(Daniele Rocchi, SIR correspondent in Lyon) "Secularization is a situation at which we should rejoice, a situation of happiness". Paul Valadier, university teacher of moral and political philosophy, spoke unusual words while delivering a speech at the French social week in progress in Lyon, on the subject "Religions, hope or threat to our societies?". "Today said Valadier with reference to French reality, we are free, we can speak in public, and we offer a precious service to a society too often inclined to pessimism. The Church announces its message of hope. If it does not fulfil this task, the Church must question itself; it must look inside itself. It cannot reduce itself to either defensive or doleful attitudes". The Church, he added, "above all, is the people of God inside society, using different faces and ways to describe the reasons of the Christian faith". This presence, he commented, "denies the negative connotation which media try to convey through a campaign in which the Catholics are silent victims". This problem "cannot be solved through attitudes of simple denunciation or defence, but is to be tackled he concluded through a joyous token and with a higher media competence, because the face of the Church is a beautiful face and should be conveyed well, through a language which everybody may understand".
