Priest‐Workers in France: The Debate Continues

Extract

The climax of the affair of the worker-priests in France came on January 19, 1954, when the Bishops sent to each of their worker-priests a circular letter communicating to them the decisions of the Hierarchy. The crucial sentences were the following: ‘You must, on receipt of this letter, and at the latest before March 1, withdraw from your present firm. . . . We ask you ... to resign from all temporal responsibilities to which the trust of your comrades may have called you. By the same token, you will be good enough, as from now, not to renew your membership of the trade union you belong to. . . . The sacrifice we ask of you will, in all truth, prove to be a spiritual liberation. It will at the same time be a source of graces for the labouring masses on whose behalf you offer it. We dare not even consider what would happen if you were to refuse to submit.’ In the event slightly less than half of the ninety priests so addressed did refuse to submit. At the end of February a meeting was held between the ‘submitted’ and the ‘unsubmitted’ and it was agreed to continue with these gatherings for purposes of information. At the first meeting after March 1 it was agreed to publish a book on the work that had been done and a commission was appointed to draw up a plan. When the plan was presented at the following meeting the forty-seven priests who had accepted the Bishops’ decision withdrew their support from the project. Nevertheless the others continued and the book was published in November of the same year. A translation of this has now been published in English.

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