Xavier was recruited into a community with sectarian tendencies: “If I continued, I was going to commit suicide”

2024-04-02T03:12:34.152Z

Highlights: Xavier was recruited into a community with sectarian tendencies: “If I continued, I was going to commit suicide” Olivier Delacroix goes to meet Xavier in Fresne-sur-Marne in the Paris region. Xavier talks about his story and his courage to resume a life outside the community. He agreed to tell his story in this episode of the podcast “Dans les yeux d’Olivier” produced by Europe 1 Studio. In this episode, Xavier shares his testimony and helps people who are also manipulated, to testify.

Olivier Delacroix goes to meet Xavier in Fresne-sur-Marne in the Paris region. When he was still very young, this forty-year-old, now a father, was recruited by a community with sectarian tendencies. He agreed to tell his story in this episode of the podcast “Dans les yeux d'Olivier” produced by Europe 1 Studio. When he was a teenager, Xavier felt very bad about himself. One day when he enters a church, the young man has a revelation: he wants to become a priest. Still fragile and in search of his faith, a few days later he met a “vocational recruiter” from the Legion of Christ, a religious community with sectarian tendencies. Xavier is then invited to Rome by the legionnaires in order to discover the community. The ceremony to welcome him is grandiose. The founder then announces his mission: he must save the Church in France. Xavier then discovers a very strict daily life. The days are very long and the legionnaires have a series of conferences, prayers, sports training, examinations of conscience... A military discipline intended to forge an elite. Here, even the way you eat or walk is controlled. Xavier feels more and more dehumanized, loses all his freedoms and finds himself completely cut off from the outside world. In six years, however, the young man became a perfect legionnaire. Thus, he is in turn destined to have to recruit new people. The practices used are, for Xavier, a first trigger. When he realizes that he must also influence children, Xavier refuses to play this role and decides to leave the community. When the founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado, died, his lies and scams broke out in the press, along with accusations of rape. Today, Xavier decided to create a blog to share his testimony and help people, who are also manipulated, to testify. In this episode of the podcast “Dans les yeux d'Olivier” produced by Europe 1 Studio, Xavier talks about his story and his courage to resume a life outside the community.