Dear Friends,
I want to thank you heartily for your concern, your action or your prayer along these last five years. Thanks to you I have never been alone. Thanks to you, Partenia diocese has not been forgotten. A new period begins, bringing hope. It is good news that makes many happy. Testimonies full of emotion have poured in. A nun wrote to me: " It is the best day of my life"
I let you know the two letters that we exchanged.
Let us be happy for this time of new beginning, we have the feeling
that many things are still possible,
Kindly yours.
Jacques GAILLOT
Bishop of Partenia
Monsignor Jacques GAILLOT
3-5, rue d'Aligre
75012 Paris
Lyon, May 5, 2000
Dear Jacques,
On May 13, we will meet in Lyon. I am happy that you have been
able to accept our invitation to join us to listen to the Word
of God with our Christians brothers.
I thought that this nearby meeting would offer the opportunity
to express the communion we experience every day. We have been
hurt, you first, but also the Bishops of France, by what happened
a little more than five years ago. Even if every body does not
have necessarily the same understanding of the past.
In agreement with the Permanent Council and after the meetings
you had with several Bishops and with myself, I can assure you,
in all sincerity, of our communion in the faith and in the service
of the same Gospel.
All of us, we try hard to serve, and to serve the poor. Every
day you give evidence of the desire to serve. You do it with
a liberty of commitment of your own, and in a different way than
us. But it is important that the Catholics, and maybe more largely
the public opinion, know that the communion between us as brothers
is real, even if it is lived in a specific way. I would be happy,
of course, if you could also tell me that we are in full agreement
on this matter.
At every occasion, we will concelebrate together around the unique
Table of Eucharist. Beyond the decisions made, the tensions happening
from a still difficult situation, you stay really our brother
among the other Bishops.
With my fraternal regards
+ Louis-Marie BILLE
Archbishop of Lyon
Paris, May 10, 2000
Dear Louis-Marie,
I am deeply touched by your statement and that of the Communion
of the Permanent Council which recognizes my activity towards
those who are excluded. Many will rejoice: those who never stopped
to ask for such solidarity action like those who did not believe
it could happen. One of them rightly expressed it:" Let
the poor recover their dignity by reference to you. May you be
recognized by them"
The decision made by Rome on January 1995 has raised a lot of
misunderstanding and has hurt some Christians and non-Christians.
I do not forget the Bishops who suffer from it. However that
has given me the possibility to be a "Bishop in another
way" and to go innovating elsewhere with the love of the
Gospel. Partenia is a diocese without boundaries; it has become
a place of freedom for those from "outside".
I am happy to see the Bishops of France welcoming new paths for
the mission, without trying to put me in preexisting administrative
categories.
For the proclamation of the Gospel, I am happy to demonstrate
my communion with the Church. A sign will be made next May 13
in Lyon, staying at your side, and also during the different
celebrations of the Jubilee.
Faithful to the testimony of Jesus,
With my fraternal feelings
Jacques GAILLOT