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New Ways of Being Christian Communicators in the Global Village
Biography of Pierre Babin
Youth - Birth of the Fundamental Orientation
I was born in 1925 in Paray le Monial, France, a place of pilgrimage to the Sacred Heart, and a place of strong and pious religion. I remember pilgrims arriving from foreign countries singing on the roads, 50 Jesuits from Africa, Asia, coming for a year of retreat, walking in their cassocks... My imagination was touched? Also, my parents were very religious and moral. It has given me a mixed influence of oppression by rules, a dominant power of strong images and demonstrations, and - in another way - a kind of attraction and fascination for "the sacred" described by Otto, for a supernatural reality, for an absolute, which is not clear but powerful.
I have had a fundamental reaction:(1) Searching for an absolute ideal and (2) Escaping from an authoritarian background. I was "le terrible", following bad examples. So, some drama in my family, so much that, alone, my parents put me out... in a boarding school, at 60 Km, while my 2 sisters and brother stayed at home...
Another escape was important for me: escaping from German soldiers during the Second World War. German soldiers were often 2000 in my small town of 8000 people. I admired their force, their strong songs and - on the other hand - I escaped while making dangerous actions or games against this army (e.g. breaking the huts of soldiers in the woods, crossing boundaries without a passport and helping prisoners to pass. etc).
Later, this turbulent discipline of adolescence makes me think a lot about religious education:
- The religion is more a reaction than a "mundane" accomplishment
- The importance of the age of adolescence: a religious education can increase, in youth, some strong and basic feeling of dissatisfaction and attraction to great values, like beauty, justice, and sense of poverty.
- The image of Jesus. From the experience of this time, I received a fundamental image of Jesus that expressed the mystery of his personality: Jesus escaping from his parents in the temple of Jerusalem, at the age of 12! I preach this Jesus in his first historical revelation: a history of escaping. That's Jesus: that's a Christian!
Vocation as reaction and escape
My vocation, as much I can understand, was rooted in this ambivalent reaction. (1) Attraction for perfection, for ideal, for Jesus, for an heroic situation. (2) Reaction against any form of oppression, particularly in religion or education. My vocation expresses this double and ambivalent reaction.
At the age of 17, I escaped from the occupied Zone of Germans to enter in the OMI novitiate in a small town of the South of France, La Blachère. Why Missionary Oblates? My imagination was deeply moved by the stories of Oblates in the North Pole: I wanted to be an heroic missionary in the North Pole. Not a teacher at all! Maybe it was the reason why I did not enter the Jesuits, despite their proximity to Paray le Monial. Later, I became a teacher: God has punished me!!! Also, I remember a strong attraction to the poor. There was the poor I have visited and helped as an adolescent in Paray.
Also, in my family 2 missionaries, one Oblate in South Africa, one in India!
A personal crisis of faith. I'll always remember like a turning point in my spiritual evolution during my scholastic. This experience of crisis became the base of the future books: "crisis of faith", "adolescence" and "faith". My fundamental question was: is religion giving you full life, strength (German soldiers), full
accomplishment (in which happiness), liberty? I remember a "terrible crisis", thinking that Jesus of the Gospel is valid but not as much as in the Church. So, where is the place of a full life? My spiritual director said: "You are in a circle, break the circle where you are talking with you and your ideas. It depends on you to be free, energetic and to live fully… Identify yourself with Jesus in the Gospel… and give salt to Christian life, to the church, to catechesis, instead of criticising the church..."
My inner vocation was to make the old religion to become young and fully alive, a religion of salt, a religion of life. This sentence that secretly animates my thoughts and actions: "if, in Christianity, a prescription, a rule or a dogma is not good news for humans, I don't preach that. If I don't find the good news' aspects, I don't believe it. It cannot really be Christian". I agree to suffer but to bear more fruits... If God calls me, it is to bear more fruits.
Early ministry - Influencing factors and Context of first
publication (Between 1943 - 55 / Ordained in 49)
Chance to finish my theological studies with a pastoral work in Vico (Corsica) and in an Oblate college (St Foy les Lyon). Chance to be sick, a sickness between body and spirit..! - Vico:Corsica: study and first ministry in a rural country. Beautiful and wild place! Happy the one who studies in an inspired place of mountains and sea, place of great nature! This time - this place - has given me the basic experience and idea of the Symbolic Way. I have experienced the sentence of St. Bernard. "You will learn more in the woods than in books. Forests and rocks will teach you secrets that nobody can ever reveal to you". Going to different villages in Corsica, around Vico, preparing the communion of kids. I learnt the way of Jesus in Palestine. Going to villages in the mountains, I learnt how to behave with horses and asses. Happy the one who learns the basic pedagogy of relationship and nature! Maybe for me, it was the time like the one of Jesus superstar.
- Chaplain in an Oblate college... I finished my theological study, and was at the same time in charge of catechesis of adolescence.
So, I never stopped during my formation (except during the novitiate) a work of youth ministry.
- Major influences with. some great master: Joseph Colomb, Sulpician. A master to think by yourself, to integrate affectivity and dreams. He has had a great influence in the church of France. Later, he was condemned by Rome about a "progressive catechesis". I was enthusiasted by J. Colomb, and he showed his trust, asking me to start a course in religious pedagogy of adolescence in the Catholic University of Lyon, in 1955, and later in Strasbourg's University. Another great master impresses me a lot by his intellectual exigency and his personal concern on personal human questions: Leon Barbey, a Swiss pedagogue.
After his formation given in the Catholic University of Lyon for 2 years, I never forgot the psychological aspect of the religious communication: I started to deeply link the human development with spirituality and to discern the spiritual dimension of ages, of human crises, of social situations and relations.
The book on Friendship (Herder and Herder. N.Y 1967), Involvement (id. 1970), Methods (Herder 1968) received a lot of influence from this great pedagogue.
"Options" (Herder and Herder, N.Y 1965) represents for me a systematic expression arising from the experiences of first catecheses with youth, from many experiences of the Corsica camps, and from the encounters with great masters and pedagogues.
Main ideas (for this first period of religious communication) :
All aspects of dogma or morality must be always understood and presented as a good news for human beings.
- Discern first of all, how good human nature is: believe in the possibilities of youth, of the modern art and media!
- Group media with personal expression is the basis for a mass communication. (Photo-langage - Ed. Du Chalet )
- An alive and happy liturgy with young expression - songs, music and gestures - is the summit of communication of faith. (" Avec le Seigneur ", Ed. Du Chalet)
- Audiovisual creation and action for the poor, in a poor area, are the 2 main ways to educate a deep and personal faith.
People and context for movement toward the international, ecumenical dimension
1) Becoming international.
A grace I'll never forget and has changed my life orientation: going to Canada (1957) to teach pastoral youth, and visiting US, under the advice of Fr Albers omi from Rome. I was a French "provincial", sure of my world and proud of my culture: in this experience, my boundaries fell down. After leaving the country of my childhood, after leaving the culture of my fathers (omi novitiate- scholasticate, theologians in university), this experience broke my jail: it was a turning point to enter in wholeness.
Hard experience: I was singing the old songs of cow boy: "No father, no mother..." In this immense land, I experienced solitude and sickness. I was repeating: How great is God to be... not only French but American! Two elements were definitive in my mind : The French culture is just one among others. Many others way to be human exist, each one with a great value. If you want to grow, to be fully human, break the jail of your family, nations etc... It is an echo of Abraham's story that I interpret later, like the way of life, the way to fullness. Abraham became the archetype of my life. I think and I teach: to have a fruitful experience, you must have this experience before 30 years: after, too late, the walls of you jail are too comfortable, too strong!
2) Teaching in different parts of the world.
Due to a specialization in religious psychology of youth and catechetics, and due to the books written (some translated in 6-7 languages). I was invited several times to different continents all around the world. It was an extraordinary experience of human being: the birth of a world without boundaries..... The entrance door is not competence (it helps!) but first of all poverty, a poor heart asking for understanding and sharing.
I was asked to teach: - Latin America (Manizales Columbia, Chile, Buenos Aires, Brazil, Lima, Cochabamb in Peru) - Africa (Cameroon, Senegal, Egypt, etc.) - Australia, Sydney, Melbourne etc. - Asia, starting at the Philippines in the international center of SJ.
EAPI in Manilla: There, I have had connection with Asian culture and I started to produce audiovisual montages and video with students. Later, very importantly, the Kuangchi TV Production Center run by the
Jesuit in Taïpei where a long companionship started with Father R. Parent to produce and teach TV (He became the director of Jescom in Rome) - Long connection with Japan, Sophia University and with Sr Shoko Shirai DSP. After many years, I recognized the strong influence of Thailand and the Buddhist culture, and Korea (The Graduate School of Mass Communications, Sogang University in Seoul with Dr. Clotilde Lee, at Catechetical Institute of Seoul dioceses with Fr Basil You, and different places with the Daughters of St Paul. - North America - Canada (Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Edmonton, Toronto) - US (Winooski, Vermont; Boston, Washington; Miami, Dayton) - Europe mainly in Italy, Spain, Portugal and France.
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