Something to say

A “journey of getting to know him that will enable people really to understand who the Pope is; it will be a meeting with the man'”: that how Jean-Dominique Durand, historian at the University of Lyon sums up, in a briefing to SIR Europe’s correspondent Giovanna Pasqualin Traversa, the expectations and “what’s at stake” in the imminent apostolic visit of Benedict XVI to France, which is due to begin on 12 and end on 15 September. “The main challenge – explains Durand – is that of getting to know and understand this Pope whom the media have often painted as a hard-line prelate, rigidly attached to doctrine, whereas the French have already had occasion to perceive his far more complex and multi-faceted personality”. That’s why people “are showing great interest and curiosity” in Benedict XVI, who “among other things has a close link with French culture: not only does he speak our language fluently, but he’s also a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques”. One of the central moments of the Holy Father’s journey will be his meeting with the world of French culture at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris, during which Benedict XVI will give a speech to a qualified audience of Catholics, exponents of other religions and non-believers. “It’s difficult to predict what he will say, but at a time of the crisis of culture – suggests Durand – the Pope will probably underline its irreplaceable value in the formation of the person; a formation that, if it is to be integral, requires at once a high intellectual and spiritual level”. Another central issue that will be faced during the Pope’s visit to France, continues Durand, “is the question of secularism. It had already been underlined during the previous visits of John Paul II, and it has to be said that something is changing in the direction of a more open form of secularism that is less perceived as dogma and more as a way of enabling very different cultures to live together”. “France, perhaps more than other countries, has long been a strongly multicultural society, and within it secularism is increasingly experienced not as a tool against the Church and against religion, but as a means of fostering co-existence”. This is not a recent development and it was reinforced, in Durand’s view, “also by the famous address that was given at the Lateran by President Sarkozy, during his trip to Rome last December, and that opened many channels in relations between state, society and religion, in particular with the Catholic Church”. It’s a process that is neither spontaneous, nor was it born from nothing: “Already in 2002 – explains Durand – the then Socialist Jospin government had established the so-called institutional dialogue with the Catholic Church; a new dialogue, aimed at the exchange of ideas on the most serious problems of the day to try to find solutions to them”. “Undoubtedly Benedict XVI’s journey is taking place in the atmosphere created by this important climate of dialogue and I think it could be an occasion to emphasize the peaceful presence, devoid of any aggressiveness, of the Catholic Church, and, beyond it, of religions in general, in French society. It’s a way – concludes the historian – to demonstrate that religions really do have something to say also in a secular society in which there is a clear separation between Church and State, and that their message can be a proposal for the good of everyone: a proposal on which dialogue can be conducted in a serene way without the prejudices and the entrenched positions that make any kind of debate impossible”.