Religious orders in France bolster fight against sex abuse

Some 200 heads of Catholic religious orders in France have gathered for a three-day meeting in Paris to strengthen their collective efforts to fight Church-related sex abuse. The April 11-13 meeting, which is sponsored by the Conference of Men and Women Religious of France (CORREF), comes one month after the country’s bishops set up their own stricter protocols for dealing with the issue.

The religious superiors are reviewing the results of five working groups that were set to look at different aspects of the abuse crisis following the devastating report that France’s Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE) issued in October 2021.

Sister Bénédicte Rivoire, prioress general of the Little Sisters of the Sacred Heart, was part of a working group that took Jesus’ words, “you will know them by their fruits”, as the starting point for reflections on spiritual manipulation. She spoke with La Croix’s Christophe Henning about what the group came up with.

La Croix: You participated in a CORREF working group that focused on the reference to bearing good fruit, found in the Gospel of Matthew's . What did your discussions reveal?

Bénédicte Rivoire: We indeed worked from this biblical quotation, which must be put into context. Jesus intervenes to denounce false prophets: "Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep, while inside they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Will they pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? So every good tree bears good fruit, and the rotten tree bears bad fruit" (Mt 7, 15-18).

We have seen how much this parable has been distorted from its meaning, used to justify deviant people or actions, while Jesus spoke to denounce the false prophets. That’s why this passage from Matthew really needs to be read from the perspective of the victims, without distorting it or misusing it, which is unfortunately done sometimes with Scripture.

Is this bad fruit the sexual abuse and assault that has been committed for so many years?

Sexual assaults are crimes, so perhaps it is better not to be metaphorical when talking about them, because this risks diminishing the seriousness of what the victims may have experienced. On the other hand, emphasizing that there are also "good fruits" in communities where these crimes took place… is unbearable for the victims to hear.

It is another way of making their voices disappear, they whose lives have been obstructed, abused for so many years, in favor of appearances, notoriety, glory, the beautiful exterior, the pseudo "good fruits". This is what happened in silence for a long time and is no longer acceptable today.

Our communities, our congregations are invited to look closely at our own functioning and our own texts to see what could have and may still lead to situations of undue influence and deviation. It is one of the challenges of CORREF's plenary assembly this week to choose together to go further, starting from the recommendations that came from the various  working groups set up after the CIASE report.

What would be the definition of good fruit?

This is where there is a trap: we have too often considered that a congregation or a foundation was bearing "good fruits" because there were many vocations, because the works seemed to be flourishing. The CIASE report showed that there could be a lack of control when everything seemed to be successful, especially for the founder.

What would "bearing good fruit" mean then?

In our working group's report, there is a whole biblical development around this theme that is difficult to summarize in a few words, especially since it is a theme that runs throughout the Scriptures. But to give some insight, remember that it is the first word God addresses to the man in Genesis: "Be fruitful." 

It also becomes clear that "to be fruitful" is not "to multiply". In the Gospel, the first name that Jesus receives comes from Elizabeth, who is greeting Mary. Jesus is then the "fruit of her womb". He will be this until the end of his life when he will be the fruit hanging on the tree of the cross. 

We are invited to participate in this work of fructification, that is to say, to allow ourselves to be configured to Christ who is the fruit par excellence. To put it another way, may our lives truly have the taste of the Gospel, may they simply be more and more human and allow others to become so with us.

Isn't bearing fruit a serious challenge for religious life, which we know is suffering a decline in numbers?

Perhaps there are other criteria besides numbers, which we always come up against. Fruitfulness is of another order... that of the grain of wheat... which cannot bear fruit without first dying. 

No congregation was founded to be eternal. The prospect of a community's disappearance, of the eventual death of an institute, does not prevent a fruitfulness which, in any case, does not belong to us. On the other hand, the way of living this passage belongs to us and we surely have something to share there.

Life and death are part of our common humanity, whether we are believers or not, whether it be for people or for works in a broader sense. Trying to live to the end according to the Gospel is perhaps where the fruits can be given for others. 

There is an important issue here, which is that of allowing institutes to live their vocation fully to the end, even in the midst of decline, so as to be able to keep this fragrance of the Gospel, and to continue to be happy in following Christ in this particular form of life that is religious life.