PENTECOST FROM FRANCE

In a column in the French daily Le Figaro Matthieu Rougé, professor at Notre Dame (Paris) and rector of St-Ferdinand-des-Ternes, discusses the meaning of Whitsun/Pentecost, in the context of a new and influential book by the philosopher Jean-Luc Marion. I have made one change throughout the article: he writes of “Catholics” but in France this usually means “Christians” as opposed not to Protestants but to atheists. So I have used “Christians” instead. 

PENTECOST: BE NOT AFRAID OF CHRISTIANS

What is the state of mind of Christians in France, this Pentecost? Some think of them as discouraged, weakened, disunited. However, at the end of an election year in which Christians have been both singularly denigrated and courted, the great philosopher Jean-Luc Marion has published a Brief Apologia for a Catholic Moment. A specialist in the works of Descartes and Heidegger (the fathers, one might say, of our modernity and our postmodernity respectively), Marion at the French Academy has the chair of Cardinal Lustiger. On August 5^th of this year it will be ten years since the “Jewish Cardinal” (as Maurice Druon acclaimed him at his almost-state funeral in Notre Dame) passed on. There will be celebrations and conferences to mark this anniversary in the coming autumn. Like his illustrious and charismatic predecessor, Jean-Luc Marion refuses the suggestion, and the temptation, of a Christian withdrawal.

Christians should not harden their hearts but help the people of our time go beyond “clichés and slogans: as if Christians were divided into potential unbelievers (good) and identity-hugging fundamentalists (bad), into uncertain humanists (acceptable) and enthusiasts for an alternative society (intolerable!).” In fact “they have a rock-hard belief that it is better to give than to receive . . .; that death can lead to life in fullness. They believe it because they already see it in their own experience and especially because they have seen it, in a certain sense, in the person of Christ.”

That which allows Christians to bear this witness is the gift of the Holy Spirit, celebrated on the feast of Pentecost. The spirit of their current life is less important than its Spirit! Like the Apostles of the first days, today’s disciples have received a Spirit of gentleness and strength, of creativity and unity, of lucidity and hope.

They are not torn between an imperative of goodwill toward all and the vigour of their spiritual and ethical convictions; between the legitimate variety of their choices (especially political) and the unity of their community; between a healthy severity vis-à-vis the ills of our age and a profound optimism concerning the direction of history. While such tensions are very real, the Holy Spirit allows them to conquer them by going deeper: the Spirit of God joins with the human spirit to lead it into a way of truth, of life, and of peace. That is the meaning of Pentecost.

It is more a matter of a force of the Spirit than a state of Spirit. For the Holy Spirit allows the Christian faith to hold to the memory of its roots without enclosing itself in a static conservatism. It is the source of a dynamic that allows us ceaselessly to reinvent – in the original sense of rediscovering – the Gospel logic of the love of truth and the truth of love.

Our country needs to get back the taste for, and the means of, serious and serene discussions, while at the same time rehabilitating the search for truth. We need at once to welcome and respect great diversities and clearly to acknowledge that which makes our unity. We must take care of both our memory and our capacity for invention; open ourselves up to vast new horizons without denying who we are. These paradoxical necessities many consider irreconcileable, but Christians know that they can accept their demanding unity. They know this, not as a source of superiority but rather as a grace and a responsibility.

But if Christians, inspired in the strongest sene of the word, are thus to contribute to the peace and the vitality of our polis, it is necessary that they should not be constantly denigrated. With John Paul II’s famous “Be not afraid!” in mind, Jean-Luc Marion remarks, “One has the impression that nowadays  it’s the French Christians who need to repeat these words to certain non-Christian Frenchmen who fear a return of clericalism.” Our age should not be afraid of Christians: their love of truth constantly in search of further depth, their ethical rigour, their link to the universal, can be salutary for our society.

As for France’s Christians themselves, sometimes “intimidated by their very existence,” they urgently need more intensely to live the Spirit of Pentecost, by strengthening their spiritual, intellectual and charitable commitments. That is the price, and a ridiculously reasonable one, of the hope to which they are to bear witness. Quoting Chateaubriant, the author of The Genius of Christianity in the wake of which he is working, Jean-Luc Marion praises “that Christian hope, the wings of which grow even as everything seems to betray it, a hope longer than time and stronger than misfortune.”   

TEMPEST IN A CHALICE?

François Fillon

             France is a curious country. The French themselves often talk about “l’exception française”, and a foreigner is from time to time brought up short by actions or reactions that seem entirely peculiar. A recent example followed the guest appearance on the TV evening news of François Fillon, the presidential candidate who was the big winner of the conservative primary. Fillon wants to reform the French economy in ways that recent governments (in one of which, Sarkozy’s, he was Prime Minister) have not been able to do because of massive resistance, mainly by the trade unions. He is an impeccably-dressed gentleman who enjoys racing vintage cars, and he would like to be the French counterpart of Gerhard Schroeder, the social democrat who reformed the German economy in 2002-5. Fillon is bright, writes well, and has a sense of humour. And when asked about his intended, and controversial, reform of the social-security and medicare systems, he pointed out that while the cost of these systems, and the national debt-level, made reform absolutely necessary, that he would see that it did not hurt the vulnerable. “I’m a Gaullist, and what’s more, a Christian,” he said, “so obviously I will not initiate any policies that are harmful to human dignity.”

            I was watching the interview, and found this remark understandable and unexceptionable. Imagine my surprise when, in the five days following, I saw it provoke a storm of media scandal. Many Frenchmen seemed outraged that a candidate for the Presidency should say out loud that he is a Christian. Shameful! Scandalous! To a foreigner, the reaction was incomprehensible. Until I heard it discussed by a radio columnist this morning, a woman who on Saturday mornings spends 5 minutes explaining religions to the atheists and agnostics who make up most of that station’s audience. She pointed out once again “l’exception française”. Angela Merkel, she said, had maintained that her policy of welcoming refugees was solidly connected with her Christian faith (she is the daughter of a Lutheran pastor); and in Germany, she said, that didn’t raise an eyebrow. But in France, she insisted, it simply could not have been uttered. Why? Because of the tradition, dating from the Revolution and reinforced in the late 19^th century, of laïcité or secularism. This insists that religion is strictly a private affair and must never be allowed into any public political discourse; and as the columnist said, you have to remember that this tradition of secularism in France was created, maintained and extended in a battle against the Catholic Church.

            Well, I understood the storm a little better, but I found it a saddening experience. Fillon was perfectly sincere, perfectly well-meaning, and for him respect for human dignity is the natural and proper outcome of a Christian faith. To be reviled for this day in, day out, by otherwise intelligent and not dishonest politicians is a spectacle that does France no credit.