Paris (AFP)

Religious columnist Henri Tincq, who worked first at La Croix and then at Le Monde from 1985 to 2008, died of coronavirus at the age of 74, announced La Croix on Monday.

Henri Tincq died on Sunday at the Villeneuve-Saint-Georges hospital (Val-de-Marne). Retired since 2008, he was still "religious contributor" for the Slate site and also worked for "Le Monde des religions".

This attentive observer of the Vatican for almost half a century advocated a so-called progressive Catholic line, contrary to traditionalism, saying he was attached to dialogue with the Protestants.

In his latest book "Vatican, the end of the world" (2019), he pointed out that, from the end of the pontificate of John Paul II, the first scandals of sexual abuse in the church had started to weaken the Church.

He hoped, he wrote, that the Church would end "with Roman absolutism, clerical and patriarchal", with "hypocrisy on sex, celibacy, chastity", with "the disciplinary and doctrinaire vision" of his role.

The president of the Association of Journalists of Religious Information, Geneviève Delrue, paid tribute to her, describing in a press release "the committed journalist, the tireless worker, the wrestler in adversity, particularly in the face of this kidney disease with which he had to compose, all his professional life during. "

"Christian but especially journalist, his critical and informed look on the religious in general and Catholicism in particular will be missed", underlined on Twitter the editor of Slate, Christophe Carron.

Henri Tincq was born on November 2, 1945 in Fouquières-lès-Lens (Pas-de-Calais) to a carpenter father and a teacher mother.

A graduate of the Lille School of Journalism and Sciences-po, he joined La Croix in 1972 (where, among other functions, he was head of the political service).

He entered Le Monde in 1985. Responsible for religious information, he was for a time the head of the Society's daily newspaper service.

Henri Tincq was the author of numerous works including a large biography of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, a history of the popes, essays such as "La grande fear des catholiques de France", "Vivre l'islam", "Une France sans gieu "," Catholicism, the return of fundamentalists "or" The media and the church ".

Passionate about classical music, he was a widower, remarried, and father of three children.

© 2020 AFP