Jacques Gaillot - Media Attention and Controversy

Media Attention and Controversy

As soon as Bishop Gaillot had taken place in Évreux he began to engage in activities that may be said to have cost him his position. During his first Easter message he wrote: "Christ died outside the walls as he was born outside the walls. If we are to see the light, the sun, of Easter, we ourselves must go outside the walls." Following this he then stated that: "I'm not here to convince the convinced or take care of the well. I'm here to support the ill and offer a hand to the lost. Does a bishop remain in his cathedral or does he go into the street?. . .I made my choice." Within months Gaillot had begun to act on his word.

In 1983, he supported a conscientious objector before the court in Évreux. During the yearly assembly of the episcopate, he was one of the two bishops (of a total of 110) voting against the episcopate's text on nuclear deterrence, which supported having nuclear arms as a legitimate deterrent.

In 1984 he angered numerous Catholic authorities by refusing to support the movement in defence of French parochial schools.

In 1985, he supported the First Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and met Yasser Arafat in Tunis, being embraced by the future Nobel Peace Prize Laureate in a private audience. Perhaps the most notable event he performed in 1987 was attending, by invitation, a special session of the United Nations in New York to speak out for disarmament. The first amount of considerable media attention paid to Gaillot came in January 1985 when he signed an appeal on behalf of underpaid Catholic school teachers; also signing the appeal was Georges Marchais, the head of the French Communist Party. This proved to be highly controversial, bringing about the start of a right-wing campaign against Bishop Gaillot. Within his own diocese, Le Figaro spearheaded the campaign. At this point Bishop Gaillot was described as being "a tool of the church's worst enemies"

In 1987, he went to South Africa to meet a young anti-apartheid militant from Évreux sentenced to 4 years in prison by the South African régime. There he also appeared at a demonstration where some Communist militants were also demonstrating. In order to accomplish this trip, he had to renounce going with the diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes, a move that attracted criticism. Further, in the same year he also announced that the French Bishops "remain too preoccupied by the correct functioning of the church and its structures." This only ensured that the responses to Gaillot when he later attacked the right wing French political party the National Front were even stronger. Also in 1987 Gaillot traveled to Athens to show solidarity with a boatload of Palestinian refugees.

In 1988, during a closed-door session of the assembly in Lourdes, he advocated the ordination of married men to the priesthood. After the proceedings had finished Gaillot spoke to the press about the discussions held and also promoted his own viewpoints. By promoting a revision of clerical celibacy and the use of condoms, he caused considerable tension with the French bishops' conference, the situation being exacerbated by the fact that in speaking to the media about the session, Gaillot had violated convention regarding assembly conclaves. He later defended his previous actions, remarking that "I never broke the vow of celibacy ... I only questioned it. But that's worse." Also that year, Gaillot took the unprecedented step for a Roman Catholic bishop of blessing a homosexual union in a "service of welcoming", after the couple requested it in view of their imminent death from AIDS.

In 1989, he participated in a trip to French Polynesia organized by the peace movement, asking for the end to French nuclear testing. He also participated in the ceremony of the transfer of the ashes of the late bishop Baptiste-Henri Grégoire (1750–1831) to the Panthéon, a necropolis for the great men of France. Grégoire had been instrumental in the first abolition of slavery, and the end of discrimination against the Blacks and the Jews during the French Revolution. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church had refused to give him the last sacraments because of Grégoire's acceptance of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Gaillot was the only French bishop participating in this ceremony. By this stage in his career, Bishop Gaillot had earned an impressive reputation, both positive and negative. The French journalist Henri Tincq wrote in Le Monde that " has the merit of saying out loud what many people in authority in the church think down deep."

Throughout 1989 Gaillot continued to cause considerable tension within the French Bishops' Conference, to the extent that the members of the episcopate voted to censure him. This disciplinary action came after Gaillot gave an interview to the publication Lui, the French equivalent of Playboy. Furthermore, he also gave interviews to leading gay magazines and lambasted the incompetence of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to judge the circumstances of homosexuality. At this point, the bishop offered his resignation to the Pope, should he feel it necessary to remove him; no such action was taken however.

Toward late 1989 he attempted concilatory movements, signing an agreement in which he promised "loyalty" and "docility" to the pope. This agreement did not last long however; within a week, Gaillot had distanced himself from the majority of other bishops by appearing on television to criticise the "feeble state of internal debate in the church" and express his feelings of grief that progress had not been made since the Second Vatican Council.

In 1991, he opposed the Gulf War, publishing a book called Open letter to those who preach war, but let it be waged by others. He also condemned the embargo on Iraq. By the end of 1991 the French Bishops' Conference had censured Gaillot three times, most recently for his intervention in Haiti, rousing support for Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Bishop Gaillot also caused controversy with a number of other actions. He was frequently condemned by others for his numerous television appearances, but justified them by claiming that if people still found a Bishop interesting, then they clearly still found the church interesting.

As well as this Bishop Gaillot also took a lenient stance with regard women who have had abortions, claiming he was not qualified to judge a woman who found herself in such a scenario.

By 1994, Archbishop Joseph Duval of Rouen, the President of the French Bishops' Conference was attempting to convince Gaillot to cease in his actions; Gaillot however responded by withdrawing his offer of resignation, desiring that the scenario not be reduced to the same response given by the Vatican in the case of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen.

At the height of the controversy that Bishop Gaillot caused during his tenure as Ordinary of Évreux he was the target of a bitter campaign to disparge his name. Unsubstantiated allegations of homosexuality, racism, anti-Semitism, and psychosis and neurosis were all made by highly placed authorities in the French clergy. Bishop Gaillot countered in kind. He branded Archbishop Duval an "ayatollah" seeking to impose "ideological uniformity" within the French Bishops' Conference. Further, he also compared the leadership style of Cardinal Gantin to those of the East German political police the Stasi.

Testament to Gaillot's strong yearning to reach out to the 'exiled' is the fact that by the time he left office at the Diocese of Évreux he had visited more prisons than any bishop in France's history.