It is not modern media campaigns or spectacular pastoral initiatives that are drawing people to the Church along the Seine today. Rather, it is the crucified Christ who is becoming the deepest magnet for those who are searching, says Bishop Matthieu Rougé, ordinary of the Diocese of Nanterre. Writing in the French daily La Croix, the bishop describes a quiet yet radical spiritual shift in France: a sharp rise in adult baptisms, packed Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday liturgies, and record numbers of Parisian high school students joining the pilgrimage to Lourdes.
“Grace, not strategy”
Bishop Rougé emphasizes that these developments are not the result of carefully crafted pastoral plans or apostolic strategies. “This is the work of God Himself — simply grace,” he affirms.
He adds:
“What Jesus Himself foretold is coming true: ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’”
For the French prelate, the letters sent by catechumens requesting baptism are a living witness to this grace.
“Many of these testimonies come from people who have been wounded in life, sometimes deeply — yet they have found light in the passion of Jesus and in His compassion,” the bishop writes.
Evangelization through the Cross, not words
What unites these stories is not logic, but mystery — not persuasive arguments, but the profound suffering and love of the Crucified.
“What strikes me deeply,” the bishop explains, “is how often these people who are discovering or rediscovering faith have been evangelized not by clever rhetoric or demagoguery, but through the mystery of the Cross.”
The Cross, he says, has become a sign of hope for them, the beginning of inner healing.
New Catechumens — A Challenge to the Baptized
Bishop Rougé urges the faithful to attentively listen to the voices of new believers. Their stories are not only testimonies of conversion, but also a call for our own.
“In a world torn by war, among so many wounded people, Christians will only be ‘pilgrims of hope’ if we fix our gaze on Jesus — who, on the Cross, reveals the truth of sin in order to free us from it, and through His glorious wounds transforms the wounds of our broken humanity,” the bishop affirms.
A New Face of the Church Along the Seine
According to the bishop of Nanterre, the Church in France is now called to embrace a deeper catechumenal model. Local communities must not only welcome newcomers but also lead them into the paschal mystery — into the lived experience of salvation.
Bishop Rougé also notes a fundamental shift in the Church’s structure:
“The era of majority Catholicism is fading — a form of faith that, for all its strengths, was sometimes rooted in habit. In its place, we see the emergence of a new Catholicism of belonging: smaller in number, but deeply committed, rooted, and creative.”
This “new Catholicism” resists easy categorization. As the bishop highlights, it includes both traditionalists and those engaged in social or ecological causes — all united by a living experience of faith that shapes their identity.