The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Marthe Robin, true mystic or sacred mythologist?

2021-03-01T07:22:49.151Z


Accused of deception by a Belgian cleric, the "stigmatized of the Drôme", who died 40 years ago, is defended by her relatives in a "li


On the heights of the village of Châteauneuf-de-Galaure (Drôme) in the grip of winds to decorate the oxen, the white shutters of the “Robin farm”, under construction, are closed.

This is where Marthe Robin lived, a figure of French Catholicism born in 1902 whose heart stopped beating just four decades ago.

Like the facade, the myth has cracked in recent months, so much so that some believers are wondering if the mystique with planetary radiation was not a sacred “mytho”.

The story, unbelievable to laymen, tells that this blind paralytic remained, for half a century, curled up in her bed, eaten away by lethargic encephalitis - an inflammation of the brain of infectious origin - excruciatingly painful.

He also said to himself that she ate only one host per week and that she relived the Passion of Christ every Friday, the sufferings of the crucifixion, in particular shedding tears of blood.

The Belgian monk evokes a "compulsive plagiarist"

Some 100,000 faithful, including bishops, cardinals, ministers and other academics, marched through her room to meet this woman who collected the apparitions of the Virgin and of Jesus.

In 2014, Pope Francis declared her “venerable”, thus paving the way for her to holiness.

But last October, a posthumous book called "The Mystical Fraud of Marthe Robin", signed by Father Conrad de Meester, a Belgian Carmelite who died a year earlier, debunked "the stigmatized of the Drôme".

He denounced "a sham" and the "voluntary construction of a fiction" on the part of "a compulsive plagiarist".

A blow for the Foyers de charité, a Catholic work initiated in 1936 by the impotent woman who manages schools and nearly 80 spiritual retreat sites around the world.

This institution is doubly in turmoil since its co-founder, the priest Georges Finet (deceased in 1990), spiritual father of Marthe Robin, is accused of “seriously deviant acts” by former residents of the Foyers de charité.

What other former students dispute.

Pierre Vignon publishes a book to try to rehabilitate Marthe Robin, whom he knew well.

LP / Jean Delmarty  

The floor is now to the descendants of the recluse.

In a work to be published on March 3, entitled “Marthe Robin in truth” (Artège), Pierre Vignon, 66 years old, priest of the Drôme who knew her well in his youth, responds point by point to the “brutal attacks” of the religious. of Flanders.

And tries to rehabilitate her friend, even if she "does not need to be defended where she is, in the Light".

The family of the controversial deceased supports this approach.

“Those who loved her feel soiled,” the cleric said indignantly.

"Conrad de Meester is inspired by the devil"

“Aunt Marthe is not a fraudster otherwise I would be ashamed.

She is a model, a great protector.

There are a lot of inexplicable things about her, but I know it's true.

How could she have cheated on her family for fifty years?

»Says Marie-Hélène Gaillard, 75, her grand-niece, who lives on the edge of Châteauneuf-de-Galaure.

And to pillory the father of the controversial book, which she considers "blasphemous".

“It puts me in an incredible rage.

There are some that's inspired by the Holy Ghost, it's by the devil.

If he was not in the cemetery, he would have to be interned in a psychiatric hospital.

It is not an anticlerical, not Le Canard déchaîné

(sic)

, but a priest who attacks Marthe!

The worst enemies always come from within, ”this former economics teacher strains.

Morning essentials newsletter

A tour of the news to start the day

Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters

The theologian, who can no longer reply to blows, was considered a reference in his specialty, that of great mystical female figures, including Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

From the end of the 1980s, requested by the Bishop of Valence as part of the diocesan phase of the beatification process, he immersed himself in the prose of Marthe Robin.

After having dissected thousands of pages, he quickly casts doubts on the authenticity of the accounts.

Marthe Robin's house, known as the “Robin farm”, in Châteauneuf-de-Galaure (Drôme).

LP / Jean Delmarty  

Supporting evidence, he accuses the "manipulator" of having plagiarized other famous mystics.

Under the seal of secrecy, its conclusions are transmitted to Rome.

It is an unfavorable expertise among thirty others who, they, incense, the frail peasant woman.

It does not slow down the Congregation for the Cause of Saints, which decides to take the next step leading, seven years ago, the Sovereign Pontiff to recognize in Marthe Robin “heroic virtues”.

Disappointed not to have been heard in Rome, the investigator servant of God continues his investigations which will give rise to the publication of the resounding fire.

For supporters of "Marthe", the latter is not a copious, a liar, a cheater.

Its unsourced “borrowings” are in no way deliberate.

"We give her spiritual readings, she recognizes things that she lives and it comes to the surface," said Father Vignon.

“Marthe” absolutely “did not want to be an author”, to be published.

“What matters to her is to help Christ save souls.

She is really humble, she does everything to be forgotten, ”he says.

Accused of faking his paralysis and blindness

Marthe Robin was not working for posterity, according to Marthe Brosse, 89, her niece.

“She's been through amazing things but she didn't want anyone to notice.

Conrad de Meester did not know her so he made it up, ”she tackles.

According to the detective monk, the venerated cripple would have recited the words of other mystics, in particular those of Saint Thérèse, during her ecstasies.

Words written down on paper by witnesses.

In other words, she was playing "a role".

“Pure defamation!

In her visions of the Passion, what she saw was the same as other mystics, so the translation could be similar ”, challenges Marie-Hélène Gaillard.

“It's impossible to simulate.

As soon as she was given Communion, I saw her fall into ecstasy.

She was disconnected, absorbed in something else, ”describes Pierre Vignon.

"Conrad de Meester did not know her so he invented it", maintains Marthe Brosse, Marthe Robin's niece.

LP / Jean Delmarty  

Having limbs inert, the pious woman was supposed to dictate her personal thoughts to secretaries.

But Conrad de Meester spotted five different, unidentified scriptures in the manuscripts, and recurring misspellings.

He is convinced that these spellings are those of his concealer who had polymorphic writing and who, contrary to what was said, could move his fingers, hands and arms and thus write some of his texts herself without being reached. therefore… total blindness.

" We do not know anything !

He's a nit-picker, not a graphologist, ”retorts Marie-Hélène Gaillard.

The bloodhound of the Plat Pays also suspects the farmer who has been bedridden since 1929 of not being completely paralyzed, of having been able to move around and "leave" her sofa bed.

“I have always known her lying down,” refutes Marthe Brosse.

On the day of her death, February 6, 1981, the nearly eighty-year-old was found lifeless on the floor at the foot of the bed.

“Maybe someone pulled her out of bed to relieve her.

We'll never know, ”says Pierre Vignon.

The stigmata validated in 1942

The missing, skeletal, weighed only between 25 and 30 kg.

The thesis of inedia (the absence of food) is defeated by the Belgian expert.

Marie-Hélène Gaillard, she claims to have never seen her great-aunt eat.

“She couldn't swallow anymore,” she certifies.

She was not hydrating, according to her relatives.

At most her tongue, parched as a result of her ecstasies, was "moistened" so that she could "start speaking again".

And the crucifixion endured in his flesh through the stigmata?

The great-niece remembers "traces of blood on her forehead".

A 1942 medical report requested by religious authorities analyzed the stigmata on the head, face and hands "as manifestations of a supernatural order", eliminating "deception and simulation".

"Marthe can only be explained by God", repeats Father Vignon.

“It's a mystery that is beyond us,” blows Marie-Hélène Gaillard.

Marie-Hélène Gaillard, Marthe Robin's great-niece, remembers “the traces of blood on her forehead”.

LP / Jean Delmarty  

"They are in belief, they do not want to hear rationality," observes, for his part, the historian of religions Jean-François Colosimo, director of Editions du Cerf, the Dominican house which published the Carmelite revelations.

“It is an unstoppable file.

We have nothing against Marthe Robin but it is a forgery.

There are fraudsters who end up believing in their mythomania, this is the case.

She could have been manipulated by those around her, ”suggests the publisher of the book which, he says,“ caused an earthquake as far as Rome ”.

Waiting for a miracle

The Vatican, however, leaves nothing to show, contenting itself with recalling that this “critical reflection” had already been “fully integrated and taken into account in the procedure which led to the recognition of the heroic nature of the virtues”.

Same echo within the Conference of Bishops of France which, while affirming that Father de Meester "knew the subject well", considers that the work "does not seem to bring anything new".

Officially, the allegations of the Belgian detractor do not change the fate of the Drômoise whose beatification process is "in progress".

The Châteauneuf-de-Galaure Charity Center, inspired by Marthe Robin.

LP / Jean Delmarty  

But that could go on forever… A miracle must be solemnly attributed to her so that she is beatified and granted the title of “blessed” before the process of canonization synonymous with holiness.

Until then, the divisive mystique should still generate a lot of ink.

Not enough, according to Father Vignon, to torment her from "up there".

“What we could think or perceive of it hardly interested him.

What interested him was to live his mission… ”

Source: leparis

All life articles on 2021-03-01

You may like

Trends 24h

Life/Entertain 2024-03-28T17:17:20.523Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.