The Catholic news site Nuova Bussola Quotidiana addressed the issue of the Saint Martin Community, who fully accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, are very attentive to the solemnity of the liturgy, celebrate Mass in Latin according to the 1969 Roman Missal, love Gregorian chant, and always prefer to wear the cassock.
Editorial Office (07/24/2024 15:16, Gaudium Press) The vocational crisis in France, as in several European countries, is well known. Therefore, it is very important to be aware of what is happening in entities such as the Saint Martin Community, a French institution founded in 1976, initially established in Genoa under the protection of Cardinal Siri, and later transferred to Blois in 1993. Currently, the community has a significant number of 100 seminarians, something that few European seminaries can boast of. The priests ordained within this community have also been serving in dioceses with a shortage of vocations.
New Vatican Commissariat
However, since July 4, the Dicastery for the Clergy appointed two pontifical assistants, the Bishop of Laval and Fr. Humann, to “accompany” the community for the next three years. Nico Spuntoni of La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana states that “in fact, it seems that it was the vocational fruitfulness that set off the alarm in the Vatican.” It is evident that this is not the justification provided by the Vatican authorities. Still, after the pastoral visit of the Bishop of Pontoise, “shadows” were found in the figure of the founder, Fr. Jean-François Guérin, who died in 2005. He was accused of creating “an abusive climate in the exercise of authority and spiritual accompaniment” and of “forced kisses,” reported by some interviewees who were of legal age at the time of the events.
For this reason, Mons. Matthieu Dupont and Fr. François-Marie Humann explained in a letter that “it will be necessary to provide truth and clarity about the founding period of the Saint Martin Community, about the personality of the founder who died in 2005, and about the facts attributed to him by various former members of the community.” Those familiar with ecclesial reality know that, on the margins of any community, there is always a group of former members dissatisfied with their departure who devote much of their energy to defaming the work to which they belonged. This does not invalidate their testimonies in themselves, but the fact that many of their statements are false or inaccurate and motivated by understandable resentment indicates that their testimonies need to be thoroughly examined.
A Predetermined script?
Moreover, the mere assertion of “an abusive climate in the exercise of authority and spiritual accompaniment” is so ethereal that it can be used and interpreted in various ways: a former member may consider that the regime of obedience, predominant in any Catholic community, is abusive, as well as the spiritual formation that justifies it. And so on. Spuntoni does not hesitate to affirm that what is happening in the Saint Martin Community “follows a script already seen in similar situations.”
This type of three-year ‘commission,’ however, aims at other objectives. The two apostolic assistants have indeed clarified that it will be necessary to work also on the issue of vocational pastoral care and its reception, especially of the youngest, to ensure better discernment and some prudence in entering formation. It is also about supporting the process of renewal of initial and ongoing formation in light of Roman and national norms. “Words that reveal Roman intolerance towards the numerous vocations in this conservative-leaning community, which, by providing priests to thirty dioceses, risks ‘infecting’ half of France,” highlights the editor of La Nuova Bussola.
Just at the moment when the Vatican affirms the need for fidelity to the spirit of the founders, they want the Saint Martin Community to modify its original vocational pastoral care, which has proven to be highly successful. Another aspect to consider is that the community follows a conservative style, aligned with the “hermeneutic of continuity,” but this “excessively traditional ecclesial sensitivity” may be bothering Rome, according to Spuntoni. “The priests of Saint Martin, who fully accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, are very attentive to the solemnity of the liturgy, also celebrating in Latin according to the 1969 Roman Missal, love Gregorian chant, and always prefer to wear the cassock.”
In this case, therefore, the usus antiquior is not at stake, but an excessively traditional ecclesial sensitivity seems to weigh. It is difficult not to think so in light of the mention of the ‘reform work that the Dicastery considered necessary after reading the conclusions of the Visitors’ made in the letter of the two newly appointed apostolic assistants,” concludes Nico Spuntoni.
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
