Forum 104, listening to current quests for meaning
After four months of closure during the lockdown, the cultural and spiritual center on rue de Vaugirard in Paris reopened at the end of June. A renewed program and more readable proposals, particularly around the world of work, have been developed in recent weeks.
Article by Claire Lesegretain,
A strange beginning for Frédéric Rochet. Two months after his arrival, on January 8, as director of Forum 104 in Paris, he was forced, due to confinement, to close this cultural and spiritual center on rue de Vaugirard. It did not reopen until June 22.
During these four months, however, various proposals continued to be made on the Web, giving the Forum 104 team the opportunity to refine the difference between face-to-face sessions and digital sessions. "It's crazy what digital allows you to experience," smiles this warm man, member of the Christian Life Community (CVX, of Ignatian spirituality), who from 2005 to 2016 directed the Hautmont Spiritual Center, near Lille, before steering the destiny of the Social Weeks of France - in conjunction with Dominique Quinio, its president since 2016. During these four months, the Forum 104 team launched " a major work on the form ", in order to " renew the way of presenting " the multiple proposals. The program for the year 2020-2021 contains new sections and a new graphic design (see below).
"Frédéric's mandate is to give greater visibility and legibility to this alternative place, which has sometimes given the impression of a shambles," smiles Father André Antoni, an Assumptionist monk and member of the board of directors of the Bayard group. It was in fact the Augustins de l'Assomption (owner of Bayard, publisher of La Croix ) who took responsibility for supporting Forum 104 in 2014. And it is an Assumptionist, Father Dominique Lang, who pastorally runs the Notre-Dame-des-Anges chapel next to "104".
"We have not removed anything from our catalogue, but we have tried to enrich it to meet current demands," adds Tanguy Châtel, sociologist of religions and secularism and president of 104. "Forum 104 has always had the ambition to be a little ahead of societal developments and quests for meaning," he continues, recalling that after the interest in the 1970s for oriental practices and that of the 1990s for personal development and the quest for identity, we are now seeing questions " around ecology and management", in particular to help achieve " more coherence between private and professional life."
With a view to making concrete proposals on these emerging subjects, Forum 104 has just set up partnerships with Christian entrepreneurs and leaders, enlightened leaders, entrepreneurs of the future, the Fondacio community and the HEC Spiritualities Club. "There is a demand at the moment," continues Tanguy Châtel, "for business leaders and managers to become social actors, capable of feeding their deep motivations from philosophical, spiritual and religious sources. It is in the DNA of Forum 104 to sniff out new trends and to be the place where they are worked on."
Already two meetings proposed in recent months to reflect on how to live one's spirituality in business have been a great success, "with 250 people the first time and a little over 100 the second," says Frédéric Rochet. "People were excited by our educational approach, bringing together testimonies and discussions based on a reinterpretation grid."
Such proposals remain in line with the major ecumenical and interreligious orientations of the Congregation of the Assumption which, due to its presence in the Far East (Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines) for thirty years, wants to be attentive, according to Father Antoni, "to Eastern wisdom and interspiritual dialogue". He even dreams that the 104 could one day become " a place to reach the different audiences of Bayard". Why not imagine proposals for spiritual awakening for young readers of Pomme d'Api or sessions to help older readers of Panorama retire. "Such a non-institutional place," Father Antoni again evokes, "has a role to play in helping those who frequent it to rediscover their spiritual identity, Christian or not."
Link to source
https://www.la-croix.com/JournalV2/Le-Forum-104-lecoute-quetes-sens-actuelles-2…
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