France, the culture wars over head scarves

laurent muttered....



These churches are buildings inherited by local towns and villages,
it's part of the "patrimoine". But the French state can not subsidize
the building of new churches/synagogues/mosquees, with the exception
of Alsace and Lorraine which were under German rule when the
separation of church and state occurred in France (1903)

....But might not an objective observer maintain that the cost of physically
maintaining those churches (or at least the active ones) represents an
illogical and inequitable subsidy of Roman Catholicism? Certainly, if the
amount spent on RC establishments is as a percentage of the total spent on
maintenance of all religious facilities greater than the percentage of
practicing (or avowed) French Catholics among the total population
professing/practicing religions, the government has violated the sacred
trust and promise implicit in its stance separating church and state.

By Golly (or Bigod), Cathars, Huguenots, Buddhists, Shia, Sunni, assorted
mystics, occasional dervishes, and Free Masons deserve roofs too!

TMO

Sigvaldi Eggertsson muttered....




Yes, and the reason why it works is that foreign words are not
outlawed, it is the users of the language that voluntarily keep the
foreign words to a minimum.

I suspect that anthropoligists and other social scientists might suggest
another principal cause....that Iceland compared to much of the Western
World, remains fairly isolated from foreign culture and language.

Give satellite TV and the US's Madison Ave., Hollywood and their foreign
equivalents a few years. We can cure Iclelandophonia and have'em talking
like everybody else.

&-P

TMO

Olivers wrote:

laurent muttered....


These churches are buildings inherited by local towns and villages,
it's part of the "patrimoine". But the French state can not subsidize
the building of new churches/synagogues/mosquees, with the exception
of Alsace and Lorraine which were under German rule when the
separation of church and state occurred in France (1903)

...But might not an objective observer maintain that the cost of physically
maintaining those churches (or at least the active ones) represents an
illogical and inequitable subsidy of Roman Catholicism? Certainly, if the
amount spent on RC establishments is as a percentage of the total spent on
maintenance of all religious facilities greater than the percentage of
practicing (or avowed) French Catholics among the total population
professing/practicing religions, the government has violated the sacred
trust and promise implicit in its stance separating church and state.

By Golly (or Bigod), Cathars, Huguenots, Buddhists, Shia, Sunni, assorted
mystics, occasional dervishes, and Free Masons deserve roofs too!

When I visit France (which I manage to do about twice a year) my
tourism usually involves visiting cathedrals, abbeys, or churches. I
don't go there for religious reasons; I go for the heritage -- the
architecture, the art, the history, the sense of connecting with the
past. I suspect that if anybody counted, the number visiting many
religious sites for non-religious reasons greatly exceeds the number
who go for devotion.

For one extreme example, try to visit the Abbaye du Mont St Michel
when mass is being offered.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED

In article ,
(Olivers) wrote:

laurent muttered....



These churches are buildings inherited by local towns and villages,
it's part of the "patrimoine". But the French state can not subsidize
the building of new churches/synagogues/mosquees, with the exception
of Alsace and Lorraine which were under German rule when the
separation of church and state occurred in France (1903)

...But might not an objective observer maintain that the cost of
physically maintaining those churches (or at least the active ones)
represents an illogical and inequitable subsidy of Roman Catholicism?

Not if they are maintained *for their value as historic monuments*,
surely?

That strikes me as a little like saying a US National Park is an
inequitable subsidy of citizens in its immediate area (who certainly have
more practical opportunity to use the park than the population at large
does - but it is not for their sake any more than that of others that the
park is maintained).

On 12/12/03 18:20, in article ,
"Padraig Breathnach" wrote:

For one extreme example, try to visit the Abbaye du Mont St Michel
when mass is being offered.

It certainly is a messe!

Earl


PS: somebody should congratulate me on that one.

muttered....

In article ,
(Olivers) wrote:

laurent muttered....



These churches are buildings inherited by local towns and villages,
it's part of the "patrimoine". But the French state can not
subsidize the building of new churches/synagogues/mosquees, with
the exception of Alsace and Lorraine which were under German rule
when the separation of church and state occurred in France (1903)

...But might not an objective observer maintain that the cost of
physically maintaining those churches (or at least the active ones)
represents an illogical and inequitable subsidy of Roman Catholicism?


Not if they are maintained *for their value as historic monuments*,
surely?

That strikes me as a little like saying a US National Park is an
inequitable subsidy of citizens in its immediate area (who certainly
have more practical opportunity to use the park than the population at
large does - but it is not for their sake any more than that of others
that the park is maintained).


I doubt seriously if any US court would allow a state or the federal
government to maintain a church building in which sectarian services were
offered. I understand and appreciate the historic and artistic
significance argument. Any civilized person should. But that's not the
problem. The French state cannot on one hand claim complete separation,
yet on the other maintain buildings used by active congregations
(especially in an inequitable fashion which favors one group over another).

The argument that "significant buildings of cultural, historical and
architectural value would disappear" is a hollow one. While the French
government may find that a hollow sham is acceptable under grounds of
expediency, in reality the whole business is but a pragmatic accommodation
- Don't mess with the Bishop of Rome and his minions and adherents - and
shouldn't be justified by hiding behind statutes which are inapplicable and
unlikely to stand up in an objective court to legal challenge.

The entire situation seems to have arisen from a couple of periods in
French history when the "people", already in the streets, would have hung,
burned or guillotines every member of the clergy, and stripped if not
destroyed every urban church.

One supposes that had the Communists ever been successful in electing a
government, they might have followed an even harsher Soviet line, heftily
reducing the number of places of worshio maintained and in custody, art or
no art, history having become a flexibly rewritten tool of the state...

Simply an exercise to aid the enlightened to see that you can't have your
cake and eat it too (unless you compromise both recipe and method of
service).

TMO

TMO

B Vaughan wrote:
I certainly have read about the tensions over headscarves within the
Arab community, not only in France, but also in Turkey and Iran.

Though neither Turkey nor Iran are Arab (admittedly there are plenty of
Arabs in Iran at the moment).

miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 17:01:00 +0100, Earl Evleth
wrote:

Do you know where I can find a brief history of the law, including the
dates when restrictions against certain types of "non-French" name
were removed?


Natalie does clear up that point.

I wanted some more detail.

But as I said, this is not a biggie in France. If nobody is demonstating in
the streets it is a non-issue!

Again and again you say things that seem to defend practices on the
basis of public opinion. I can't accept that as a defense, I'm sorry.
-----------
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 17:03:56 +0100, Earl Evleth
wrote:

On 12/12/03 15:10, in article , "B
Vaughan" wrote:

I think that forbidding someone to dress as their religion requires is
far from neutral. A person sitting next to me in a Burkah in a
classroom hardly represents the state forcing me to believe anything.

It would be an issue In the final exam. Who is behind that Burkah!

This is a valid point, as is the issue of proselytizing, but they can
be addressed without outlawing burkhas.
-----------
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

In article ,
(Olivers) wrote:

I doubt seriously if any US court would allow a state or the federal
government to maintain a church building in which sectarian services
were offered.

AAMOI (and it is a MOI rather than a rhetorical point because I don't know
the answer) how, then, are buildings like the famous chapel at West Point
funded?

I understand and appreciate the historic and artistic
significance argument. Any civilized person should. But that's not
the problem. The French state cannot on one hand claim complete
separation, yet on the other maintain buildings used by active
congregations (especially in an inequitable fashion which favors one
group over another).

I suppose an important question here is whether the French government
*does*, in fact, maintain any Protestant (or indeed non-Christian)
religious buildings.

If so some inequity may be inevitable, but I suggest we should be asking
(say) if the percentage of nineteenth-century RC churches funded is
greater than the percentage of Protestant churches from the same period -
in other words looking at the relationship of funding to the building
stock, not to the current population.

It seems inconsistent to me to acknowledge the historic-value argument and
then argue there is necessarily inequity in preserving one faith's
buildings over another, unless you can demonstrate (and possibly you can)
that buildings of the unfavoured faith exist which *ought* to be preserved
on a historic-value basis and yet aren't.