Four Synods and clericalism remains intact

I cannot say that I was disappointed by the Synod’s Final Document on Synodality, because disappointment is only possible when there are expectations. But I feel deeply sorry for so many men and women (especially women) who had said to themselves, “This time yes, the Synod will succeed! May God be blessed!” Yes, may Life, […]

Facing the horror of Gaza, one year later

There are no words to express it, only astonishment and questions: how have we all arrived, each one on his own path of misdirection, at this madness that plunges two brotherly peoples into this escalation of hatred and revenge, of despair and death? How have Israel and Palestine become a tragic parable of the misfortune […]

Should we be erasing Abbé Pierre’s name for good?

The erasing has begun: the Fondation Abbé Pierre has decided to change its name. Emmaüs has closed the memorial dedicated to him in Esteville, near Rouen, and is going to change its logo. But beyond that, a vast name change movement has been launched across the country. Is it necessary? Is anything else possible? Abbé […]

The Synod at a dead end

I did not expect that this fourth Synod of Pope Francis’ pontificate, like the first three, would take a decisive step towards the urgent and absolutely necessary institutional reform of the Roman Catholic Church. Considering what we have seen so far, I could not think that he could carry out the indispensable condition of such […]

Excommunicating the Poor Clares in 2024?

I find the story of the convent of the Poor Clare Sisters of Belorado over the last few months both ludicrous and distressing. Whichever way you look at it, it is distressing for the Poor Clare Sisters. Ludicrous, as far as all the other players are concerned. The figure of the “schismatic” bishop accompanied by […]

In grateful memory of Jürgen Moltmann (1926-2024)

I would like to pay a humble tribute of gratitude to Jürgen Moltmann, who passed away on 3 June. He is among the theologians who have encouraged my personal journey and reflection since the late 1980s. I honour his theology, which was guided by the world’s wounds, dangers and dramas, and entirely by his commitment […]

The radiant Faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (& IV)

Rose-Marie Barandiaran: Our job as human beings, according to Bonhoeffer, “is not a religious problem: it is to live the joys and sufferings following the steps of Jesus. To interiorize, to question our moral conscience, to flee from individualism and the self-satisfaction offered by pious works and the search for salvation”. “Faith is our work […]

The Radiant Faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (III)

Rose-Marie Barandiaran: is it not thanks to the “withdrawal of God” that man allows himself to be reached by him? Why, then, do we invoke him in our crises? Why do we separate the worldly from the sacred? Jesus was not a priest. He was simply human. If we take God’s sufferings seriously, if we […]

The Radiant Faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (I)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 in Breslau, Germany (today Wroclaw, Poland). He became a Lutheran pastor and opposed the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. Suspected of involvement in the assassination attempt on Hitler, he was imprisoned in Berlin in 1943 but maintained contacts with the outside world. He was subsequently transferred […]

Believers who rethink their faith

We are living in a time of profound planetary civilizational transformation, the most profound and accelerated of the human species Sapiens since its origins 300,000 years ago. We have never been so powerful, yet we have never felt so insecure and vulnerable. It is a time of integral crisis which places us before the great […]