Pope Benedict XVI urged Christians to make their voices heard in France and other countries that have strong traditions of secularism, saying Friday that politics and religion must be open to each other.
The pope embarked Friday on a four-day trip ”” his first to France as pontiff ”” that will take him from the presidential Elysee Palace to the Roman Catholic shrine in Lourdes.
Benedict was greeted by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, at a Paris airport, where a military band in plumed hats played a fanfare. Later in Paris, the pope was to address a gathering including Muslim leaders on the second anniversary of a speech that heightened tensions with much of the Islamic world.
Traditionally Roman Catholic France is wrestling with its changing religious landscape, and how to reconcile it with the secularism that underpins the modern French Republic. The country has a growing number of Muslims whose visible customs, such as wearing headscarves in public schools, have raised the hackles of officials determined to preserve the boundaries between church and state.
[url=http://www.vulcanhammer.org/?p=1108]He made a very interesting statement regarding the relationship between Christians and a very secular state like France, which I translate and present here.[/url]
Good link, vulcanhammer, thanks for posting it.
The difference between the American and French Revolutions was sharp and clear. The overthrow of the old regime in France included the overthrow of the Catholic Church’s heavy involvement in political life. A statue of the goddess Reason was enthroned in Notre Dame cathedral, and anti-Christian writers like Voltaire were very influential (and far more vehement than Deists like Thomas Jefferson and thomas Payne). And though the RC Church has made a valiant comeback, France is indeed far more secularized than the US. There, the famous “separation of Church and State” has evolved even more quickly into the DIVORCE of Christianity and culture, or at least between Christianity and public life.
As usual, I welcome the Pope’s call for a vigorous renewal of the Church and a bold reassertion of its proclamation that Christ lays claim to ALL aspects of our lives, including the social and political realm. Even the Catholic Church recognizes that France is now a mission field, like the rest of Europe.
This is one more bit of evidence, if any were needed, that we Christians in the western world or global north face the daunting challenge of re-evangelizing Europe (and North America too). And a post-Constantinian, post-Christendom era like ours demands that we adopt a radically new, post-Christendom style of church life, in order to do that and bear the fruit that Christ expects of us.
David Handy+
The French need to wash the blood of their aristocrats, whom they indescriminately murdered, children, women and men, off of their hands.