Church launches new digital ID card to ensure priests are fit to celebrate

“Just flash this QR code. We arrive on a web page and, immediately, we will have the green color which will say that this priest can celebrate”, indicates the Bishop of Troyes Alexandre Joly, spokesperson for the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF). He holds in his hand a plastic card on which we find his photo and a QR Code. By scanning it, if the card is orange, the powers of the priest are limited because of his inexperience or a sanction, and if it is red, “He can’t celebrate at all, no matter what.”

>> Child crime in the Church: around forty victims have received compensation, one year after the Sauvé report

The identity documents, called celebrets, of each bishop, priest and deacon, will be digitized by the end of the year, this represents 17,000 people in France. The measure had been voted on by the bishops during their plenary assembly in November 2021, after the publication of the Sauvé report which revealed the extent of pedocrime in the Catholic Church. This generalized system will make it possible to better follow the men of the Church and to check at any time if they still have the right to exercise.

A map updated every year

But the faithful will not be able to ask to see the celebret. “It is intended for parish priests, a sacristan, a cathedral steward or a sanctuary rector”, explains Msgr. Alexander Joly. The information will be updated once a year, and immediately in the event of serious misconduct.

The objective is to better follow the men of the Church, “because when the priests have holidays, they go to celebrate in holiday places, they accompany pilgrimages and supervise groups of young people”, emphasizes Ambroise Laurent, deputy general secretary of the CEF. It is also a question of generalizing the identification card, which is already the case in other countries.

“We would have liked the distribution of a file”

This new digital system does not convince Olivier Savignac, co-founder of Parler et revivre, an association which collects the words of victims of sexual violence. “The Catholic Church in France is very aging, there are many people of a certain age who oversee religious ceremonies. Do they have the skills and training? Because you have to flash a QR code , it’s quite technical.”

“Of course, there are color codes, but ultimately we don’t know what’s behind it.”

Olivier Savignac, co-founder of the association Parler et revivre

at franceinfo

Olivier Savignac would have liked even more transparency. “One can ask the question if it is not yet a form of inter-self. We would have liked the distribution of a file, in particular about the abusers, the aggressors, as is the case in the United States, where there is a list which can be consulted at the level of the dioceses and in a public way. In France, this is not the case.