François de Foucauld died on June 30, in the Rambouillet forest (Yvelines). He was in conflict with his hierarchy.
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What do we know about the last hours of the life of François de Foucauld, a 49-year-old priest of the diocese of Versaille who killed himself in the during, in the forest of Rambouillet (Yvelines), and whose Corps was found by the gendarmerie, on the night of Thursday June 30 to Friday 1 er July? A lunch with friends on Sunday preceding, a text to a colleague on Monday. Little things, in short, to help decipher your act. However, since Luc Crépy, his current bishop, announced by a press release that the ecclesiastics had “ended his life”, his suicide causes a storm in Catholics far beyond his diocese, some of them Seeing a revealer of dysfunctions in the governance of their Church.
Entitled Saint-Michel Saint-François, a page Facebook , opened Tuesday, July 5, by a friend of the priest, Nicolas Jourdier, attracted more than 350 members in twenty-four hours. His words: “Together for the light to be made, so that our children are proud of the Church, so that the priesthood of our thousands of priests are not sali by a handful of dishonest.” Three days earlier, on his page Personal, Mr. Jourdier had published a text that challenged the attitude of his diocesan hierarchy in the gesture of his friend.
“François was the victim of an abuse of power and a constraint in silence,” he wrote, accusing the bishop, Luc Crépy, who took office in February 2021, by replacing the bishop of Eric Aumônier. He recalled that, in December 2021, the newspaper La Croix had published a Tribune of the priest calling for a” debate on abuses of power in the Church “. “It is too often a small circle of clerics and lay people around the bishop that assumes the last word,” he said. The bishop does not wish to express themselves on this case before the funeral, which was to take place on Friday, in Vésinet (Yvelines).
“complaints and handrails”
A dispute opposed François de Foucauld to his diocesan hierarchy for almost three years. He had taken root in the complaints that parishioners dissatisfied with him had addressed to the bishopric. This priest, “immense emotional endowed with pastoral creativity”, according to a loved one, had been assigned, in 2014, to the parish of Bois-d’Arcy. It was his first parish priest. “He had a lot of ambition, he wanted to be the one who breathes,” recalls Priscilla Pinchaux, the manager of the catechesis of the parish at that time, who thinks to be “the last person to have seen” when he has lunch at home, “like almost every Sunday”. She and her family quickly befriend this dynamic priest, who “loves life, the table, the meetings” and is not afraid to “upset the teams” to implement ambitious projects.
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