(LifeSiteNews) — I have done the count. Of the 91 French bishops called to unite themselves to the act of consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (counting the bishop in the Armed Forces and subtracting most vacant sees), 81 will certainly do so on Friday, March 25. Almost 9 of 10.
Two others, Bishop Philippe Christory of Chartres and Bishop de Dinechin of Soissons, have been named by information websites as joining, but their participation was not announced via their official media. No doubt that they will be participating. That makes 83 of 91.
Of the small number that remain, there is nothing to suggest that they will not join in this long-awaited consecration: Not all diocesan websites are up to date, or are their Facebook pages, and not all diocesan communication services are able to respond promptly when called upon, when tiny dioceses are involved.
Only one diocese, Agen in the south of France, seems to have announced neither the consecration that will take place in Rome by Pope Francis nor the participation of its bishop, Hubert Herbreteau, and it has not replied to a request for information at the time of writing. It would not be surprising if he were to join, so widespread has been the support of the bishops of France for the consecration.
Six other dioceses – Aix and Arles, Auch, Digne, Langres, Orléans, Pamiers – announced the Consecration ceremony on the front page of their websites without giving details of their bishop’s possible participation. But the importance given to the consecration by diocesan communication services leads one to believe that the bishops are mobilized in one way or another, and will also join.
One remains to settle the score. He is the black sheep, if one may say: Bishop Jean-Paul Gusching of Verdun, has not refused to participate but made the decision to do something else. As can be found on the diocesan Facebook page, Bishop Gusching decided to interpret that Pope Francis, in announcing that he will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, will do so by “inviting the world’s peoples to pray together.” From this, he deduced that an “interreligious prayer” would be in order, not in a church or during a Catholic service but at the Ossuary of Douaumont, where lie so many soldiers who died near Verdun in the First World War.
“It is in this highly symbolic place of reconciliation and peace between peoples that Mr. Abdelkrim Aït El Kaid, Imam of Verdun, Mr. Jean-Claude Levy, representative of the Jewish community of Verdun, and Monsignor Jean-Paul Gusching, Bishop of Verdun, invite everyone to join them,” the diocesan website proclaimed. There is little chance that the imam and the rabbi would want to consecrate anyone or anything to the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Heart …
This move earned Bishop Gusching the color red on my spreadsheet, where, between yesterday and today, nearly all of the others gradually turned from gray to green, leaving me in grateful wonderment.
Gusching is the only one of his kind, and that is the paradox of the situation. What popes far more traditional than Pope Francis had never managed to do or had not wanted to do – to consecrate Russia specifically and precisely to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with the bishops of the world – is precisely within the reach of our current pontiff. And it is all the more difficult to say “no” to him because it was the Catholic bishops of Ukraine who insisted that he respond to the requests of Our Lady of Fatima. It is Pope Francis who is making her image flourish throughout the world. It is he who is obtaining that she be invoked by the whole world under a name that the “moderns” had largely rejected.
Even Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, commenting on the message of Fatima in 2000, said that this devotion to the Immaculate Heart was surprising “for people from the Anglo-Saxon and German cultural world,” going on to comment that “in biblical language, the ‘heart’ indicates the center of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior orientation.”
This is true. But who does not understand what is the Heart of Jesus, which did not keep a single drop of his Precious Blood, entirely poured out for us? And that the heart of a mother – a Mother like the Virgin Mary – never stops beating for her children, however wayward?
And so a progressive Pope, who has created so much confusion and who did not appear as fortifying the faith of his flock, seems to have been given the grace of courage in order to do what his predecessors did not: to name Russia. At this point, what matters is that he has the authority to take this step, whatever his motives or background. The important thing is the consecration. Even if politics are involved, religious or otherwise, there will be that fact.
Coming back to the French bishops, after having looked around the diocesan websites and pages, and having asked many diocesan communications departments what their response to the Pope’s appeal would be, the common denominator is genuine enthusiasm. Some bishops are even organizing processions – there will be one candlelit procession.
Many bishops have asked their faithful to join prayers in churches and parishes, going from Rosaries, Ways of the Cross, Vespers, Complines, Holy Masses and the like to silent Adoration. Most bishops have announced that they will read the act of consecration in their cathedral, some have chosen Marian shrines.
The bishop of Séez, Bruno Feillet, announced on his website that he will do the consecration kneeling before the altar at the basilica of the Immaculate Conception in his town.
Others, who for various reasons will not be in their own diocese, will do the consecration where they are: at a priestly retreat, or in a Benedictine Abbey, as will be the case for Bishop Dominique Rey of Toulon.
In Paris, Apostolic Administrator Georges Pontier will preside Mass at the Basilica of Montmartre and the consecration will be made in the presence of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
May she overlook our failings and accept the trusting supplications of her children! For two months now, more than 2,500 public venues in front of churches, statues of the Virgin Mary and other oratories have seen little groups of faithful “pray for France” every week – in Austria, Germany, Canada, Italy and elsewhere. And not in vain, it seems!
