux: the church at Thiberville is full at all Masses, and the other churches are served in turn, catechism classes, active participation of the faithful, loads of altar boys, confraternities, all the churches magnificently restored, funerals celebrated by the parish priest himself, etc. These parishes where the communion of all Catholics is lived wonderfully well is a model of application of the Pope’s wishes.
Beyond all the other reasons advanced, this is why the Bishop wants to abolish worship at Thiberville. The ideology of the “spirit of the Council”, 40 years late, has to be applied. After many episodes, Bishop Nourrichard is going to try to bury this ministry: next Sunday, 3rd January, he will go to Thiberville with his advisors and, during the 10 am Mass, he will announce with “pain” his decision without appeal: the parish of Thiberville will no longer have its own priest, who is “removed”, and the parish will be joined to a “pastoral sector”, that of Bernay. The death of parochial Catholicism rather than questioning the ideology.
At Thiberville and in the surrounding areas, everybody is worried. First of all, they really like Fr. Michel and then because the Bishop isn’t going to replace him. All the local authorities of the region and all the parishioners will be present to express their support to this highly popular priest, who might have badly expressed himself at times, but whose main fault, for his Bishop, is to be too “Papalist”.
Sunday 3rd January, the Catholic protest of God’s people will be calm to ask for the Pope’s wishes to be applied at Thiberville.
The support committee for Fr. Michel
