At the end of June, Bernard Dangeard passed away at the age of 78. He was a member of the Church and Peace Board from 2014 to 2018.
Bernard was married to Simone, with whom he had four daughters. As a conscientious objector, he spent two years working in Morocco as a development volunteer. Bernard’s skills and commitments spanned a wide range of areas: he was a botanist, a farmer and horse breeder, a member of Lanza del Vasto’s L’Arche community, and an activist involved in non-violent campaigns against nuclear power, and at Larzac, an expert on food self-sufficiency in the Global South. And then there is what matters most to him: faith, his relationship with Christ, and drawing strength from his word. That is precisely why he is part of a group that is learning the Gospel of St Mark and the Psalms by heart, and in order to embed the word within the body, the word is expressed through movement. It is this depth, lived out through such a diverse range of commitments, that has made him a valued and respected friend within Church and Peace. A friendship trip took him to Mar Moussa in Syria, a monastery dedicated to existential dialogue with Muslims, and another trip in 2015 with members of Church and Peace, which took them from Hungary through Serbia to Kosovo. Bernard had to step down from Church and Peace in 2018 due to ill health.
During one of the virtual meetings between Church and Peace members from the French-speaking region, he shared a testimony with us, which you can read in French on our website.
We offer our condolences to Simone and their daughters. We remain deeply grateful to this man, whose life was rooted in faith and who was both shaped by and a source of inspiration through his profound spirituality, political awareness and love for creation.
