Speech by Dominique Rouquete: The private college inaugurated on Saturday, March 26, 2022 in Copargo is named after Michel Loiret. This inauguration is the culmination of the faith and stubborn work of a group of six people, including Anysie and Gildas Legonou, and the financial support, provided mainly by the association “Objectif Solidarité”, which allowed the construction of the buildings accommodating 4 classes of 25 middle school students and the supply of water by a borewell, a pump and a water tank. 

For my part, I gave the presential address in the name of the association for this event, I had wanted to talk about Michel Loiret to the students. I had known him since 1979. In addition to our meetings in France, I went to visit him in Benin five times between 1980 and 2008. Without him, Objectif Solidarité would not have been created, Anysie and Gildas Legonou would not have come to settle in Copargo, and therefore the college would not exist, or at least, not in the same way… I wanted to testify about who Michel Loiret really was.

But how do I deal with these boys and girls who had not been able to know Michel, either because they had not yet been born when he left Copargo in 2010, or because they were too young to remember his 14 years of presence here?

How can we imagine today all the repercussions, all the questioning for the generation of priests to which Michel Loiret belonged, resulting from the holding of the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 in order to take into account the emancipation of peoples and the evolution of societies and ideas, and above all aimed at returning to the purity of the origins of the Church through the direct questioning of the Gospels and the acts of the apostles?

How for these middle school students to imagine that when he arrived in Copargo in 1996, Michel Loiret was 60 years old, an age considered very advanced, which only 5% of people reach in Benin where half of the population is under 19 years old?

How to imagine the knowledge of Benin by Michel in the long term, he who after his national service in Niamey (Niger) as a replacement for a teacher, had come for the first time in 1961 in this country then called Dahomey, just after Independence, he who had lived in Djougou from 1966 to 1979, especially during the period called “communist Mathieu Kérékou 1”,  then in Natitingou from 1979 to 1980, then again in Cotonou as superior of the SMA priests from 1982 to 1988?

How can we imagine that, faithful to the intuition of Vatican II, during his stay in Djougou, he had learned Yom, the language of the Iowas and Tanékas, and that he spoke it fluently and wrote it thanks to the phonetic alphabet?

How can we imagine that, from 1989 to 1995, as a member of the provincial council that ensures the international governance of the African Missions, he was in charge of the confreres of Africa, he had thus visited all the countries where they worked, and he had discovered many other African realities?

How can we imagine that this 60-year-old man rich in all these experiences had come to Copargo in 1996 with great happiness to resume a missionary activity “in the field”, while the parish community held in a small chapel of 50 places?

How can we imagine the work accomplished and the momentum aroused by Michel Loiret in Copargo in 14 years of presence, all the beautiful secular or religious constructions, especially in 2005 the beautiful church of 500 seats and especially what he was most proud of, the translation into Yom of the Gospels and lectionaries, and the composition of about forty songs in this language?

How also for the middle school students imagine, when the bust of Michel enthroned in front of the parish wears a white cassock with his row of small buttons, that he has never worn such a dress, that he was dressed in the European style and put on the dawn and stole only for the celebrations?

How for these college students to imagine that he would have considered that succeeding in studies could lead to becoming a farmer, miller or carpenter as well as a civil servant or professor because he had spent his youth in an agricultural village and his father was just a carpenter?

How for these young people to imagine the simplicity of Michel Loiret, ^5th of a family of 14 children, his joy watching a football match and his happiness in the evening to drink an herbal tea in the “salon des étoiles”?

How can we also try to render the way michel Loiret lived as a missionary the “Good News”, with the evidence of taking a sincere interest in the Other, especially if he is different from oneself?

Be interested in the other to understand. When we came as a family in 2003 and 2005, Michel questioned our children much more than we did. He really wanted to know their way of perceiving the world. He did the same with all the religious traditions that surrounded him. He tried to understand them better and better, without making value judgments or a look of superiority. For him, to believe that the “Kingdom of God is near” was to believe that it is already around us and that it can already be seen in other religious traditions, as we can perceive it in the Old Testament.

Be interested in each other to learn. When I attended the formation of 20 permanent catechists from 15 cultures in northern Benin in 1980, the daily sessions focused on a theme. Michael began by having a text from the Old Testament read, for example an excerpt from Job to deal with the misfortune that befalls. He then asked everyone how this theme was evoked in his tradition, what words, proverbs or tales were used. He wrote the answers on a large board. Then he launched an exchange between catechists to question the similarities and differences in perception. The knowledge finally taught was therefore the result of a sharing without an overhanging effect of a master.

Be interested in the other to respect him. While germination is never really over, Michel did not bother to separate “the wheat from the chaff” and thus avoided “collateral victims” by an excess of zeal.

Be interested in the other to meet their expressed expectations. Michael spoke of the “way of Jesus” only following a clearly expressed request, once respect and trust had been established. But then, like the sower, he generously addressed the word in the direction of all the grounds, the ploughed field, the stones, the grasses or the path…

Taking an interest in the other to make a friend. Despite what sensible people might think and say, Michel went out incessantly in search of new workers and paid the workers of the last hour, with the same packed and abundant measure of benevolence as those of the first hour.

I wanted to convey all this to these middle school students in my inaugural speech.  But how can we avoid a speech that is necessarily too long and share the full meaning of what it meant to study in a college named after Michel Loiret?

The students presented sketches that triggered hilarity when teachers were depicted. As for me, I tried to transmit the vision of the development of Father Michel Loiret (1936-2014), based on a thorough knowledge of the language (Yom), traditions and local realities, and the formation of people. By its open aspect, this project responds perfectly to it. We also unveiled a plaque and cut the ribbons on the entrance gate and on the water tower. Then the festivities continued with a meal (rice chicken fish) served on the tables in the classrooms. Afterwards, the middle school students started the dances thanks to the sound system.

Dominique Rouquete