Towards
a New Relationship between Religion and State
in
Speech
given at the New Dehli Congress
Colloquium
of the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace (IRFWP)
February
1 7, 1993, Ashok Hotel,
It might seem odd to choose as a topic of a paper at a conference on
inter-religious cooperation the relationship between State and religions but in
1992 was the bicentennial year of the proclamation of the
According to leaders and thinkers of the French revolution, man was
first of all a citizen of the republic, a political and social being whose
religious life should be confined to the limits of his private, individual
existence. Even the 1789 declaration of Human Rights which was written mostly
by moderates states that "Nobody should be troubled for his opinions, even
for his religious convictions, so long as the manifestation of these opinions
does not trouble public order." (Translation mine).
Instead of "even for his religious convictions" and
considering the long history of religious conflicts and persecutions in France,
the authors of the French Human Rights declaration might have been better
inspired in writing "particularly or specially concerning his religious
convictions.
But there was worse to come. In 1792 was voted the civilian constitution
for the clergy (constitution civile du clergé), an attempt to make of
all Catholic bishops and priests civil servants chosen and paid by the State.
These members of the clergy had to pledge allegiance to the Revolution and were
encouraged to marry, marriage being considered as a sign of reconciliation
between the status of priest and the one of citizen. According to the same
constitution, Catholic orders of monks and nuns were simply forbidden, monks
and nuns being encouraged to marry with each other.
The refusal by members of clergy to accept this new "constitution
of the clergy" was punished by a death sentence or their expulsion out of
Even Maximilien Robespierre, leader of the
radical wing of the Revolution, realizing that attacks against Christianity
were going too far and could in the end undermine public morality or the
so-called Republican morality and bring about a kind of anarchy, spoke strongly
on Nov. 21 1793, a few months before his death, against the "dechristianization" of the country. In December of the
same year, the government called for a return to the freedom of worship.
Leaders of the revolution were seeking for a kind of synthesis between a
form of "enlightened" Christianity that would be "purified"
from its mysteries and miracles and the Republican moral values along which the
new generations would be educated to become good citizens.
A century later, after a long story of conflicts between the Catholic
church and successive governments, the 1905 law of separation between church
and State was much less radical than the revolutionary "constitution of
the clergy". Nevertheless, Pope Pius X felt urged to excommunicate all the
members of the French Parliament who voted for this law. According to this
legislation, the State should remain neutral towards all religions, letting
everyone free to express his beliefs, all religions being equal before the law.
The law declared that all Catholic churches built before 1905 were property of
the State but Catholics have had the entire freedom to operate these buildings
as they wished. So the government, even if it was then controlled by people
opposed to the Catholic Church, has to pass some kind of compromise with it,
something understandable in a country where 80% of the people have been
baptized within this denomination. The 1905 legislation had some good sides for
religions, including the Catholic church.
One surprising result of the 1905 law was that the State did respect
most Catholic holidays and still today in France, despite the decline of
Christian faith, there are so many public holidays such as All Saints Days, the
day of the Ascent of Jesus into Heaven, the Assumption of Maria day (August
15), the Joan of Arc day etc. during which nobody is supposed to go to work.
The most ardent defender of these holidays is the communist led General
Confederation of Labor Union which has been fighting
in recent years a severe battle in order to keep shops closed on Sunday.
Both Protestants and Jews have viewed favorably
the 1905 legislation which placed them on an equal footing with the Catholics.
At the turn of the century, Protestants have played a key role in favor of a school free from Catholic influence. Thus a
Protestant leader at that time, Ferdinand Buisson,
argued that in order to respect religious pluralism, the school had to avoid
any sign of belonging to a particular faith, even if this faith in the case of
Catholicism was the one of the vast majority of Frenchmen.
To better understand the hostile attitude of governments towards
Catholics then, it must be said that during most of the 19th century, the
Church hierarchy had opposed democratic or republican movements in
The neutrality of the State was interpreted by law-makers as a strict neutrality and all signs of belonging to a
particular religion in public places such as Bible, crosses, prayers or hymns,
had to disappear. Children were taught at school a republican morality "l'intruction civique",
teaching them how to become good, law-abiding citizens but no reference at all
to God or to religion was allowed during instruction civique
courses.
There was not such a thing as a "civilian religion" to use the
word of Sorbonne historian Pierre Chaunu, a set of
common Christian values shared more or less by all, whatever their particular
denomination. This "civilian religion" has been depicted by Alexis de
Tocqueville in his book "de la Démocratie en Amérique" as something typical of American society, a
vital ingredient for its cohesion.
French people have always expressed some amazement when discovering that
American presidents are taking an oath of office over the Bible, that the Bible
is being used in courtrooms or when they discover that there is a prayer room
in the Congress building. To see a politician during a campaign simply
mentioning the name of God is quite rare in
Through these simple facts, we can see that there can be very different
understandings of the concept of the separation between religion and State.
During the sixties and seventies, it seemed as if the hatchet between
the State and religions had been buried for good along with the Vatican II
council, the spirit of ecumenism and the general acceptance among Catholics of
democratic values. Private schools owned by the Catholic Church, mainline
Protestant churches and Jewish private schools came to be increasingly
supported by the State particularly after 1960 and the Debré
laws. To receive public funds, they had to pass a contract according to which
the government would check the qualification of teachers and whether or not the
educational program was fitting with the one of public schools.
During this period,
In 1981, when a Socialist, François Mitterrand, came to power, he had
among his campaign promises a project to "unify" the school system
and bring all Catholic, Protestant or Jewish schools under state control.
It was thought that this campaign promise would soon be forgotten but
this was not the case and two years later, the Education Minister, Jerome Savary, proposed a law to go ahead with this project with
the support of a Socialist-controlled parliament. Suddenly, a tide of massive
demonstrations and marches against this law orchestrated by Catholic
organizations and Parents' unions submerged the main French towns, with the
largest demonstrations in Versailles and Paris (June 1984) gathering each well
over a million people, numbers far higher than any demonstration organized by
labour unions. The demonstrations were made in the name of the freedom of
Parents to choose a school of their choice for their children and in the name
of the defence of free, private and mostly Christian schools against the
state-controlled education system. President Mitterrand could not neglect such
a massive movement: the Savary law was promptly
withdrawn and the Socialist-Communist coalition government was replaced by a
mild Socialist government who despite the discontent of teachers' unions did
not dare to speak again about unifying the education system.
This time, it seemed as if it was the end of an age with the failure of
the last effort of the secular "laïque" movement
to impose a control over education. The
The government became more and more involved in the restoration of old
religious buildings, monasteries and churches. It invested large sums in the
restoration of the St Denis cathedral where have been buried French kings among
many other initiatives.
Jacques Lang, the culture minister, played a key role in this effort.
Not only he helped for the restoration of the Chârtres
cathedral, one of the most beautiful gothic building in the world, and
supported the building just outside of the cathedral of a museum on religious
art,
but his ministry helped
financing largely the building of a new cathedral, the first being erected in
decades, in the town of
In interview over a breakfast table, Lang told me that for himself did
not believe in God, but he felt that in the name of culture, the government
should do its best to preserve the Christian heritage of
An important aspect of this cooperation between religions and state
concerns the teaching of religions at school from an historical viewpoint. This
was first put forward by Cardinal Lustiger, the Archbishop
of Paris who argued in an interview with the daily Le Monde
in October 1988 that the simple understanding of French classics, of authors
such as Bossuet, Pascal, Descartes, Racine or Corneille to name only a few, required a basic knowledge of
Christianity which was lacking among young people.
"If we are not able to transmit, or if we transmit badly to young
people this key part taken by Christianity in the edification of French
culture, then these young people will not only have no longer access to a large
share of our inheritance and will not understand the characteristics which are
giving to our civilization its identity and its coherence. We will then see a
similar fracture to the one which broke some ancient civilizations" the
Cardinal said in his interview. He was striking a sensitive cord in a country
where culture is highly viewed and the debate on the relationship between
religions and state rebounded. He asked for a "redefinition of the
separation between church and state" allowing the church to "continue
to transmit the religious memory" to new generations in the difficult
spiritual environment of modern societies.
Lustiger's call was
echoed by other Catholic leaders an somehow the government reacted positively
opening discussions with religious leaders,.
But as everything seemed to evolve in the right direction with a greater
religion-State cooperation, a new challenge appeared which this time involved
not the Catholic church versus the State but Islam.
Islam during the 1980's had become the second religion in
In October 1989, a year after Lustiger's call
for a "new laicity", a
turmoil erupted, opposing the ministry of education to Muslims.
The facts which caused this turmoil would look insignificant in another
context: two young high school girls insisted on wearing "Islamic
scarves" around their faces and their necks inside classrooms. Their
teachers felt the wearing of scarves meant a rejecting of republican values and
they soon received the support of the National Federation of Education (FEN),the powerful teachers' union.
The ministry of education, the Catholic and Protestant churches, leading
Socialist politicians, anti-racist organizations and the main newspapers,
almost everybody took part in the controversy. The two girls were first
expelled of the school, then after several weeks, some kind of arrangement was
passed with the school Principal which received much pressure from the
government to calm the situation and to find a compromise and the girls were
allowed to wear their veils outside class-rooms and during mealtime.
Again the FEN which wanted the expulsion of the two girls felt betrayed
as after the 1984 debate over Catholic schools by a government it had
supported.
This controversy revealed that there was still a gap to bridge between
Christians and Muslims.
Christians were worried that as they were progressing with the
government towards a good cooperation, the growth of Islam which was not viewed
favorably by many French people would hamper all this
progress and bring them back to an hostile
confrontation with the State. Lustiger, one of the
most outspoken Catholic leader, said bluntly to the
daily Le Monde (Nov.3.89) "Muslims will need at
least 30 years" to understand how they should cooperate with the State and
find their place in society. It was argued that Islam as a religion rejected
did not accept or understand the religion-State separation concept.
Since then some steps have been taken in the right direction such as
regular meetings between Muslim, Jewish, Christian leaders on Religion-State
issues or the founding of the Ecole Laique des Religions at the end of 1992. One purpose of
this school is "to show the common values shared by religions" and it
has received the support of leaders of the main Faiths.
But all the steps have not been in the right direction. We have seen
recently anti-Christian pamphlets distributed by Muslims and the main Christian
radio, Radio Notre-Dame, airing this January a program in which a priest
commenting on the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24) explained that Mohamed was
among the false prophets who would appear before the return of Christ. Also,
there is a widespread intolerance towards Islam which shows no significant sign
of a decline. In several towns, the population has been vigorously opposing the
building of Mosques.
In order to advance towards a better cooperation with the State, some
lessons should be and have to a certain extent been drawn from the 1989
controversy. It is clear that a dialogue with Islam is an absolute requisite if
we want to defuse tense situations. Muslim leaders have accepted the idea of a
formal dialogue with the government with the founding of the CORIF (Council on
Islam in
Another lesson to be drawn from this controversy is that cooperation
with the State will not bring fruits if the main religions in
Bernard
Mitjavile
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