A French court ruled recently that a cross on top of a statue of late Pope John Paul II be removed because it violates 'separation of church and state' according to a recent report:
A cross that's part of a statue of the late Pope John Paul II in the town of Ploërmel, France, will be removed following a controversial decision made by a top administrative court on a decades-long legal battle over the monument's Christian symbolism in a secular space.
French conservatives, alongside Polish politicians, have condemned the decision, with some arguing that secularization goes against European values.
The Telegraph reported on Monday that Ploërmel was gifted the statue in 2006, which depicts the late pontiff in prayer, standing beneath an arch and a large cross, as designed by Russian artist Zourab Tsereteli.
The French court has ruled, however, that the cross must be removed, as it stands in public space and violates the 1905 law that imposed strict separation of Church and State.
The town has six months to remove the cross, though the pope and the arch can remain.
Beata Szydło, prime minister of Poland, where John Paul II was from, has offered to take in the statue in order to "save it from censorship."
"Our great Pole, a great European, is a symbol of a Christian, united Europe," Szydło said.
The prime minister slammed the "dictates of political correctness" and the "secularization of the state," which she accused of promoting "values which are alien to our culture, which leads to terrorizing Europeans in their everyday life."
Valérie Boyer, MP for the Republicans Party in France, asked "when will this madness consisting of trying to erase our roots end?"
Louis Aliot, vice president of the Front National, further added that the "iniquitous" decision could lead to "the destruction of our Judeo-Christian society."
The Local reported that Jean-Louis Bianco, a secularism expert, has called fears that other Christian monuments are going to be targeted "unfounded," saying that Article 28 of the 1905 law provides numerous allowances for religions symbols in public space.
Bianco added that such symbols are permitted on "buildings of worship, burial grounds in cemeteries, funerary monuments, and museums or exhibitions."
Patrick Le Diffon, the mayor of Ploërmel, said that the case could be brought before the European Court of Human Rights.
"The statue is part of the landscape of Ploërmel for 12 years, and it does not disturb the inhabitants," the mayor added, according to Breitbart London.
"On the contrary, it is an undeniable tourist asset for the municipality. The mayor added that "this monument is a work of art and it requires the authorization from the artist to modify it."
Thousands of Polish Catholics, who make up a majority of the country, gathered together along the border earlier in October to pray for protection against the "secularization" and "Islamization" of Europe.
The "Rosary at the Borders" event coincided with the the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary at the time. Krakow Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski called on believers to pray "for the other European nations to make them understand it is necessary to return to Christian roots so that Europe would remain Europe." (source)
This may not seem as obvious to an America, but for French society it is a major issue because even after centuries of France attempting to uproot the presence of the Catholic Faith (of which this is just another attempt to do so), the fact is that it is the Church which Christianized, civilized, and made France into the people and nation they are. It does not matter that the majority of French are not even Christian and those who are scarcely practice any more, for it is the obsession with destroying even the very minor presence of the Church in society that is so telling about the state of the nation.
It is true that there are many problems being caused by the rise of Islam and now, the re-emergence of ethnonationalism as a "solution" to the "identity" crisis of Europe. Yet the fact is that the rise of Islam was engineered by the very governments themselves as a means to cause a social crisis they could exploit to revive nationalism because as we have reported, it was the very governments working in union with major businesses and charities to transport as many people as possible into their own nations knowing full well that these people could never be successfully integrated, find stable work, or contribute anything of actual value to the society outside of the simplest of general labor tasks, and that given how they are lavished with near unlimited food, lodging, clothing, and other benefits, that it would introduce laziness into them which would in turn breed criminal activity which they in turn refuse to prosecute but will report on a daily basis.
One must not simply blame ambiguous institutions such as "the government" or "the elite" without naming them or observing the behaviors of the people, for even if "the government" and "the elite" have mindsets and even connections that are removed from the society, they are still made up of people from these societies to a large part and are a reflection of the people themselves. For centuries, French society has been at war with the Church, culminating in the French Revolution of the 18th century and simply continuing since that time. This is not a "new" issue, but the extension of a very old conflict began by men whose desire for power came before the general good of their fellow man, and would pursue power at all costs with respect to none, even if would mean destroying millions of people and their entire society forever just so they could attempt, even for a short time, to try to realize their personal lust of becoming God.
It is true that France today is dying, having suffered long from self-inflicted illnesses caused by her rejection of God and His Church and her subsequent attempts to create a god in her own image. It is sad and disturbing to watch this process, but the fact is that it was entirely self-inflicted and inseparable from the people themselves because the governments and institutions of society, even though they may be controlled by a minority, are still a reflection of the majority ethos. While it is important to be aware of the danger that Islam poses and to deal with it appropriately, the greatest enemy is within because it is by rotting the soul of that nation that has allowed it to enter into the wretched state that it is in today.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” -Cicero
Post a Comment