Post-Christian France

The way OUT of where we are

The Olympics Paris Opening Ceremony was Evil

I wrote yesterday about the argument that the creative director and others are making to walk back the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony travesty of featuring the “Last Supper.” The Paris Opening Ceremony was outrageous, blasphemous, disgusting, degenerate, and appalling. In a word: it was evil. Threesomes, crossdressing, a child present at a bachanalia, and - it appears today to be confirmed - the representation of Jesus as scantily-clad, heavy-set DJ aligned with the LGBT movement, surrounded by transgender models and cross-dressers. I tried to show yesterday that we should approach each of the individuals with charity in that we should not assume bad intentions. But we can absolutely call a spade a spade, and I regret not being even more explicit in my unequivocal condemnation of the event, as a whole. The Opening Ceremony was disgusting, inappropriate, and we should offer Masses and prayers of reparations for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, disrespected as He was.

That all being said, the Opening Ceremony in France was ultimately… PREDICTABLE.

Liberalism and the French Revolution

France is no longer the favored daughter of the Church. She has become a post-Christian nation. Why do I say the Opening Ceremony was predictable? Because this is the terminus of liberalism. The rally cry of the French Revolution of liberty, fraternity, and equality - drawing from the good fortune of the American Revolution by the way - are anything but what those words connote.

Liberty in the so-called “Enlightenment” means license to do whatever you’d like. Instead, true liberty is the right to do what we ought.

Fraternity in the Enlightenment notion means a social bond, a doing away with hierarchy, and the common cause of a unified and collective French identity. Instead, it ripped away the true brotherhood born from the open-side of Christ of Baptism, found only in the Church.

Equality meant a social and legal equality which sought to reduce the influence of the Church and the monarchy. It led, in quick measure, to a state-driven system of education which led people away from the Church and from ancient wisdom. Equality is found in the shared dignity of the human person as being made in God’s image and likeness. So, the attempt to ground equality on footing other than the Imago Dei is doomed to fall apart.

This liberalism led to the confiscation of Church property by the National Assembly in 1789. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790 mandated that the clergy must swear an oath to the state, or otherwise be branded as enemies of the revolution. The clergy were imprisoned and persecuted. In the September Massacres of 1792, many were killed.

The government of the revolution secularized the society. Churches were closed and public rituals banned. Many religious orders were prohibited from functioning. They even created a new pagan calendar in 1793 to replace the Christian one.

The Cult of Reason, which later became the Cult of the Supreme Being put on state-sponsored events that mocked traditional Christian practices. Catholicism was being destroyed and replaced by secular ideologies. The great Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris became the Temple of Reason and religious art, statuaries, and relics were desecrated and removed. There are even accounts of prostitutes being placed naked on the altars and worshipped as goddesses.

The Long Nineteenth Century

Under Napoleon in 1801, there was some level of peace restored between Church and state. But this was only after thousands of clergy, religious, and lay people were slaughtered by the liberal revolutionaries in the previous decade.

From 1814 - 1830, the Bourbon monarchy was restored and the Church regained some of its pre-revolutionary status. Nonetheless, tensions between the Church and the crown remained. Under King Louis Philippe, from 1830 - 1848, the Church seemed to favor the monarch, but there was a growing secularism and liberalism once more.

In 1848, the year of revolutions in Europe, there was yet another French Revolution. The role of the Church in the state remained on shaky ground. From 1870 - 1940, during the Third Republic, there was growing secularism which officially separated the Church and State in 1905. This removed funding for religious institutions and ensured neutrality for the state in matters religious. Many schools and hospitals were closed due to the withdrawal of state support.

Word War Two Until Now

During the Vichy government in World War Two, the role of the Church was split from clergyman to clergyman. Some resisted and some went along with the Vichy government’s collusion with the Nazis.

From the 1960s until today, France has undergone significant secularization. Church attendance has plummeted. Churches have closed. The clergy sex abuse scandal rocked the world, including in France. The role of women in the Church was seen as incommensurate with the values of the broader society. And, as we know well, the Church and the culture do not see eye to eye on bioethical issues, traditional marriage, and the broader role of religion in public life.

The Enlightenment did not end in France. It has continued to expand and develop. Liberalism is still a guiding principle. Secularism - known in France as laïcité - is a fundamental principle. Religion is separate from public life and governance.

On the philosophical front, existentialism and postmodernism are front and center. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida are all French thinkers. Individual freedom and responsibility exist in a world that has no inherent meaning, to the postmodernist. Narratives and truths are not so much relative as they are plural. There are many ideas and they can all be true just as much as none of them are true.

Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?

Historically, France was a Catholic nation. Today, it is secular. And this is not a bland secularism. It is a strong commitment to secularism - to laïcité. The cultural, historical, and architectural landmarks, such as many religious festivals and great cathedrals are seen as part of the French heritage. But they do not carry with them the same symbolism and meaning they once did. Of course, they do still hold inestimable value and meaning but the modern Frenchman has been misled for so long by the secularists that he needs to retrain his eyes to see).

For much of the world, because of liberalism, religion is seen as something of the past. It has been robbed of its meaning and demythologized. It has been secularized and made separate. In a word: it has been killed.

Fortunately, our God has been killed before. Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross for the redemption of fallen man. And this God-man knows the way out of death to eternal life. Catholicism has died countless times over this last two thousand years and it continues to rise anew.

What we need today is not so much the first evangelization of a secular society - in France or here at home. What we need is the new evangelization called for by Pope St. John Paul II - new not in its content, but new in its ardor, vigor, and expression. As Pope Benedict XVI put it, we need to:

“… promote a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of the faith has already resonated and where Churches with an ancient foundation exist but are experiencing the progressive secularization of society and a sort of "eclipse of the sense of God", which pose a challenge to finding appropriate to propose anew the perennial truth of Christ's Gospel.” - Homily, Pope Benedict XVI, June 28, 2010

How do we begin this work? We begin with ourselves. How do we offend the Sacred Heart of Jesus? How can we make reparations for our own sins? How can we remove the plank in our own eye, before gathering the specks in our brother or sister’s eye. I want to end with a short passage from Ad Gentes, the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church:

“… all sons of the Church should have a lively awareness of their responsibility to the world; they should foster in themselves a truly catholic spirit; they should spend their forces in the work of evangelization. And yet, let everyone know that their first and most important obligation for the spread of the Faith is this: to lead a profoundly Christian life.” - Ad Gentes, 36