Le Monde: The French Church is taking a step toward recognizing the children of priests

The French Catholic newspaper Le Monde said the Catholic Church in France, after centuries of denial, took a shy but unprecedented step towards recognizing the children of priests by receiving a church official for three of them for the first time at their request.

The meeting, which was held in secret on February 4 in Paris at the headquarters of the French Bishops' Conference, brought together all the bishops and cardinals in the country and the children of the French association "Children of Silence", which includes some 50 children of the church.

The Secretary-General of the Conference of the French Bishops Olivier Ribado Dumas listened for an hour and a half to the testimony of children on this topic "forbidden" and said it was a "friendly and constructive" after hearing the "suffering" of these men and women who are the fruit of sin, Rejected and raised in disgrace and under secrecy.

Listen after denial
"It was a very moving moment, and for the first time we felt that the church had opened the door to us, and that there was no longer a denial, but rather a listening to us," said Ann Marie Garzac, 67, the daughter of a nun and a priest. And awareness of what we have lived. "

Garzac expressed her happiness at this moment and said she was happy for all the children of the priests who were struggling to learn about their parents but were silently facing the church.

Confidential document
When the Vatican admitted in February that a secret document had never been published, it set out the guidelines to be applied to the so-called "enfants des ordonnés."

According to the newspaper, "this document is confidential, technical and internal, especially the administration of the Vatican, which oversees about 400 thousand priests around the world."

When asked exactly what this document contains, she was referred to Cardinal Benjamino Stella's interview with the Vatican News, where he said the main criterion was "the interests of the child." The rule was to allow the priest to abandon the priesthood "as soon as possible" He can work with the mother to raise their children.

The Irishman Vincent Doyle, a psychiatrist and son of a priest who heads a global network of children of priests, is one of the few who read this document. He said that "it does not imply or imply anywhere that the priest should leave the priesthood after having a child" Explaining that what Cardinal Stella said was "a lie."

A fragile dialogue
The Catholic Church, which has suffered an unprecedented crisis due to widespread sexual abuse of children and rape of nuns, has ended up confronting these scandals, but remains hesitant about the children of priests who have begun dialogue with religious authorities but are still fragile.

Garzac said that these children are seen as a threat, because recognition of their existence is contrary to the principle of celibacy applied by the Roman Catholic Church alone since the Middle Ages to prevent the dispersion of the property of the clergy through inheritance.

The Church has done all it can to conceal the presence of thousands of men and women whose very existence exposes the imbalance suffered by the principle of celibacy, the newspaper said, noting that it has used three methods, including the removal of priests away from their children, confidentiality agreements and forced abandonment.