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Some further thoughts on this. The idea that a state can successfully impose reforms on religion--in this case a 1400-year-old religion practiced around the world--is very French. /1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/macron-france-reform-islam-paty/2020/10/23/f1a0232c-148b-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html">https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/m...
Under the Old Regime, the monarchy and the high courts often tried to shape a distinctly French Catholicism through the doctrine known as Gallicanism. In the 1750& #39;s, the high court of Paris even arrested priests who refused to give last rites... /2 https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52501456z.image">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/1214...
to parishioners who had gone to confession with dissident "Jansenist" clergy. /3
In 1790, the French Revolutionary government tried to radically overhaul the structure of the Church in France through the so-called "Civil Constitution of the Clergy," which stipulated the election of clergy by voters (including non-Catholic ones). /4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Constitution_of_the_Clergy">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civi...
Under Napoleon& #39;s Concordat, signed with the papacy in 1801, priests had to swear an oath of allegiance to the state. /5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_of_1801#:~:text=The%20Concordat%20of%201801%20was,15%20July%201801%20in%20Paris.&text=While%20the%20Concordat%20restored%20much,bishops%20and%20supervised%20church%20finances.">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conc...
Napoleon also created, in 1808, a "Central Consistory" to supervise the practice of Judaism in France. He convened a "Grand Sanhedrin" to rule on matters of Jewish law. /6
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistoire_central_isra%C3%A9lite_de_France">https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cons...
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistoire_central_isra%C3%A9lite_de_France">https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cons...
The 1905 law by which the Third Republic separated church and state still in practice gives the state a large role in paying for the maintenance of churches and funding religious schools. /7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_French_law_on_the_Separation_of_the_Churches_and_the_State#:~:text=1905%20French%20law%20on%20the%20Separation%20of%20the%20Churches%20and%20the%20State,-From%20Wikipedia%2C%20the&text=The%20law%20was%20based%20on,principle%20of%20la%C3%AFcit%C3%A9%20(secularism).">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_French_law_on_the_Separation_of_the_Churches_and_the_State#:~:text=1905%20French%20law%20on%20the%20Separation%20of%20the%20Churches%20and%20the%20State,-From%20Wikipedia%2C%20the&text=The%20law%20was%20based%20on,principle%20of%20la%C3%AFcit%C3%A9%20(secularism).">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905...
And in the eastern areas that were part of Germany when the 1905 law was passed, the Concordat is still in force and priests, pastors and rabbis have the status of civil servants. /8
In short, what the French call "laïcité" is sometimes less a matter of the separation of church and state than of the subordination of church to state--including even on matters of doctrine, as shown by Macron& #39;s call for a "French Islam" that is also an "Enlightenment Islam." /9
And as McCauley& #39;s piece makes very clear, this latest attempt is unlikely to be much more successful than early ones--or to address some of the fundamental problems that have led to the spread of Islamic radicalism in France. /end
