Georges Finet

Georges Finet (born September 6, 1898 in Villeurbanne , † April 14, 1990 in Châteauneuf-de-Galaure ) was a French Roman Catholic clergyman, confidante of Marthe Robin and co-founder of the Foyers de Charité .

Live and act

Priest in Lyon

Finet came from an upper-class Lyon jeweler family. The older brother became a Jesuit, a sister Assumptionist . Finet attended the Carthusian boarding school in Lyon until he felt the call to the priesthood in the Basilica of Ars in 1915 and went to study theology at the French Pontifical Seminary in Rome (interrupted by military service as an officer from December 1916 to December 1919). In July 1923 he was ordained a priest in Lyon by Cardinal Maurin . After receiving his doctorate in theology in Rome (1924), he returned to the Diocese of Lyon and was first chaplain in Oullins . There he caused a sensation with his evangelizing energy among the workers and was transferred to the cathedral just a year later, where he worked until 1934 in pastoral care. In 1930 he miraculously escaped the Fourvière landslide disaster. From 1934 to 1939 he worked in the administration of the Catholic schools of the diocese.

Encounter with Marthe Robin

In 1936 he met the bedridden mystic Marthe Robin by chance in Châteauneuf-de-Galaure and was chosen by her to carry out the “Houses of Charity” ( Foyers de charité ) planned by her “under heavenly inspiration” . In the same year Finet led a retreat in Châteauneuf-de-Galaure with 33 women, from whom the first vocations arose. The Catholic girls' school (with boarding school) founded by Marthe Robin in 1934, now under the direction of Hélène Fagot and Marie-Ange Dumas, benevolently accompanied by Bishop Camille Pic (1876–1951) of Valence and local pastor Léon Faure (1873–1955) , had great success. Until 1939 Finet had a double existence in Lyon and in Châteauneuf. In Lyon he organized the regional Marian congress in 1939 and was appointed cathedral chapter. In Châteauneuf he led retreats, gave numerous sermons, especially on the communism that was strong in the area, and led (supported by Abbé Faure) the community that had existed since 1936, which was also inspired by the example of Thérèse Durnerin (1848-1905).

Working in Châteauneuf-de-Galaure

From September 1938 to August 1940 Finet was mobilized as an officer. He then took up residence in Châteauneuf permanently, was in daily contact with Marthe Robin for forty years and began building a large communal house (with a chapel for 170 people, completed in 1947). The first subsidiary houses were built in La Léchère (district of Grand Naves) and Les Pennes-Mirabeau (district of La Gavotte). Between Vichy , the Resistance and the German occupiers, his life was in danger several times. Marthe Robin pointed out that Hitlerism was far worse than communism.

Expansion of the community

In 1948 the "Great House" ( Grand Foyer ) was inaugurated in the presence of 1500 people. In 1954 a boys' school was opened in the suburb of Saint-Bonnet, and a year later a home economics school. Subsidiaries were built in 1950 in Roquefort-les-Pins and Besançon (La Roche d'Or), 1953 in Lyon (Notre-Dame-des-Ondes), 1957 in Poissy and Les Houches (La Flatière), 1959 in Baye ( Département Marne ) , 1960 in Rochefort-du-Gard , 1965 in Ottrott and Saint-Denis (Aude) (today in Colayrac-Saint-Cirq ), 1966 in Tressaint ( Lanvallay ), 1970 in Branguier ( Peynier ) and Courset , 1973 in La Ferté- Imbault , 1975 in Agen , numerous others outside France in Belgium (1957 in Spa , 1962 in Bonheiden ), in Luxembourg, in Switzerland (1939 in Bex ), in Spain and from 1958 outside Europe. In 1980 there were a total of 57 houses. Since the chapel in Châteauneuf was insufficient, a larger church ( Sanctuaire Sainte-Marie-Mère-de-Dieu ) was built there and consecrated in 1979.

Community crisis and recognition

When Marthe Robin died in 1981, the community was in a leadership crisis. From 1975 onwards, a colleague (Paul Larrive) had gained the trust of Finet in order to forcibly miss a statute of the order that she did not want , in cooperation with the also betrayed Cardinal Alexandre-Charles Renard and the Roman Congregation for Religious of the Community . Finet should have been replaced on the line in 1980. The community revolted against Renard, Larrive and Finet. The latter, after apologizing to the community for his personal mistake (Larrive), regained the trust of the houses and became with the support of the Bishop of Valence ( Didier-Léon Marchand ) and thanks to a visit by Joseph Madec (later Bishop of Fréjus -Toulon) reinstated in his powers. On November 1, 1986 (finally 1999), the Foyers de Charité were recognized by the Papal Congregation for the Laity as a private association of lay people with an international character .

The last nine years

After the death of Marthe Robin, Finet made numerous trips to houses all over the world in order to pass on his personal experience with the mystic. In 1983 he celebrated his 60th jubilee as a priest in Châteauneuf, and in 1986 the fiftieth birthday of the Foyers de Charité . On October 7, 1986 he met Pope John Paul II in Annecy , who paid tribute to his life's work. He died in 1990 at the age of 91. His Requiem gathered 5,000 people in Châteauneuf. Jacques Ravanel (1923–2011) succeeded him in the leadership of the community.

scandal

In May 2020, an independent commission leveled serious allegations against Georges Finet, who is accused of assaulting in his role as confessor.

literature

• Régine Levrat: Père Finet, 1898–1990. Fondateur des Foyers de Charité avec Marthe Robin . Salvator, Paris 2015 (foreword by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin ).

Web links

• Information on Georges Finet in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .
• Literature by and about Georges Finet in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• German-language website Marthe Robin

Individual evidence

1. ^ Régine Levrat: Père Finet, 1898–1990. Fondateur des Foyers de Charité avec Marthe Robin . Salvator, Paris 2015, p. 195
2. ↑ Celine Hoyeau: "Abus sexuels", in La Croix on May 7, 2020.