Should the stained glass windows of a church designed by a priest whose pedophile actions have been recognized by the diocese of Lyon be removed?
The subject opposes the mayor of Givors, in the Rhône, to the representatives of the victims of the paedocriminal Louis Ribes.
Faced with the complaints of the latter, the socialist Mohamed Boudjellaba, who wishes to keep the works, called on Pope Francis.
In a letter sent on April 7, he asks the head of the Church to “
support
” the holding of a “
national debate
”, in order to address the question in a “
deep and peaceful
” way.
Until his death in 1994, Father Louis Ribes, painter and draftsman, was suspected of having sexually assaulted hundreds of children in all the places where he intervened, sometimes during artistic workshops.
After acknowledging the accusations of rape and sexual assault of 49 victims who were then minors for events between 1950 and 1990, the diocese of Lyon undertook in January 2022 to remove the works of the priest remaining in the churches of the Lyon region. .
Easy thing for the tables, less for the stained glasses which still decorate six churches of the Rhone.
Among them, five are buildings prior to 1905 and therefore belong to the municipalities.
Dialogue stalled
Among the mayors of these municipalities, that of Givors categorically refuses to get rid of the works of the priest.
Recalling that it is a
“disused Romanesque chapel”
managed by a heritage association, he explains that the latter, in agreement with the town hall, does not wish “to
ask for a book burning
”
.
“
It is a cultural place, not a church, with no public money involved and where the stained glass windows were redone by a master glassmaker in the 90s, according to plans by Louis Ribes of course, but in such a way that it is no longer his work which is visible
", specified the mayor.
“
And if we condemn very firmly the turpitudes of Father Ribes, we wish to dissociate his work”.
The debate, according to him, goes beyond the strict case of Father Louis Ribes, nicknamed the “
Picasso of churches
”.
"
French society today finds itself fractured over (...) the fate of works by artists with a criminal past
," he explained in his letter to the head of the Vatican, citing in particular the artists "
Paul Gauguin, André Gide, Roman Polanski, Picasso, Bertrand Cantat
” or even the writer “
Céline
”.
Mohamed Boudjellaba therefore considers necessary a "
deep and peaceful collective reflection
", in the form of a national debate involving the Church, victims and academics.
"
I would like,
he continues to address the pope
, that Your Holiness could support this need for a national debate in order to appease a question that is a source of tension in society, and of pain for the victims
".
At the same time, another letter was sent to the Ministry of Culture and to the Secretary of State for Children to request the organization of a “
national debate
”.
Read alsoSexual abuse in the Church: a report by Catholic intellectuals points to the flaws and biases of the Sauvé commission
Fifteen days earlier, the mayor of Givors had received the Collective of Victims of Louis Rives and Be Brave France with his assistant in charge of heritage.
In his letter to the pope, he deplores their attitude of “
aggressiveness
”, judging any removal of the stained glass windows superfluous as long as additional means are not implemented to provide psychological “
care
” to the victims.
The latter, for their part, condemned remarks of “
incredible violence
” during this meeting.
“
The two elected officials remained insensitive to the suffering of the victims who clearly expressed that the removal of the stained glass windows (and their destruction) was an essential element in their reconstruction process”, they denounced in an online petition
. to demand the removal of the works, which collected some 5,500 signatures.
At the expense of the Church or the taxpayer?
Another controversial subject, the cost of the work to extract the stained glass windows.
The collective of victims and the association BeBrave
“demand that it be the Church which pays”
.
"We do not want public money spent to save money for the Church
," the association said in a statement.
On this point, the positions of the five Rhône municipalities concerned diverge.
In Dième, on the Beaujolais mountains, where two works persist in the nave, Mayor Hubert Roche had the promise of the diocese to cover all costs.
“
I am not going to commit funds from my commune, which is secular for works with a religious connotation
, he declared,
especially since it is not a question of degradations but of affairs of the diocese
”.
In Charly also, the mayor undertook in January to remove the stained glass windows of the "Picasso of the churches".
In Loire-sur-Rhône, the mayor for his part explained that he wanted to charge his municipality.
“I do not wish to put the diocese to contribution for this expense”
, declared the elected representative presenting himself as
“practicing Catholic”
, like
“many”
of his municipal councillors.
He insists on
"a certain financial ease"
of the municipality to carry out this work, which will therefore be done on public funds.