Marie-Anne Vitry will remember the “symbolic dimension” of this moment. On April 11, she was sent on a mission as episcopal delegate for diocesan coordination on the occasion of the Chrism Mass, during which the priests renew their commitment. It was in the choir of the church of Notre-Dame de Bressuire (Deux-Sèvres) that this 43-year-old laywoman, married, lived her sending, who thus took on “an important liturgical aspect to fight against the invisibility of women in the Catholic Church”. Here it is now associated with the government of the diocese of Poitiers, under the authority of the archbishop, Mgr Pascal Wintzer.
General delegate, co-moderator of the Curia, diocesan delegate… Under various titles, appointments to the 1is next September confirm a movement of arrival of lay women in diocesan positions of responsibility, from Nantes to Rouen and Sens-Auxerre, which find an echo with the synodal process in progress. Often full-time employees, they will belong to the first circle around the bishop, within what is called “episcopal team” or “episcopal office” – a sort of informal executive of the diocese, when the episcopal council is only an advisory body. Informal only, because legally the bishop remains sole master on board.
“No reserved area”
Unsurprisingly, the Mission of France, which called lay people to responsibilities from the mid-1980s, is a pioneer. Following a consultation carried out within this heir community of worker-priests, Anne Soncarrieu was appointed general delegate, a position she has fully assumed since September 2019.
Anne Soncarrieu, general delegate within the Mission of France. / Mission of France
“With the vicar general and the bishop, who do not have a reserved area, we work together in decision-making”, explains this retired from public education, single without children, aged 65. However, she does not « not consider as a female vicar general. I see it in the relationship with priests: the Vicar General has a completely different bond of brotherhood with them.. »
Prelate of the Mission of France, Mgr Hervé Giraud was so convinced by the experience that he decided to repeat it, starting in September, in the diocese of Sens-Auxerre, of which he is the archbishop. Again, it is a woman who will occupy this office, a charge that the bishop can constitute, under the terms of canon 145 of the code of canon law. But it might as well have been a man. « For me, the question is to start from the skills, charisms and gifts of all the baptized and confirmed faithful. We must situate ourselves in our ecclesiology, it is not a question of discriminating on the grounds of gender,” warns Bishop Giraud. Its “diocesan delegate” will be responsible for “identify all the missionary initiatives in the parishes” but also ” talents ” of this territory.
“Opening our eyes to reality”
In Poitiers, Marie-Anne Vitry does not occupy an office but a “recognized ministry”, in accordance with local customs. “Bishop Wintzer insisted on the pastoral and not the administrative dimension of the mission. The idea is not to be a super-secretary,” she comments. Associated with two vicars general who are also parish priests, she is not there to relieve them of their tasks but to coordinate the activity of the various councils of the diocese, to make the link between the archdiocese and the parishes…
Marie-Anne Vitry. / Diocese of Poitiers
“I discover that there is an expectation, on the ground, of a lay woman who can come and listen to people, explains the episcopal delegate. I’m like them, they talk to me easily. » So the delegate can ” open the eyes “ clerks on “the facts”. And to cite the example of the lack of success of weekday evening meetings with parents of young children, a fact for which this mother had no trouble finding an explanation that was not came spontaneously to the minds of certain priests…
At Le Mans, Isabelle Sureau also believes that she can tie “a way of relating to people that priests do not necessarily have”. Assistant to the moderator of the Curia, in other words to the vicar general, she sits on the episcopal office. The bishop, Mgr Yves Le Saux, “said jokingly that I am his left arm, the vicar general being his right armsmiles this mother and grandmother of 54 years. The three of us see each other at least half a day a week. »
By leading meetings of diocesan services, by organizing the pastoral visits of the bishop, she did not feel any particular difficulties linked to her condition as a lay woman. “No doubt that the less convinced do not come to me naturally…”, she observes. Marie-Anne Vitry, she says advance “gradually, with great tact” in her action, as she knows that some of her interlocutors “are not ready to (the) see them arrive at their home”. And this clericalism that leads to inertia is not a matter of clerics, she hastens to clarify. « In extremely classical circles, the faithful think that the laity are only there to help the priests. »
“The episcopate is divided”
On the side of the bishops, these new offices or ministries attest to a “desire to surround oneself with lay people, men and women, and not only for technical skills of the stewardship type”, welcomes the Poitevin delegate. But the approach “is not yet formalized”, elle “depends on the initiative of this or that bishop” – and for good reason, “the episcopate is divided”. And it raises the crucial question of training. However, maintains this doctoral student in theology, the experience of episcopal councils has been able to show that women called “are not trained enough, which can put them in difficulty” compared to the other members – clerics – of these bodies.
Unlike the Swiss dioceses that have called on diocesan delegates, France suffers from a training deficit, confirms the theologian Arnaud Join-Lambert. “We have a lot of trained lay people here, but often to intervene in pastoral matters, not necessarily in governance or discernment”, notes this professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). Who also wonders about the separation of the powers of government and order, in resonance with the new constitution organizing the Roman Curia, Proclaim the gospel. “What is the use of being ordained? To celebrate the sacraments? This raises a question: rather than ordaining women, we dissociate something that was quite constitutive in the Church”, points out the specialist in practical theology.
The women holders of these new offices welcome the initiative of their bishop. Isabelle Sureau, who was not ” pending “ nor wore “claims”is convinced that these offices “are progress for the Church of France”. “A Church that dares to move forward”, abounds Françoise Coquereau, 55, soon to be general delegate of the diocese of Nantes.
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Lay people called to the highest diocesan responsibilities
At the Mission de France, and now in Le Mans, Nantes, Poitiers and even Sens-Auxerre, bishops have called on women to participate in their management teamto the post of “general delegate” (or with a similar title) of their diocese.
These missions, generally full-time employees, take the legal form of an “instituted ministry” or more often of an “office”, which a bishop can constitute “stably” (can. 145 of the code of canon law).
Still modest, these developments resonate with the expectations expressed within the framework of the synodal approach and with the new constitution organizing the Roman Curia., Proclaim the gospelwhich refuses the automaticity of the link between authority and ordination.
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