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For the first time, the president of the French bishops, Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard, has expressed a robust position on the secularism of the State that has been dividing French public opinion over the last few months. “There cannot be religious freedom if there is not freedom of expression and the freedom to communicate one’s own thought, not only within interpersonal relations, but also in society as a whole”. These remarks are contained in the address given by Archbishop Ricard on opening the plenary assembly of French bishops held in Lourdes from 4 to 9 November. “In France today said Ricard this public reference to the faith raises difficulties in some sections of public opinion”. Those who support a “complete secularization of society” believe that “religion should reveal itself only to the eyes of individual consciences, and that its activities should be relegated to places of worship and the declarations of its members be for internal use only”. For people of this persuasion “there is neither legitimacy nor space for the public manifestation of the faith”. Citing other examples, Archbishop Ricard referred to the difficulties that chaplaincies are encountering in state schools following the law that prohibits the ostentatious display of religious signs. He also condemned the “liberticide” dangers of the bill on curbing discrimination of sexual character (in particular against homosexuals). “Is a new law needed for all this?” asks Ricard, adding that “the penal code is enough to provide the necessary sanctions against crimes and misdemeanours”. The president of the French bishops also rejected the rebuke that is made of the Church and of religions in general of “proselytism”. “If that means rejecting any public expression of faith said Ricard the rebuke against religions is unjustified”. “We live in a society characterised by cultural pluralism, in a society in which the various convictions must be able to be expressed”. The debate on secularism and on the separation between State and Church had been re-ignited following the publication of a book (“La République, les religions, l’espérance”) written by the French Minister for the Economy Nicolas Sarkozy, in which the author proposes that the law of 1905, which he calls “obsolete”, be reformed. He also proposes that the construction and management of places of worship be funded with public money. It is no accident that Sarkozy was received in the Vatican by Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano and by the Pope’s ‘minister’ for foreign affairs, Msgr. Giovanni Lajolo, on Monday 8 November. The assembly of French bishops formed of 112 acting bishops worked on two important dossiers: one on catechesis (to which Ricard dedicated his closing address) and the other on the continuation of the reform of the Bishops’ Conference of France, which has already led to the nomination of a second vice-president, Bishop Jean-Louis Papin of Nancy.
