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tothineowntrueself,be a 11 ans aujourd'hui !

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Accentuate the positive: the Curate of Ars

Enter any French Catholic church and you will probably find two statues beyond those of Mary, Joseph and of course Jesus: Joan of Arc and the Curé d’Ars. You can see a typical example below or on our service bulletin: black cassock, surplice, stole in the style of the era, and a rather unflattering rendition of the saint.

In a way, the peasant girl from Domrémy and the ignoramus from Dardilly have some commonalities besides devout admirers erecting statues. Neither was educated but had a strong faith, both came from small rural villages, and both met great skepticism from the Church. In Vianney’s case, he began some schooling only at age 17. He was born in 1784 and the French revolution, in particular the changes in the Church, made it impossible for Jean-Marie to have any education before then. He had a fervent faith from his earliest years, and his childhood must have been marked by the conflict between his parish priest who had signed the Civil constitution of the clergy — soon condemned by the pope — and the clandestine clergy hunted by the revolutionaries.

At age 19 Jean-Marie made the acquaintance of a priest in a neighboring village, Écully, also next to Lyon, an Augustinian named Charles Balley. He took the young man under his wing, recognizing the ardor of his faith, but in the little school he had founded his protégé floundered. Learning Latin was especially difficult. He was drafted into Napoleon’s army, and soon deserted for reasons of conscience, but a life in hiding was no way to learn genitives and ablatives. Eventually Jean-Marie failed seminary and returned to Abbé Balley, who was able to convince the bishop to ordain him at the age of 31 in 1815. For the next three years, he served as Balley’s curate. When he died, Jean-Marie was named to what we would call a chapel of ease in the tiny village of Ars, about 30 kilometers north of Lyon. He was never to leave.

It seems clear that Vianney would never have been ordained if there had not been a serious shortage of clergy. Perhaps it was thought that in a remote village he could do no harm, at least. He immediately began paying attention to his parishioners, living among them, foregoing a housekeeper, declining invitations to dine at the local nobleman’s château. In other words, he did not act like the haughty clergy of the day, and this, along with his evident piety, he soon endeared himself to the villagers. Whereas the laity in France did not attend church often, the Curé d’Ars was able to attract people by his obvious devotion, spending hours kneeling before the Sacrament, and promising people that in church they could meet God.

Even though Jean-Marie like all the preachers of his day preached on hell as well as heaven, the love, mercy and grace of God were always uppermost. As time went on, he lost the severe accents of the Augustinian tradition that Balley had inculcated in favor of preaching and teaching that emphasized the love, forgiveness, and the kindness of God. “God will forgive a penitent sinner faster than a mother will snatch her child out of a fire,” he is quoted as saying.

What the Curé d’Ars was most famous for was not only his preaching but especially for hearing confessions. Toward the end of his life, he spent up to 16 hours a day in the confessional, with thousands of pilgrims coming from all over France and beyond. This too was countercultural, in that most people went to confession as little as possible. The penances prescribed was onerous, and Jean-Marie would often share them with his penitents so as to lighten their load.

I think one should not emphasize the stories told about Jean-Marie wrestling with the devil, miracles of multiplying stored wheat, and clairvoyance. He was certainly very intuitive, one gift that made him a great confessor and spiritual guide. He was tormented by what he considered to be his ignorance, and worried that by his “stupidity” people would fall away from the truth. At least twice he sought to leave Ars because of this fear. That was certainly a form of wrestling with the devil. As for being a model for all priests, as he is touted to be, certainly his transparent love of God in Christ, as well as his obvious love of people, especially the poor, his affability and sense of humor, are what all of us, not just clergy, should aspire to. On the other hand, wearing a hair shirt, flagellation, and other extreme mortification are not for everybody...

These days our churches are suffering from lack of attendance. All sorts of “church growth” schemes have been proposed. The story of Jean-Marie Vianney should instruct us as to what makes a church grow: devotion of its people and clergy to our God. The only way that others can know that God loves them is if we do. And for Anglicans, who sometimes treasure sophistication more than godliness, the remarkable effect of the ignoramus of Ars upon thousands of people is proof that as important a learned clergy is, it is more important to have a loving heart and the faith act upon it.

As Jean-Marie said once, “If at my death, I perceive that God does not exist, I will feel foolish, but I will not regret having spent my life believing in love.”

Neither will we.

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The pure in heart

Sermon on the Feast of John Keble

14 July 2021

Lamentations 3. 19-26

Matthew 5: 1-8

The Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon

In May 2010, Geoffrey Rowell, sometime Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, suggested that the annual meeting of the Old Catholic bishops and the Anglican bishops in Europe be held in his native land, the Hampshires, as a (mostly) walking retreat.

We began at Winchester Cathedral, warmly welcomed by then-Bishop Michael Scott-Joynt and his wife Louise, and we wandered from there, visiting churches and abbeys, all under the expert tutelage of Bishop Geoffrey. He was a rather singular fellow, confirmed bachelor, inveterate traveler, brilliant historian especially of Newman, professor at Keble College, Oxford, and had first been Bishop of Basingstoke, Suffragan of Chichester Diocese, before translating to the Diocese in Europe. We met on the first day of our respective episcopates, All Saints Day, 2001, and resolved “come hell or high water” — that’s what we said — to become friends. And so we did until his death in 2017.

Geoffrey had carefully and knowingly constructed our retreat, not telling us where we were going until we got there. And so, to the great pleasure of my fellow bishops and me, we ended at John Keble’s grave, in the little town of Hursley. We spent the day wandering around his parish church with a young and knowledgeable guide. I was struck by how humble the church is, how low the pulpit. And yet from this obscure place a great light shone, and in some ways it shines still.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” In some respects, Keble’s life reminds me a little of the effect of the ministry of Jean Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, who was sent to a remote village “where he could do no harm”, and yet had a tremendous effect well beyond the little town of Ars-sur-Forman.

John Keble is considered the initiator of the Oxford Movement, a revival of the ancient catholic roots of the Church of England. The first seeds had already been sown by John Henry Hobart, third Bishop of New York, whose sermons preached in England in 1823 had made a great impression, especially coming from a suspect bishop of the former colonies. On July 14, 1833, in the annual sermon preached for the opening of the Assizes, the law courts in Oxford, Keble launched into an indictment of the Church of England as apostate, sold out to being nothing more than a government fixture. It was an immediate sensation, especially coming from a professor of poetry and not some weighty churchman in high office. Soon Keble was joined by other authors of “Tracts for the Times”, including notables such as Edward Pusey and John Henry Newman. And thus was born the Oxford Movement.

I don’t think I have to tell this congregation about the effect of that movement, not only for Anglicans but also for the wider Church including the Roman Catholic and many Reformed churches. But it did cost Keble. Calling the Church and England together “apostate” is no way to win friends in high places.

For instance, one promising young priest was told by his mentor, “Now remember if you become Keble’s curate, you will lose all chance of preferment for life.”[1] Besides being attacked for his apology of the Catholic Church in England, Keble had many personal tragedies, including remaining childless with his beloved but frail wife Charlotte. She outlived him by six weeks and is buried next to him under an identical tombstone. The verse from Lamentations surely fits Keble’s spirituality: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

Besides the slow but growing recognition of his personal holiness and tender care of his flock, Keble’s parish preaching eventually became famous, and people traveled long distances to hear him. 12 volumes of sermons were published after his death in 1866. His 1830 volume of poetry for Sundays and holy days, The Church Year, was a smash hit, selling out 158 editions by 1873. Along with another collection, Lyra Innocentium: thoughts in verse on Christian children, Keble made enough money to fully refurbish his church building. He edited the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Richard Hooker’s magnum opus, and I have used his edition for 38 years now. He also translated the works of the second-century martyr-bishop Irenaeus, the Psalms from the Hebrew, created the hymnal ancestor of Hymns Ancient and Modern, and wrote a very consequential treatise on eucharistic adoration, a vigorous argument that the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament is and always has been consonant with the doctrine of the Church of England.

Above all, what struck me that day at All Saints, Hursley, were words inset in the steps leading to the chancel: “Blessed are the pure in heart.” This sums up the man and the effect he had on others, for those who see God help others find God as well.

The worst day of his life, he once said, was in 1845 when he received word from Newman that he was leaving for Rome. And yet in Keble’s last year, Newman visited him in Hursley along with Pusey. Only Keble could have pulled that off…

We just sang “Blest are the pure in heart”, whose first and third stanzas are Keble’s own.

1 Blest are the pure in heart, for they shall see our God; the secret of the Lord is theirs, their soul is Christ's abode.

3 Still to the lowly soul he doth himself impart, and for his dwelling and his throne chooseth the pure in heart.

May the Holy Spirit work such purity in our hearts. Amen.

[1] See a delightful history of Keble and his town, by Charlotte Yonge, his contemporary: "John Keble's Parishes: A History of Hursley and Otterbourne", at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6405/6405-h/6405-h.htm#page1

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Reprinted by permission of Meg Warner @MegWarner Would You Tear Down This Statue? This statue of Ruth stands in a kibbutz in Israel. Modern day Israeli kibbutzes quite often have statues of Ruth, to reflect something about work ethic or Israelite identity, or both. If you came across this statue, what would your reaction be? Would you be inclined to tear it down – in line with current trends in virtue signalling, cancel culture etc – in order to express an opinion about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, or about Boaz’s exercise of male privilege in ‘redeeming’ Ruth, or perhaps about Ruth and Boaz’s inappropriate overnight tryst on the threshing floor? Perhaps, instead, the statue would represent to you other things: the dignity of women, the inclusion of foreigners, or the power of biblical stories? Ruth’s story is extraordinary for many reasons. One is that such a short biblical book stands for, and represents, so many different things. For many readers today, Ruth is a loved romantic story in which the downtrodden heroine, through extraordinary displays of devotion, finds love and acceptance. For others it is a story of profound relationship between a same-gendered couple. For those versed in ancient Israelite politics around Moabites and inter-ethnic marriage, it may be viewed either as a refreshingly inclusive and accepting story of integration, or, conversely, an expression of Ezra’s exclusivism (in its portrayal of the totality of rejection of non-Israelite identity that is required for a foreigner to be assimilated into Israel). For me, because I am an Old Testament scholar and former lawyer, it is something yet again – a fabulous story of resistance through politically subversive storytelling. All the way through the story, under the surface, its authors are engaging with the laws of Deuteronomy, and with the identity politics of the late 6th Cent. BC. The dangerous politics of a story in which one of the ancestors of King David is exposed as Moabite (cf. Deut 23:3) are camouflaged by the story’s setting in the time of the judges (centuries earlier), in the domestic sphere, with prominent female characters and a heart-warming central ‘romance’. So the story of Ruth helps me to reflect on the politics of today, and the ways in which we tell stories, and especially stories about events and people from the past. It helps me to see how a single story can look incredibly different when seen from different perspectives, and therefor how somebody with an axe to grind could choose to tell it in a particular way. If it is possible for both feminists and their opponents to claim that Ruth’s story supports their views (which they can, without any trouble), then perhaps we ought be a little careful about how we evaluate people and events from our more recent past. In its own time, religious people could very well have decided to ‘cancel’ or bury Ruth’s story. It is, after all, sexually scandalous, quite apart from anything else. It is clear from Boaz’s concern, in Chapter 3, that his workers shouldn’t know that there had been a young woman lying next to his ‘feet’ (in Hebrew a euphemism for ‘genitals’) on the threshing floor all night, that this was a highly ‘unusual’ occurrence. But Ruth and her story weren’t cancelled or buried. And today Ruth is generally remembered with admiration and affection. The clearest indication of how Ruth was regarded in biblical times is to be found in the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Matthew begins with a long ‘genealogy’, like the little one at the end of Ruth. The genealogy traces Joseph’s family line back to Abraham, via David, and it actually mentions Ruth by name. It was very, very unusual for a genealogy to include the names of women, but Matthew included five! Equally remarkably, all of them were a little bit sexually scandalous and most were foreigners. Three of them, apart from Ruth, feature in the Old Testament: Tamar dressed up like a prostitute and had became pregnant by her father-in-law, Rahab was a prostitute and Bathsheba was ‘taken’ for a wife by David after he saw her washing herself on her roof. The fifth woman was Mary, an unmarried mother. Why might Matthew have included Ruth and these other morally questionable women? The answer seems to be that in addition to being sexually suspect, each woman had exercised a remarkable degree of righteousness: Tamar ensured that her dead Israelite husband had a son to perpetuate his name and Ruth did the same, Rahab (a non-Israelite) harboured Israelite spies and Mary, of course, was the ‘Theotokos’ or ‘God-bearer’. You could argue that Mary was essentially passive in her righteousness, but perhaps Bathsheba who can be envisaged as a ‘hinge’ between the active righteousness of the earlier women, and the passivity of Mary who, like Bathsheba (identified only as ‘the wife of Uriah’), had a righteous husband (Uriah refused to sleep with his wife while his men were in military combat and Joseph forbore from sending Mary away). Matthew didn’t allow the sexual improprieties of Ruth and the other women to cancel out their righteousness. You could argue that he did the opposite of virtue signalling – boldly proclaiming Mary’s unmarried status at the beginning of his gospel. Matthew wanted to declare a new standard of righteousness – not the standard of Deuteronomy and Ezra, and not the standard of ‘woke’ or ‘cancel culture’ either – but rather a ‘greater righteousness’ in which the least likely, most-often-shunned, people perform acts of fidelity and help to build the kingdom. This is the message that Matthew’s Jesus preaches. But it was there already in Ruth. Would you tear down a statue of Ruth? Or would you erect one?

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Vivre sa laïcité

L'Archevêque de Cantorbéry, Mgr Justin Welby, a reçu un doctorat honoris causa de l'Institut catholique de Paris, le 17 novembre 2016. Dans son discours d'acceptation,* l'Archevêque a critiqué la laïcité à la française : « Ici, en France, je dirais — peut-être un peu provocateur — que la laïcité a atteint son but. » Mais puisqu’il traduisait son texte anglais en français à vue, il s’est permis un commentaire. « Il faut la mettre au musée. » Un peu provocateur… La laïcité est bel et bien la question brûlante d’actualité en France. Le mot signifie le droit de conscience. Récemment, ce droit a été interprété par les gouvernements successifs de la Vème République pour faire croire que la religion n’est qu’une affaire privée, et qu’en public, le religieux n’a pas de place. Dans un livre récent,** j’ai propose avec mon co-auteur, Jean-Michel Cadiot, que celle-ci est une fausse idée de la religion, qu’en fait elle se traduit par un établissement de l’athéisme comme religion de la France. Pourtant, tout être humain doit répondre à des « préoccupations ultimes », pour reprendre l’expression du théologien germano-américain Paul Tillich. C’est-à-dire des sujets comme le sens de la mort, de l’identité, de la vérité des choses, et ainsi de suite. Puisque le mot « religion » signifie « lier ensemble », nos réponses à ces questions — intimes, personnelles — sont en fait religieuses. De ce point de vue, nous sommes donc tous religieux. En termes anthropologiques, c’est essentiel à l’espèce Homo sapiens que tous ressentent une certaine intimation du sacré, et ce même si ce n’est pour conclure que ce sentiment, et les questions qu’il soulève, n’ont aucun sens. Ce sens du sacré est l’un des aspects de l’humanité qui nous distinguent des autres animaux ; les autres sont le langage hautement symbolique, la création artistique, et le mariage pratiqué par toutes les sociétés, chacune à sa façon. Alors nul ne peut dire « je ne suis pas religieux » alors qu’environ 40% des Français se caractérisent de cette façon. Le fait que nous sommes tous religieux, ayant tous le besoin de trouver des réponses personnelles et intimes à des questions ultimes vitales — des réponses qui évoluent, en plus — exige un droit de conscience, une liberté fondamentale de la religion. Dans une allocution récente au Collège des Bernardins*** le président Emmanuel Macron semblait vouloir remettre cette politique en question. « … je considère que la laïcité n’a certainement pas pour fonction de nier le spirituel au nom du temporel, ni de déraciner de nos sociétés la part sacrée qui nourrit tant de nos concitoyens. Je suis, comme chef de l’État, garant de la liberté de croire et de ne pas croire, mais je ne suis ni l’inventeur ni le promoteur d’une religion d’État substituant à la transcendance divine un credo républicain. » Les Américains savent bien de leur histoire que la liberté religieuse est le droit humain primordial. Les Français le savent aussi, quoique dans l’histoire de la France elle signifie souvent la fin du pouvoir catholique romain sur la société française. Ce qui nous amène au dilemme actuel, en cette époque de terrorisme islamiste : comment comprendre la laïcité pour qu’elle protège et le bien commun et une véritable liberté de conscience. La réponse de notre livre est l’éducation. Si j’ai un droit de conscience, il en est ainsi pour autrui. Si l’autre doit respecter mon droit, je dois lui respecter le sien. Le faire requiert de l’éducation, une formation de base. Facile à dire, certes. Pourtant, vivre la laïcité — le droit de conscience — est l’affaire de tous les Français. * http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5809/archbishop-justin-welby-on-the-common-good-and-a-shared-vision-for-the-next-century ** Jean-Michel Cadiot and Pierre Whalon, Laïcité : l’expression publique de la religion (Paris : ATF France, 2018) *** https://www.la-croix.com/Religion/Catholicisme/France/Emmanuel-Macron-Bernardins-discours-2018-04-09-1200930420

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Guns don’t stop terror

On November 13, 2015, I was celebrating our daughter's "grand diplôme" from the world-class Cordon Bleu school with her and my wife at our favorite restaurant. On any other Friday night, she would have been with friends at their favorite restaurant. She might have been shot when one of the "Bataclan" terrorists sprayed the little Cambodian bistro with an AK-47. All told, 130 people died that night. President Donald Trump in remarks to the Natioonal Rifle Association imitated the thugs, claiming that France has the strictest gun laws in the world — false ¸— and that had some good citizens been armed, they could have stopped the killers — false. See http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44017172 How can any one claim that lax gun laws have stopped terror attacks in the United States? In 2015, the year of Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan attacks in France, the United States suffered 353 mass shootings. How many were stopped by concerned citizens carrying their guns? Zero. Zip. Nada. Guns don't stop terror. They create it, in the hands of people who want to create havoc and mayhem, who want to be heroes to some death cult. Only people trained in the use of firearms in a gunfight can stop them — if they don't get shot themselves. The vast majority of open- or concealed-carry guns in ordinary people's hands will not stop tefrorists bent on committing homicidal suicide. President Trump owes an apology to the families of the dead, whose deaths he ridiculed. He owes an apology to the security forces, who continually put their lives on the line to protect against more deaths, including on that terrible day. And America desperately needs to get rid of the delusion that loose gun laws make us safer. Oh, and there were more mass shootings in America in 2016, by the way…

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Pourquoi voter est un sacré devoir et un sacré devoir

Voter est, bien sûr, un devoir citoyen. Allez voir ce qui est écrit sur votre carte d’électeur : «   Voter est un droit, c’est aussi un devoir civique ». Les élections sont les moteurs de la démocratie, les élus servent les intérêts des citoyens, donc nous devons voter. Soit. Mais ce n’est pas qu’une obligation citoyenne. Voter est un devoir sacré pour les chrétiens. On pourrait penser que ce genre d’arguments appartient plutôt aux exhortations d’obéir aux monarques, comme le fameux sermon prêché devant le roi Louis XIV par Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet. En effet, depuis les empereurs romains chrétiens, des théologiens ont essayé d’entériner le pouvoir monarchal en faisant appel à des versets bibliques comme l’Épitre de St Paul aux Romains : Chacun doit se soumettre aux autorités qui exercent le pouvoir. Car toute autorité vient de Dieu ; celles qui existent ont été établies par lui. Ainsi, celui qui s'oppose à l'autorité s'oppose à l'ordre voulu par Dieu. Ceux qui s'y opposent attireront le jugement sur eux-mêmes.  C'est pourquoi il est nécessaire de se soumettre aux autorités, non seulement pour éviter la colère de Dieu, mais encore par devoir de conscience.  C'est aussi pourquoi vous payez des impôts, car ceux qui les perçoivent sont au service de Dieu pour accomplir soigneusement cette tâche.  Payez à chacun ce que vous lui devez : payez l'impôt à qui vous le devez et la taxe à qui vous la devez ; montrez du respect à qui vous le devez et honorez celui à qui l'honneur est dû. (13.1-2 ; 6-7) Évidemment, la démocratie n’existait pas à l’époque où l’apôtre a écrit ces lignes. Mais dans un pays où « les autorités qui exercent le pouvoir » sont élues, il incombe aux citoyens de les choisir, ou alors les souffrir en silence. Pour les chrétiens, voter est un devoir sacré car pour suivre le Christ, il faut aussi prendre la responsabilité du bon fonctionnement de sa société. La parabole du Bon Samaritain http://jerusalem.cef.fr/atelier-biblique-saint-luc-5/mediter le démontre : nous avons tous un devoir envers nos prochains. Soigner le blessé est un acte de solidarité. Aimer son prochain n’est pas un sentiment ; c’est une façon de vivre, ensemble. Même payer ses impôts est un acte de solidarité, et c’est cette norme qui permet aussi à quiconque de juger si son taux d’imposition est juste ou injuste. Voter dans notre pays signifie s’occuper non seulement de soi, mais d’autrui, dans le sens que la bonne gestion de la République est l’affaire de tous et de toutes. Qu’importe l’orientation politique à laquelle on adhère. Il y aura toujours des débats sur la façon dont on gère le pays, surtout chez nous, nation de causeurs que nous sommes. Ce qui ne se débatte pas c’est qu’il faut voter, pour nous autres chrétiens d’abord. Car la foi est un appel, une vocation, à vivre sa vie en témoignage à cette foi, cette conviction, que l’amour de Dieu et l’amour du prochain sont les deux faces de la même médaille. Évêque que je suis, je ne ne puis me permettre de vous dire comment voter. Votre conscience doit primer. Mais pour ceux qui croient en Christ, mort et ressuscité et maintenant Seigneur de tout, aller voter est un devoir et un témoignage. Liberté de religion et droit de voter sont étroitement liés. Si ce n’est que, si nous ne votons pas, nous n’avons pas le droit de râler. Et un Français ou Française qui ne peut pas râler est vraiment malheureux. Alors aux urnes !

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Lynch, pas seulement un verbe

« Lyncher » signifie la mise à mort d’une personne sans procès judiciaire, par un groupe ou une foule. Il paraît que le mot vient d’un certain William Lynch, qui, pendant la Révolution américaine, s’était octroyé le pouvoir de punir sommairement les colons loyaux à la Couronne. Je voudrais vous faire l’accointance du docteur Henry Lynch. J’ignore ses liens de parenté avec ledit William, mais son histoire vous concerne beaucoup plus directement. Car le « syndrome de Lynch » guette beaucoup de familles dans le monde, et très peu le savent. Ma femme Melinda l’avait hérité de ses aïeux. (Oui, un évêque peut se marier, s’il est anglican. « N'avons-nous pas le droit d'emmener avec nous une sœur qui soit notre femme, comme le font les autres apôtres, les frères du Seigneur et Képhas ? » St Paul écrit aux Corinthiens.) Trois ans après notre mariage en novembre 1980, ma femme avait du mal à tomber enceinte. Plusieurs tentatives avaient failli détecter le problème, lorsque des hémorragies soudaines ont requis une hystérectomie en urgence. En sortant du bloc opératoire, son médecin m’a mis la main sur l’épaule, et m’a dit qu’il fallait que je « me prépare ». En effet, on avait trouvé plusieurs cancers, deux tumeurs différentes de l’utérus, et deux des ovaires. En plus, l’une des tumeurs ovariennes avait envoyé un serment de capillaire à l’intestin grêle, et il avait fallu donc réséqué une partie de l’organe. On ignorait à l’époque qu’existe une possible prédisposition génétique au cancer. Le Dr Lynch se battait pendant des décennies afin de prouver, par la généalogie au début, que certaines familles avaient plusieurs membres atteints des mêmes cancers, avec des présentations inattendues telles que des tumeurs distinctes (”primaires“) du même organe. Comme Melinda. Après une dose maximale de radiations, et plusieurs chimiothérapies avec une drogue nouvelle pour l’époque, le cisplatine, ma femme a survécu et nous avons continué notre vie ensemble. En 1998, elle a développé un cancer du colon. Ablation presque totale du colon, qui avait encore des tumeurs primaires, suivi d’une autre chimiothérapie. Cette fois-ci, un pathologiste m’a aiguillé vers le Dr Lynch. En septembre de cette année, je l’ai emmenée à Omaha, dans le Nebraska, rencontrer le médecin maintenant renommé pour avoir décrit le syndrome de Lynch (on l’appelait plutôt à l’époque “Cancer colorectal héréditaire sans polypose”). C’est un phénomène. Né en 1928, le futur médecin s’enrôla dans la marine américaine, en pleine guerre, ayant menti sur son âge. Démobilisé alors à 18 ans en 1946, il entama une brève carrière comme boxeur, s’appelant « Hammerin’ Hank » (Henri le marteau). Las de cette aventure, il s’enrôla dans l’université du Téxas pour faire sa médecine. Le Dr Lynch trouva à la longue des recherches vieilles de 50 ans qui suggéraient la possibilité que certains cancers étaient dû à l’hérédité, et non uniquement à des quelconques facteurs environnementaux. Il sillonna le centre des Etats-Unis, afin de dresser un portrait de familles dont les différentes générations souffraient des mêmes cancers. Après des décennies de ce travail, bravant le vent debout du ridicule de ses collègues, il put mettre en avant sa théorie confirmée par ses recherches méticuleuses et abondantes. Lors de notre rencontre, le Dr Lynch me semblait être comme un vieux tonton, avec son air compatissant et modeste. Mais je m’en suis rapidement désabusé, car son aspect tranquille cachait sa vaste connaissance du sujet, et la vive intelligence qui l’avait guidé. Il diagnostiqua le syndrome de Lynch chez Melinda, nous a parlé longuement des particularités des cancers provoqués par le défaut génétique, et lui a prescrit un régime d’examens annuels. À 88 ans, le Dr Lynch exerce encore dans sa clinique à Omaha, dans le Nebraska, un des états au centre des Etats-Unis. Le médecin avait aussi demandé à ma femme si elle voulait laisser un échantillon de son sang. Cette culture de ses cellules vivantes existe toujours, alors qu’elle nous a récemment quittée. Pour expliquer ce qu’est ce syndrome, il faut d’abord se rappeler que les cellules de notre corps se reproduisent en se divisant en copie exacte. Le « fichier maître » qu’est l’ADN est reproduit parfaitement dans chacune des cellules neuves, sous le contrôle de gènes qui se chargent de vérifier que toute les copies sont exactes. S’il y a une faille, des pairs de protéines mal copiés, ces gènes les réparent. Or le syndrome de Lynch résulte d’une ou plusieurs mutations de ces gènes réparateurs de ces mésappariements. Autrement dit, au lieu de réparer les mésappariements, les gènes en rajoutent. De cette base procède les divers cancers de Lynch : endomètre, ovaire, intestin grêle, estomac, voies biliaires, voies urinaires, etc. Donc, si vous avez vous-même un de ces cancers, ou, en remontant les générations de votre famille, des membres de votre famille en ont eus, demandez à votre médecin de vous parler du syndrome de Lynch. Avoir la mutation génétique n’est pas fatalement développer un cancer ; mais ignorer qu’on l’a peut s’avérer fatal, pour soi-même ou des proches. Avec des dépistages réguliers, les cancers de Lynch peuvent être soignés. Quant à ma femme, elle a vécu 34 ans après l’apparition du premier cancer. Grâce à la clinique du Dr Thierry André à l’Hôpital Saint-André de Paris, elle a pu bénéficier d’une nouvelle immunothérapie https://www.ligue-cancer.net/article/7497_l-immunotherapie qui a fonctionné de façon remarquable. Hélas, une infection fulgurante qui n’avait rien à voir avec le syndrome de Lynch l’a emportée, à notre grande frustration. C’est donc pour Melinda que j’écris cet article : faire connaître ce syndrome, le médecin héroïque qui l’a découvert, et vous exhorter, cher Lecteur, d’en prendre compte pour votre santé et celle de votre famille. Pour plus d’information, cliquez ici. http://www.hnpcc-lynch.com Pour les recherches du Dr André, soutenu par la fondation AROSAT, voir ici. http://www.fondationarcad.org/nos-actions/aide-et-information/activité-distributive-aux-associations

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How long, O Lord, how long? 

 The above picture, O God, you know better than I (though it's by CNN). Worried law enforcement personnel, in body armor, trying to cope with yet another murder spree. Could be anywhere these days. 

You know, God, that I am tired, I am sick and tired, of regularly writing these reflections. I do so because I am bishop for these lands. My heart goes out once again to a city battered and mauled by a kid with a gun. A few days ago, another town, Würzburg, and a boy with an axe. Last week it was a guy with a truck. Before that, with a knife, killing a mother and father in front of their three-year-old son. Before that, it was Brussels. And Paris. And Paris. And Toulouse.

 Not to mention, Lord, what's happening in my country of origin, my homeland. Baton Rouge, Dallas, Orlando, San Bernardino. And the land I visited in 2003, that you brought me to just before the war, that stupid war. Baghdad, I want to go back, but I can't. And Turkey and Bangladesh. And the horror that is Saudi Arabia. I have friends, real friends, who are Muslim faithful, imams, even an ayatollah or two. And they are dying too. For what?

 Everywhere, O God of my salvation, is blood. Everywhere, the wailing of families bereft of loved ones and homes. The courage of first responders who throw themselves into the breech. The fear of the rest of us. The streams of humanity, people like us, fleeing home and hearth for a life, any life, in Europe. In America. Canada. Australia. And a few who act out, like in Cologne. Or this kid in Munich. 

 Munich, Germany's most beautiful major city, where we worship you every Sunday, thanks to a Lutheran congregation that hosts us. Will the Germans now close that transit camp I visited in May, so clean and orderly as is their wont, cutting off more thousands who need to come? The shameful deal we cut with Turkey has stopped people going to Greece, but increased people coming to Italy. And our refugee center in Rome, the only daytime center in the Eternal City, now how many more will it have to serve? 

Do you not hear the cries of your children, O God? Have you turned a deaf ear to our petitions? Let my cry come to you, O Lord! How long? How much longer must this so-called Islamic State continue to exist? When will you bring Boko Haram and all the other imitators to an end? What about the persecutors and the persecuted elsewhere in the world? In India and Indonesia. In Pakistan and Thailand and Myanmar. How many more million Congolese are going to die? How long, O Lord, how long?! 

 As one of the teachers you sent has said, we need to distinguish between optimism and hope. Optimism is passive, hope is active. It takes courage. The prophets of Israel, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself, were not optimists. But they looked to You in hope. So we have set our hope on you, O God, for there is none other left. We have put our trust in Jesus. We believe you have drenched us in your Holy Spirit. And therefore nothing — no terrorist, no Da’esh, no gun or bomb or butcher's knife — can separate us from your love for us in Christ Jesus. 

 Show us your love and mercy again. Please, I don't want to write more reflections like this. And come to our aid. Give us courage to hope. Strengthen our faith. Empower us to overcome fear. Enable us to transform this world you have given us. To stanch the endless flow of blood. To give hope to the hopeless and to care for the helpless. To let no one, including our very selves, stand in the way of peace. 

"Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again rejoicing, shouldering their sheaves." 

 May it be so for us, now, O God of our weary years. For we ask this in the Name of Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.

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Ressources pour l’après-Nice

Encore une fois, la France est attaquée. Pour ne pas céder à la peur que veulent nous instiller les terroristes, il nous faut du courage.

 Or, tout un chacun sait que le courage n'est pas l'absence de peur, mais la capacité d'agir en dépit de la peur. Comment le trouver ? Nous avons tous besoin de faire face à cet ennemi qui se veut nébuleux, de par son semblant de mystère caché, et cherche justement à nous neutraliser, nous figer dans notre terreur.

 C'est pourquoi ils s'appellent « terroristes », bien évidemment. 

 Donc comprendre le mobile de ces attaques, c'est commencer à retrouver un peu de sang-froid. Mais il nous faut aussi des ressources spirituelles, car une simple interprétation ne suffit pas pour raffermir la colonne vertébrale. Car après avoir retrouvé l’esprit et le courage, il nous faudra agir. 

 Alors, évêque que je suis, je vous propose une brève pause pour vous ressourcer. Quelques phrases tirées d'un psaume, et deux prières : 

 L'Éternel est ma lumière et mon salut : De qui aurais-je crainte ? 

L'Éternel est le soutien de ma vie : De qui aurais-je peur ? Espère en l’Éternel ! Fortifie-toi et que ton cœur s’affermisse ! Espère en l’Éternel ! (Psaume 27.1,14) 

O Dieu, tu génère la paix car tu aimes la concorde : te connaître est vivre éternellement, et te servir la seule vraie liberté. Défend-nous, tes humbles serviteurs, dans tous les assauts de nos ennemis, qu’en nous confiant entièrement à ta protection, nous ne redoutions la force d'aucun adversaire, par la puissance de Jésus Christ. Amen. (Livre de prière commune, traduction libre) 

Par ta Croix, Seigneur Jésus, tu es devenu notre seule espérance véritable. Nous te demandons de donner repos à ceux qui sont décédés à Nice, et de guérir les blessés en bénissant ceux qui les soignent. Tu as réconforté Marthe et Marie ; console tous ceux qui pleurent leurs morts. Pour nous qui restons, donne un cœur vaillant pour les jours à venir. Fais que ta justice coule sur nous comme un courant d'eau, afin que nous ayons la paix. Exauce-nous, Seigneur, car dans ton amour tu es mort pour nous, et ressuscité d'entre les morts pour que nous partageons avec toi la vie éternelle. Amen.

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Edmond Browning, Bishop in charge, 1971-1974

Edmond Lee Browning, sometime Bishop in charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, passed into Larger Life yesterday, July 11. The first full-time Bishop in charge, he served among us from 1971 to 1974, when he was elected Bishop of Hawai'i. In 1985 he became the 24th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. His term ended in 1997, when he was succeeded by Frank Griswold. Bishop Browning's obituary (below) says a great deal about the man, above all a compassionate pastor who oversaw our Church during tumultuous times, at considerable personal cost. I met him only once, at General Convention 2009. I took him to lunch and we talked about the Convocation. As I described the great changes and growth, his eyes filled with tears of joy. He was so thrilled to hear how far we had come from his days. I had some questions, such as why he and his wife Patti didn't live in Paris during his tenure. Instead, they ended up in Wiesbaden. Bishop Browning replied that at first, they had planned to live in Nice with their four children. However, 1971 was the year we sold Holy Spirit Church to the Église Réformée de France, and then-Presiding Bishop John Hines informed him that they could not stay there. "What about Paris?" I asked. The office is there, and the Cathedral is the seat of the Bishop in charge. "Sturgis Riddle" (then Dean) "told me that Paris wasn't big enough for the both of us." So they moved to Wiesbaden, a pleasant spa town with a large US Army base close to the French border, with good train and plane connections to Paris. They often worshiped at our parish of St. Augustine of Canterbury in that city. Bishop Browning continued the work begun by his predecessor Stephen Bayne, bringing the six congregations of the day (today 21) out of the dying chaplaincy model into a new sense of permanent mission among the cities and nations where we live and minister, including expatriates. His prior experience in the diocese of Okinawa as priest, archdeacon and bishop was invaluable to his new ministry on the other side of the world. He and Patti continued to share happy memories of their time together in Europe, he said. In 1994, Bishop Browning reached out to my predecessor, Jeffery Rowthorn, then Suffragan Bishop of Connecticut, and appointed him the second full-time Bishop in charge of Europe. Bishop Rowthorn cast the vision of a fully-functioning missionary jurisdiction, which eventually led to my consecration as the first Bishop in charge elected by the clergy and people of the Convocation. We all owe Ed Browning a great debt of gratitude. May Ed's dwelling place be this day in Paradise, and the saints and holy angels welcome him into New Jerusalem. Bishop Pierre Whalon Obituary, Episcopal News Service: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2016/07/11/rip-bishop-edmond-lee-browning-24th-presiding-bishop/

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Once more for Holy Innocents

This is among my first blogs in 2006... I learned recently that Harmos is still doing well, whereas Françoise has gone on to Larger Life, on December 9, 2014. All good blessings and fresh new joys in the New Year to all! +Pierre An Encore for the Holy Innocents Seated next to me is Harmos, a friend I made in Teheran a couple of weeks ago. He is a terrific acolyte, following the Aramaic language of his Chaldean Church perfectly, crossing himself at the right time, ringing the bell when called for, and generally looking like he is having a great time serving God at God’s altar. I relate to him in part because I have a sister, Françoise, like him. Long ago, a priest friend of my parents was visiting our home and having a cocktail (or two...). She came into the room to say hello. As he looked at her, a tear came into the priest’s eyes. “So innocent,” he said. “Incapable of sinning. Surely such people will have the highest places in heaven. Much higher than you or me.” Harmos and Françoise, Holy Innocents (followng on yesterday’s meditation). And quite possibily the greatest of saints. That sounds right: “Whoever humbles himself like this child shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:4). Growing up with Françoise, she taught me a most valuable lesson: what matters in this life is who love you and whom you love. Everything else is detail, and won’t go with us. (http://bishopblogging.org/Bishopblogging/Blog/Entrees/2006/12/29_More_Holy_Innocents.html)

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Coming from different places...

"Da'esh is Islam! There is no contradiction!" The man was passionate. My colleague, a bishop, replied cautiously that he had worked hard to try to understand Islam. "The word means 'peace', I have been told," he said. "No, Islam means 'war'!" replied the first man. "Muhammed was a war leader. He killed lots of people. And they have always oppressed us!" I had brought together two different groups of people. The first was a group of pilgrims organized by the Church of England, who had walked from London to Paris — 200 miles in 2 weeks — to bring attention to the climate summit here in Paris. The other was a group of Iraqi refugees we had helped to find asylum in France. They were serving the pilgrims a meal of Middle Eastern specialities after their exertions. The Cathedral was the host, in fact, we were in the parish hall. The outburst followed on a brief presentation by a couple who had fled Mosul in August 2014, escaping along with every other Christian in the city from ISIS (Arabic speakers refer to the Islamic State group as "Da'esh", an acronym like ISIS but also meaning "sowers of discord".) The wife told of her Muslim friend who, when she called her to inform her that they had fled, asked why she didn't just recite the "creed" of Islam ("There is no God but Allah, and Muhammed is his Prophet"). Then, she said, they could keep their homes, their jobs as university professors, their possessions, and so on. The woman told her Muslim friend that to do so would betray everything they stood for as followers of Jesus Christ. Perhaps because of the Paris attacks on November 13, my Iraqi friends were in no mood to compromise. The man I quoted above had his son killed before his eyes by fanatics. His sister-in-law was murdered coming out of church by a bomb, and his niece — her daughter — grievously wounded. Everyone has family members who were killed. Now France was grieving too, France, the nation that had given them asylum. The pilgrims had left London on November 13. They had nevertheless set their faces resolutely toward Paris and the COP21 conference that opened yesterday. They got a lot of attention from various media, including Twitter and Facebook. My communications director had made a slide show of their online photos, which we showed and they commented. They had received extraordinary support all along the way, with hundreds of people joining for a time or two, meals and drinks handed to them, places to stay offered, and so on. It was the experience of a lifetime. I had planned this dinner back in October, as a way of welcoming these Anglicans, Episcopalians, and others, including a Buddhist, to their host city. The two groups were coming from different places. While the struggle to rebuild a peaceful Middle East and the fight to slow the climate change seem completely different, their trajectories do meet eventually. Earthlings must drastically reduce our reliance on petroleum, by building an economy based upon other than carbon. The reason that the Middle East is so volatile is because of the money the world pays for its natural resource. Who controls the oil controls the wealth, until the world can do without oil for the functioning of the global economy. So while both groups were coming from different places, literally and figuratively, in the end they meet. They met, they ate, they talked and got to know and appreciate one another. It was a truly joyous evening, and in the end, all left happy.

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How long before the world forgets Paris?

As the massive wave of compassion and solidarity rolls over us in Paris — which is very much appreciated! — voices wonder why everyone is talking Paris, and not Beirut. After all, the double suicide bombing there (the first since 1990) killed 47, and it have been far worse had not a man named Adel Termos tackled the second bomber. The suicide vest exploded, but Mr. Termos' body shielded the market crowd from most of the blast. He died heroically. Anybody seen a picture of him on social media? I suppose that Beirut's image as a war-torn city compares poorly to Paris. But what of Beni? See http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2015/05/15/rdc-nouveaux-massacres-dans-le-nord-kivu_4634364_3212.html I know it's in French, but who is reporting in English about eastern Congo, where literally millions have been dying for the past 15 years? Some call it World War III, in terms of its deadliness. Beni, in the northeastern province of Nord-Kivu, routinely bears the brunt of a rebel Ugandan group, the "Allied Democratic Forces", hiding in the jungle for years. They chop off hands and heads, and — guess what? — they claim to be Muslims. They are no more religious than Joseph Kony's "Lord's Resistance Army" is Christian, of course. (They too may be hiding in Congo.) The world has learned to turn a blind eye to Congo, to Africans slaughtering Africans. And who sees Syria, never mind Lebanon, as Arabs murder Arabs in numbers that dwarf the Paris massacres? How long before the world forgets Paris, as Frenchmen slaughter their compatriots? The famous disputed suryat 5:32 in the Qu'ran apparently says that to kill an innocent person is to kill all humanity, and to save a life is to save us all. Adel Termos therefore saved us all. And there are many others, in Damascus and Beni and Goma and... The veil of forgetfulness cannot be allowed to fall over them and their stories, any more than the world should forget Paris.

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Silence and the play of children

As France observed a moment of silence for the dead and wounded of November 13, I stood and watched little children on their neighboring playground. For the fourteen years we have lived here, we have enjoyed the sounds of the maternelle (nursery school) next door. It seems as if they never grow up: every year, the same screams of joy fill the air as they leave the classroom for the open air. Under the ever-watchful eyes of their teachers, they race around the yard on tricycles, chase each other eternally, get into shoving matches, wail disconsolately and laugh without restraint... it is always the same. This eternal brouhaha always makes me smile when I hear it. I remember years ago when our daughter was two, and I went to the funeral of a Catholic priest friend's mother with her. I couldn't find a babysitter, you see. She happily burbled as she cruised along the back pew. I was embarrassed, and I apologized to him after the service. He replied, smiling, "The sound of happy children has power to make the angels blush." I've used that line whenever people have apologized to me for noisy children in church. Today, as noon came and the local church's bells did not toll the hour as they always do, I wondered what the maternelle teachers would do. They did the right thing: nothing. The children's joyful noise was as loud as ever, the Brownian motion of their racing around the schoolyard as chaotic as usual. Unlike the rest of us, they did not need to stand quietly, meditatively, eyes closed, praying. This was the children's unselfconscious way of saying that life will triumph over death, love over hatred, faith over false certainties. Because it has power to make angels blush, their ode to joy also turns terrorist pretensions to dust. The children of Paris have proclaimed: Paris still stands.

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A number of friends have asked me what I thought of Netanyahu’s speech. I listened to it on C-Span, then had to run off to class. With a moment after dinner, here are some reactions.

First, this was a barn burner of a campaign speech. He is campaigning for another term as prime minister of...