Michel-Bernard de Vregille, general moderator of the Community: The community had become a “Big Boat” with tensions in its government
Newsroom (13/03/2025 11:30, Gaudium Press) The General Moderator of the Emmanuel Community, Michel-Bernard de Vregille, explained that the Emmanuel community has become ‘a big boat’ with ‘many internal challenges: the growth of the community, the very different international realities, the need to inculturate the charism and the complexity of our organization’. There were ‘tensions in the community government around these issues’ and ‘Cardinal Farrell felt that an Apostolic Visit was the most appropriate way to respond to our request’.
In fact, the Emmanuel Community has expanded to different parts of the world: France, Belgium, Rwanda, Spain and Latin America, especially in Colombia, Nicaragua, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba and Brazil.
It currently has 13,000 members: 225 consecrated people, around 275 priests and 100 seminarians, and 10 bishops have emerged from its ranks. In Rome, since 2016, the community has been responsible for the convent and church of Trinità dei Monti.
The Holy See decides to make an Apostolic Visit
In a letter dated 6 March 2025, addressed to the members of the Emmanuel Community, Michel-Bernard de Vregille announced that the Vatican was organizing an Apostolic Visit to this public Association of the Faithful.
He explained that ‘the governing bodies of the community worked on the theme of governance at the summer seminar in July 2024, where it was realized that it was necessary to review our methods of operation’.
Because there were ‘differences of opinion between the members of the councils in their analyses and in the improvements that could be envisaged, the international council and I wrote to Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, the community’s ecclesiastical assistant, to ask for the Church’s help and advice’.
He added that discussions were also held with Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, to whom the Emmanuel community reports as a public association of the faithful.
Thus, ‘on 25 February, Cardinal Aveline informed me that Cardinal Farrell, in the light of the information presented, considered that an Apostolic Visit was the most appropriate way to respond to the request for external help made by the General Moderator and the International Council. Such a visit is currently being prepared.’
The Emmanuel Community
The Emmanuel Community was born out of a charismatic prayer group in Paris in 1972. Upon receiving its name ‘Emmanuel’ from God, which means ‘God with us’, the community received its vocation: from a personal experience of God’s love and presence in their lives, to bring it to the world in all the daily circumstances of life and also through common evangelisation projects.
It was recognized by the Holy See on December 8, 1992, and definitively in 1998. It was erected as a Lay Association of Pontifical Right on 20 June 2009.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
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