Post by Bozur on Apr 9, 2005 20:48:55 GMT -5
NYTimes.com > International
France Urged to Skip Official Papal Honors
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: April 8, 2005
PARIS, April 7 - France may be a predominantly Roman Catholic country, but it is also officially secular, with separation of church and state one of its most sacred tenets.
So while the death of Pope John Paul II has brought widespread mourning, there has also been pressure on the French Republic not to honor him officially.
For the moment, the political instinct to please voters has won out: the government is marking the pope's passing in a variety of ways across France, and President Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, will attend the funeral Mass at the Vatican on Friday.
But defenders of the country's republican tradition as well as some foes of the center-right government have charged that by doing so, the French state is violating a 100-year-old law dictating church-state separation. They contend that any gesture that gives the appearance of favoring one religion over another is forbidden.
They have even given the alleged sin a name: "papolatrie" or pope-worship.
"The law is very clear: the state cannot interfere in religious life," Yves Contassot, an adviser to the mayor of Paris and a leader of the left-leaning Green Party, said in a telephone interview. "The government is giving the impression that it is an advocate for one religion, and that religion is Catholicism. And that's an abuse of power."
Shortly after the pope's death was announced, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin sent a communiqué ordering that France's tricolor flag to fly at half-staff on all public buildings, including schools, for the next 24 hours and on the day of the funeral.
In his communiqué, he also told all prefects, the representatives of the central government across the country, to "attend services" conducted by "the ecclesiastical authority in the memory of His Holiness" - an order, essentially, to go to church. He urged them to pay their condolences to local bishops.
The center-right mayor of Marseille, Jean-Claude Gaudin, reacted by giving Friday morning off to any employee who wanted to watch live coverage of the pope's funeral on television.
By contrast, Gerard Collomb, the Socialist mayor of Lyon, decided not to lower flags in his city. Senator Michel Charasse, a Socialist and former finance minister, told France-Inter radio: "The French Republic should not descend to such a level. If the Dalai Lama were to die tomorrow, would we lower the flags to half-staff?"
From the outside, none of this should seem to matter much. After all, since early Catholicism, France has been called the "eldest daughter of the church" and 62 percent of the French people identify themselves as Catholic, according to a 2003 poll.
But the country is also struggling to shore up its secular identity after banning religious symbols, including Muslim head scarves, Jewish yarmulkes and large Christian crosses, from schools. Despite its apparently ecumenical nature, the ban is widely seen as aimed at keeping Muslim schoolgirls from wearing head scarves to school.
Thus, in some quarters, the government's decision to mourn the pope officially was seen as hypocritical.
"What does the flying of the flag at half-staff in front of the schools mean in this case?" the Parents' Federation of Public Schools, a nationwide organization, said in a statement. "How can the young understand this secularism at two speeds that then forbids the wearing of the veil but authorizes political and media excesses following the death of the pope?"
François Hollande, the Socialist Party leader, described the government's actions as "excessive."
Muslim and Jewish groups have stayed above the fray. But France's powerful Freemasons have weighed in, demanding a meeting with the Interior Minister to win guarantees that the strict separation of church and state and the republican ideals of the nation will be respected.
"For the government to interfere in religion and then only focus on the positive things about the pope is damaging to France," said Hugues Leforestier, the secretary general of the French Masonic Association, in a telephone interview.
The government has defended its decisions to honor John Paul II, who made eight trips to France as pope.
Mr. Raffarin's office said that flying the flags at half-staff was customary for "heads of state who enjoyed privileged relations with France." Mr. de Villepin said that all five French republics had honored popes.
Even Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the center-right governing party the Union for a Popular Movement, and a political enemy of Mr. Chirac, has labeled the complaints "a ridiculous polemic."
The conflict, though, distracts attention from the real religious crisis, both in France and in Europe as a whole: the withering of the Catholic faith.
Only about 12 percent of French Catholics attend Mass every week. Meanwhile, weekly attendance of French Muslims at Friday Prayer is soaring.
Not a week goes by when a French Catholic cleric does not publicly call on the faithful of French to rediscover the faith.
"So many of the Catholics of France lack the simplicity of the faith," said Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, in a telephone interview. "There is so much in society that is imbalanced, with too much emphasis on the corrupting power of money. It's a shame. We have to find a way to reconnect, to make faith a living thing."
France Urged to Skip Official Papal Honors
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: April 8, 2005
PARIS, April 7 - France may be a predominantly Roman Catholic country, but it is also officially secular, with separation of church and state one of its most sacred tenets.
So while the death of Pope John Paul II has brought widespread mourning, there has also been pressure on the French Republic not to honor him officially.
For the moment, the political instinct to please voters has won out: the government is marking the pope's passing in a variety of ways across France, and President Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, will attend the funeral Mass at the Vatican on Friday.
But defenders of the country's republican tradition as well as some foes of the center-right government have charged that by doing so, the French state is violating a 100-year-old law dictating church-state separation. They contend that any gesture that gives the appearance of favoring one religion over another is forbidden.
They have even given the alleged sin a name: "papolatrie" or pope-worship.
"The law is very clear: the state cannot interfere in religious life," Yves Contassot, an adviser to the mayor of Paris and a leader of the left-leaning Green Party, said in a telephone interview. "The government is giving the impression that it is an advocate for one religion, and that religion is Catholicism. And that's an abuse of power."
Shortly after the pope's death was announced, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin sent a communiqué ordering that France's tricolor flag to fly at half-staff on all public buildings, including schools, for the next 24 hours and on the day of the funeral.
In his communiqué, he also told all prefects, the representatives of the central government across the country, to "attend services" conducted by "the ecclesiastical authority in the memory of His Holiness" - an order, essentially, to go to church. He urged them to pay their condolences to local bishops.
The center-right mayor of Marseille, Jean-Claude Gaudin, reacted by giving Friday morning off to any employee who wanted to watch live coverage of the pope's funeral on television.
By contrast, Gerard Collomb, the Socialist mayor of Lyon, decided not to lower flags in his city. Senator Michel Charasse, a Socialist and former finance minister, told France-Inter radio: "The French Republic should not descend to such a level. If the Dalai Lama were to die tomorrow, would we lower the flags to half-staff?"
From the outside, none of this should seem to matter much. After all, since early Catholicism, France has been called the "eldest daughter of the church" and 62 percent of the French people identify themselves as Catholic, according to a 2003 poll.
But the country is also struggling to shore up its secular identity after banning religious symbols, including Muslim head scarves, Jewish yarmulkes and large Christian crosses, from schools. Despite its apparently ecumenical nature, the ban is widely seen as aimed at keeping Muslim schoolgirls from wearing head scarves to school.
Thus, in some quarters, the government's decision to mourn the pope officially was seen as hypocritical.
"What does the flying of the flag at half-staff in front of the schools mean in this case?" the Parents' Federation of Public Schools, a nationwide organization, said in a statement. "How can the young understand this secularism at two speeds that then forbids the wearing of the veil but authorizes political and media excesses following the death of the pope?"
François Hollande, the Socialist Party leader, described the government's actions as "excessive."
Muslim and Jewish groups have stayed above the fray. But France's powerful Freemasons have weighed in, demanding a meeting with the Interior Minister to win guarantees that the strict separation of church and state and the republican ideals of the nation will be respected.
"For the government to interfere in religion and then only focus on the positive things about the pope is damaging to France," said Hugues Leforestier, the secretary general of the French Masonic Association, in a telephone interview.
The government has defended its decisions to honor John Paul II, who made eight trips to France as pope.
Mr. Raffarin's office said that flying the flags at half-staff was customary for "heads of state who enjoyed privileged relations with France." Mr. de Villepin said that all five French republics had honored popes.
Even Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the center-right governing party the Union for a Popular Movement, and a political enemy of Mr. Chirac, has labeled the complaints "a ridiculous polemic."
The conflict, though, distracts attention from the real religious crisis, both in France and in Europe as a whole: the withering of the Catholic faith.
Only about 12 percent of French Catholics attend Mass every week. Meanwhile, weekly attendance of French Muslims at Friday Prayer is soaring.
Not a week goes by when a French Catholic cleric does not publicly call on the faithful of French to rediscover the faith.
"So many of the Catholics of France lack the simplicity of the faith," said Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, in a telephone interview. "There is so much in society that is imbalanced, with too much emphasis on the corrupting power of money. It's a shame. We have to find a way to reconnect, to make faith a living thing."