The alarm was sounded during a seminar at the Senate (on 11 September) on the conservation of the national heritage, reported by the French daily “Le Monde”. The watchdog that monitors the religious heritage maintains that in coming decades a good part of the 100,000 churches on French territory risk falling into ruin due to lack of funds for their maintenance. As far as the future of churches in France is concerned, “everything depends in large measure on the way in which the Catholic presence is recognized in French society”, said Monsignor Claude Dagens, of the French episcopate, in his speech to the seminar. He insisted on the need to ensure the survival of the innumerable small rural churches because they often represent “the most visible symbol” of a village and are a “place of encounter and social bonding to which attention needs to be paid”. “In our secular France – said the bishop – Catholic churches excite an interest that far transcends the practising population”. The magazine “Pèlerin” has published a survey from which it emerges that 53% of the French say they are shocked whenever churches in a dilapidated condition are destroyed; 21% say they are indifferent and 22% consider demolition “inevitable”.
