It looks like Europe’s most proudly secular country is about to become less secular.
The French Republic, belligerently secular since the Revolution, and whose separation of church and state is encoded in a 1905 law, may start according a special role to the Catholic Church; that at least is one interpretation of comments by President Nicolas Sarkozy that a new, “positive secularity” should recognise the central place of religion in the country. “It would be crazy to deprive ourselves of religion” he said – “[it would be] a failing against culture and against thought”.
His remarks came on Friday as he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to France, who is visiting to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the supposed appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes. Opposition figures united in condemnation of the President – to such an extent that on Sunday the Pope had to reassure nervous anti-clericalists that the Church does not seek to usurp the state.
France and Britain could hardly be more different….
Read it all.
Urmee Khan: Why Anglican England is better than secular France
It looks like Europe’s most proudly secular country is about to become less secular.
The French Republic, belligerently secular since the Revolution, and whose separation of church and state is encoded in a 1905 law, may start according a special role to the Catholic Church; that at least is one interpretation of comments by President Nicolas Sarkozy that a new, “positive secularity” should recognise the central place of religion in the country. “It would be crazy to deprive ourselves of religion” he said – “[it would be] a failing against culture and against thought”.
His remarks came on Friday as he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to France, who is visiting to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the supposed appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes. Opposition figures united in condemnation of the President – to such an extent that on Sunday the Pope had to reassure nervous anti-clericalists that the Church does not seek to usurp the state.
France and Britain could hardly be more different….
Read it all.