Only in France (well, not really)

It was with some degree of surprise that I stumbled across this article yesterday, which revealed that an outcry has been raised in France about the government's decision to lower the tricolore to half-staff in tribute to the passing of Pope John Paul II. My bemused initial reaction of "You've got to be kidding," was quickly tempered when I remembered this was "secular" France, a nation that is around 83+% Roman Catholic. Irony. You've got to love it.

From it's establishment as a Catholic state in the partition of Charlamegne's empire under the Treaty of Verdun, France has struggled mightily with the intermingling of religion and politics throughout its history. Urban II instigated the Crusades from French soil and Cardinal Richilieu's exploits are well documented. So it is with good reason that the French citizenry is skeptical about the role of religion in their political lives. The 1905 passage of The Law of Separation of the Churches and the State guaranteed that there would be no official role for religion in the affairs of the French government.

However, this reaction against the role of religion in government affairs has, in fact, leant steam to the overall secularization of the populace. Supposedly, although close to 90% of the population is baptized as Roman Catholic, only 63% identify themselves as practicing Catholics (I cannot document these numbers, but I read them somewhere and believe that they are at least directionally accurate). While that's perfectly fine, I'm reminded by the famous quote from the Reverend Billy Graham:

"The framers of the Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."

And thus when the French government precluded Muslim schoolgirls from wearing headscarves in accordance with the teachings of their faith, I wondered how France could loudly proclaim itself a tolerant democratic entity when it was imposing a state-sponsored ban on the harmless expression of faith. Oddly (and ironically), I now find myself echoing the arguments of those so perturbed about the tribute to the fallen pontiff. If Muslim headscarves cannot be worn in public schools because they blur the line between religion and state, then why should the French government be able to make a grand public tribute to a dead religious leader? I don't believe that headscarves in schools represent a threat to the separation of church and state in France just as I don't believe that honoring a beloved leader like the Pope or Ghandi or the Dalai Lama should represent any form of encroachment either. Why is there no consistency here? Like ascertaining the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.

Irony. You've got to love it.