The State was wrong to give proof of “militant imperialism with legislation that wounds and humiliates”. But equally mistaken is a religion that “in order to find its place in public life, attacks individual liberties and refuses to accept the common heritage”. That’s the opinion of Cardinal Bernard Panafieu, archbishop of Marseilles, who in a statement issued in recent days by the French Episcopal Conference appeals to the country to combat “every form of religious and lay clericalism”. In his statement the archbishop expresses the Church’s position on the new law on the secularism of the State, which has given rise to widespread controversy in France and aroused a series of demonstrations against the decision to ban religious signs in schools and in particular to prohibit Islamic girl students from wearing the Islamic headscarf. Panafieu points out that Islam, “since it has had no experience of plurality of religion or of secular institutions, has difficulty in finding its place in a lay and pluralist society. It may therefore have the tendency to retreat into its own identity and express its particularity through ‘ostentatious’ exterior signs that may appear a provocation”. “That’s why added the archbishop I perfectly understand why a government should vigorously re-assert the principles that govern social life and the laws that are incumbent on all citizens”. But the Catholic Church considers that “in the specific field of religious signs and their visibility, it is better to act by persuasion and not by compulsion”. The cardinal, therefore, urges French citizens to combat every form of religious and lay extremism. “We have he said a tradition of integration which is a precious heritage, a capacity to accept differences and respect diversities. Let us remain faithful to our roots so that the country may experience a form of secularism that is open, peaceful and peacemaking”.
