Half a million spectators in theaters, around thirty press articles, invitations to radio and television; released in cinemas in mid-November, the film Stay a bit, written and directed by Gad Elmaleh, is a great commercial success. A feat that this intimate story, questioning the definition of Judaism and the promise of Christianity, woven by the humorist who we knew less cerebral in the role of the transvestite of Pet or that of the high roller coconut; this time, the subject rises: the funny story therefore of a fifty-year-old man back from the United States, whose mother, a bubbly practicing Jew, discovers a statuette of Our Lady of Lourdes in the suitcase. In secret, he walks towards baptism, a conversion experienced as an explosion by his Sephardic family.
The scenario makes no secret of its autobiographical part, underlined by a confusing cast: Gad Elmaleh plays Gad Elmaleh, his mother Rebecca plays his mother, his father takes on the role of his father, his sister that of his sister, his friends are his friends, the priest in a cassock officiates in the Sainte-Cécile church in Boulogne-Billancourt. And then, the petulant Sister Catherine. Black and white monastic dress, in real life she is called Sister Catherine, responsible for welcoming young people in Lourdes. The relationship between the hesitant Jew, a bit crafty, and the nun sparkles throughout, what a team this duo united by the Virgin, whose main actor says he feels the celestial tenderness. The affair could end there, each one believing what he wants, if the most famous of French comedians had not chosen, to evoke this journey, the community of the Beatitudes, to which belongs, in the film and in reality, Sister Katherine.
This film was thus transformed into an advertising object, giving this small charismatic Catholic movement a positive audience – accommodating to conceal its dark baggage. Stay a bit thrilled the community. Trailer of the film, photograph of the actor arm in arm with the nun on the front page of his site, all finely titled “Gad Elmaleh lifts the veil on his spiritual path” and accompanied by the comment: “Released on November 16, we will rush there with joy”, joy in capital letters. To support the point in his interviews with the denominational press, Gad Elmaleh says his admiration. So in Pilgrim, on November 7, to the question “what binds you to the community of the Beatitudes?” he replies: “We say the Beats (smile), a spiritual thunderbolt”. This religious journey is a matter of his intimacy, except that he displays it with relish, confident for example of having received “a small medal blessed by a brother of the Lamb”, a cousin movement of the Beatitudes, rebelote.
Sister Catherine, nun of the community of the Beatitudes and Gad Elmaleh, film Rest a little
/ © Laura Gilli
A pilgrimage and dinner with the traditional cardinal
It’s an understatement to say that for the past four or five years, the star of stand-up comedy has become the muse of traditional cathos. Present in Rome during the canonization of Charles de Foucauld in May 2022, he participated the following summer in a session in Paray-le-Monial, stronghold of the Emmanuel community, another charismatic movement. He is photographed there in the company of Hubert de Torcy, a member of the said community, a business leader, figurehead of these Catholics concerned about a France that they believe is too secularized, compromised in deadly values. Hubert de Torcy appreciates Gad Elmaleh, “I invited him to Paray-le-Monial”, confides the one who promoted his film in the Catholic media.
The HEC graduate, founder of a free Catholic newspaper, the invisible, runs Saje, a company specializing in what Americans call the “Faith production”, or Christian films. It is he who produces Win or die, epic narrating the Vendée wars in 1793, or Unplanned, the story of a dispensary practicing abortion, and he again who distributed The Chosenseries dedicated to the life of Jesus, produced by the American evangelist Dallas Jenkins, whose rights have been bought by Canal +, episodes available on the MyCanal platform and first season broadcast on C8, three entities belonging to Vincent Bolloré, boss of Vivendi.
But precisely, what a coincidence, the Breton, an assumed conservative Catholic, admires the conservative theology of a Guinean cardinal, Cardinal Sarah, of whom in June 2021, the weekly Christian family recounts “the touching encounter” with… Gad Elmaleh. The article narrating this improbable meeting is illustrated with a photo of the actor, beard and white shirt, alongside the former archbishop of Conakry, during a dinner organized at the Parisian foyer Jean Bosco, a place of reception for expensive students. in the heart of Vincent Bolloré. Moreover, its subsidiary Canal + pre-purchased the film Stay a bit, distributed by Studio Canal. Decidedly, that the ways of the Lord are varied and those of Gad Elmaleh lean oddly.
The body exhumed from the vault of Pont Saint-Esprit
Sylvaine Coquempot, school life assistant in Brittany, knows nothing of the frequentations of Gad Elmaleh, whose sketches have always made her laugh. This fall, however, she followed the promotion of Stay a bit while choking. How to assume to highlight, even indirectly, this movement to which belonged her sister found hanging from the curtains of her room at the age of 21, drama of which she describes the agony in the weekly Golias in September 2022? How can the popular actor make the Beatitudes benefit from his notoriety? How to tolerate that the site of this one promotes the film, thus ensuring a nice spotlight? How to ignore that the association was denounced in a book, The Betrayal of the Fathers, published in 2021, dissected in two documentaries, including the devastating one by journalist Sophie Bonnet, A sect at the gates of the Vatican, broadcast in 2011, more than ten years before the twenty-three days of shooting the film?
All the more intriguing that the Beatitudes do not pretend to adhere to the great washings belatedly started among the Catholics, jostled by an accumulation of scandals. The movement stands aside from any introspection, refusing to join the device of the independent commission on sexual abuse, opened in 2018, as it has not signed the ethical charter of the Conference of Religious and Nuns of France.
Devoted to repairing the outrages of which she considers that her sister was the victim, Sylvaine Coquempot exhumed last July, accompanied by a lawyer member of the Center against mental manipulation (CCMM), the coffin of her eldest from the vault of the Beatitudes in the Gard. “She could not continue to rest alongside her executioners, she was abused by one of the founders, she suffered violent exorcisms there, she hanged herself following a lack of care, her suicide was disguised as a mystical death”, says the mother, who for two years has been writing to all the bishops, alerting the Vatican, demanding accountability from those responsible for this tragedy. Then, on October 7, she sent two letters to Gad Elmaleh, posted to the two companies producing the film. “I note that your film involves members of the Beatitudes community in its promotion. I have great admiration for what you do and it is with sadness that I fear that you are the victim of manipulation by a group on which weigh heavy suspicions of sectarian aberrations and whose members have been the subject of numerous criminal convictions.
His writings never received a response. They have, it seems, been read. Five days later, in fact, Sister Catherine, whose presence was announced alongside the actor on the television set of the denominational channel KTO, did not appear there, her absence was not mentioned and the name of her community was not mentioned. pronounced. In the aftermath, the Beatitudes site suspends any reference to the film, removes the trailer, removes the photo of the actor and the nun. A careful pause. Then, measuring the general indifference and too happy with the windfall, she puts this promotional device back online. On December 23, 2022, Gad Elmaleh was received by the Pope at the Vatican and broadcast on Twitter, on this Christmas Eve, his photo alongside the leader of Catholics, holding in his hands the poster of the film, the short related text has no connection with the Beatitudes. In the community, we rub our hands. The wife of the editor of the Beatitudes, Claude Brenti, just retired, is the translator of Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the pontifical household, created cardinal by the current pope. This makes it easier to make appointments in Place Saint-Pierre. And the little saving publicity stunt.
The cantor and the 57 abused children
The actor and director did not wish to answer our questions, asking his communicator, Anne Hommel, to speak: “Sister Catherine means a lot to him, she is a close friend, she is in no way sure of a drift of the religious community. Gad Elmaleh met a person, he did not investigate a community, he knows nothing about it.” This friendly lightness raises questions. Because there is no need to investigate to learn that the association deserves circumspection; a few minutes of research on the Web, are enough to learn that this one is suspected of spiritual abuse and sexual violence.
Founded in 1973 by Gérard Croissant, alias Brother Ephraim, and his wife Josette, the Beatitudes are part of these new communities born after the Second Vatican Council. In 2020, it is recognized as an “ecclesial family of consecrated life”. The term distinguishes it from a religious order, shaped by a centuries-old history, such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, Trappists, etc.; it adopts its rules, practices, financing, liturgy without submitting to the control of Rome. Collective life, pooling of goods, it attracts priests, single people and families, practicing praises, dances, ceremonies close to trance called “rest of the spirit”, miraculous cures, divinations and if necessary exorcism. 1,500 members on the threshold of the 2000s, present in around thirty countries.
The scandals explode from 2008. Pierre-Etienne Albert, the cantor and best friend of the founder Ephraim, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2011 for having sexually assaulted 57 children. Ephraim, revoked by a canonical decision of the Church, was forced to leave the community which, in November 2011, recognized him as “guilty of serious breaches” towards nuns “including a minor girl”. However, even today, his prayers appear on their site. His brother-in-law, Philippe Madre, general moderator for fifteen years, was accused before an ecclesiastical court of “sexual abuse by a person in authority”, in 2010, the archdiocese of Toulouse declared him “guilty of the alleged criminal acts”. Neither he nor Ephraim had to answer to civil justice. Another person in charge, Jacques Marin, animator of retreats, is also suspected of sexual abuse, he dies before the end of the legal proceedings. Last January, the weekly The cross implicates two priests, directing the Agnès-de-Langeac course, two displaced priests, never prosecuted, one of them having occupied a position of n° 2 at the Beatitudes until last year. In the process, reports are sent to the prosecutors of Toulouse, Draguignan, Autrey and to the king’s prosecutor in Belgium. At the same time, it appears that the members work on a voluntary basis, not contributing to any pension fund, an effective deprivation to reduce costs and prevent them from considering a life elsewhere.
Following these revelations, the Vatican appointed in 2010 a pontifical commissioner to clean up. Statutory adjustments are imposed, a ripolinage with which the community is satisfied. “The work is not done, this community remains in collective blindness and its fund structure is sick, deviant, confides this senior official of the Catholic Church of France. In my opinion, it is not reformable, as long as its origins are flawed, which is why the film Stay a bit is scandalous, what levity, what compromise, why choose the Beatitudes when there are 18,000 religious in France?” To believe that Our Lady of Lourdes is not always a wise counsellor.