The declaration of repentance by the Bishops of France at Drancy on Sept. 30, 1997, provoked much reaction in public opinion. It was not well-received by all Catholics. The article proposes to explain the spiritual grounds of this action (and not the particulars of how it came about) in the call of the Pope to prepare ourselves for the jubilee of the year 2000. Going through the necessary steps it tries to clarify the points which can cause difficulty: the relationships between history and memory, between personal sin and «collective» fault, between the holiness of the Church and the sin of her faithful. The article affirms that our faith can only be strengthened by such an action.
