France: A Priest ordered to apologize for remarks judged "intolerable"
A priest who had refused to render homage to the victims of the Bataclan attack last November 13 in Paris, has been ordered by his bishop to offer an apology. In a sermon given on November 29, 2015, Fr. François Schneider, from Wisembach in the Vosges, "hailed the memory of those killed on the terraces of the Parisian cafes," says L'Est républicain. "The assembly expected him to do as much for the 90 victims of the Bataclan. But he did not. Instead, Fr. Schneider pronounced words that disconcerted not a few, saying the concert was 'inspired by Satan'." The regional newspaper related on December 15, 2015, that "a certain consternation then overtook the faithful present. And by way of protest, some did not receive communion."
The priest was then denounced to the bishop of Saint-Dié, Bishop Jean-Paul Mathieu, by several parishioners. One of them declared in L'Est républicain that "the ultra-conservative positions" of this priest (...) "bother him". Again according to the local press, Fr. Schneider supposedly voiced "limited" views "on several occasions". Which did not fail to scandalize vicar general Pierre-Antoine Duménil: "We do not tolerate these amalgams and these positions. We refuse and condemn them. They are inconceivable, intolerable judgments, completely out of place with regards to the victims and their families. Fr. Schneider made an amalgam of the religious with the cultural."
The priest finally apologized on Sunday, December 20, after the 10:00 mass. His words were, he said, "out of place and indecent." Satisfied by this public mea culpa the vicar general declared on the same day to the AFP that a neighboring priest, "very active in the 'heavy metal music' domain", would soon visit the parish "to try to reflect and help [us] have elements for understanding this contemporary culture that can throw us off."
This case reminds us of Fr. Hervé Benoît, a priest from the diocese of Lyon who made a parallel between the terrorists and their victims in a platform published in November on the website Riposte catholique (see DICI no.326, Dec. 4, 2015). He was immediately asked to retire to a monastery for a long stay. A similar situation, that prompted the Riposte catholique to write that if these priests had "taught from the pulpit that the Blessed Virgin is not a virgin or that communion is open to everyone without confession, they would not have undergone the same punishment."
(Sources: apic/estrepublicain/afp/ripostecatholique – DICI no.328 dated Jan. 15, 2016)
