France
Illustration by Mark Harris
RELIGION PROMOTES WHAT is good in humanity — mercy, wisdom, charity, justice, compassion. These are fundamental to most religious traditions. But religious institutions and movements consist of humans capable of both good and evil, truth and lies, peaceableness and violence. Most Americans have positive feelings about the role religion plays in American life, according to recent surveys. But more than 75 percent are against religious organizations endorsing political candidates or getting involved in partisan politics.
Religious zeal and political power can be an explosive combination — which is why the First Amendment promotes the separation of these powers. Yet the heart and faith of voters impact their choices in the polling booth — and the emotions and imaginations of voters can be swayed by media, social groups, and targeted manipulation to impact an individual’s vote.
One form of manipulation is through conspiracy theories — and conspiracy theories that manipulate religious and social imaginations are particularly potent. They are not new — recall the early U.S. grassroots movements, such as the Anti-Masonic Party and the Know-Nothings, who fought against perceived threats to Protestant Christian values, as well as the John Birch Society’s modern links to the Christian Identity Organization.
As conspiracy theories, disinformation, and populism become more mainstream, one less-understood conspiracy is having an outsized impact on immigration laws: The “great replacement theory” promotes the idea that nonwhite people are brought into the United States and other Western countries to “replace” white voters as part of a godless, liberal political agenda.
The 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, reminded many Americans that the horrors of organized hate were not something in the past. The refrain by white nationalists of “You will not replace us!” recalled virulent antisemitism and anti-immigrant rhetoric of earlier eras. The media repeated the slogan as it tried to make sense of how domestic terrorism, spurred on by online rhetoric regarding the removal of Civil War statues, could have culminated in such social violence and the murder of Heather Heyer by neo-Nazi James Fields Jr. It was a traumatic moment among many in America.
A just-released, 900-page report uncovers new details about Jean Vanier's abuse. In light of this news, host Jenna Barnett changes plans for this episode and talks with Sojourners' Mitchell Atencio about what we know.
A woman prays inside the Saint-Sulpice church in Paris, France, October 4, 2021. Picture taken October 4, 2021. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier
The church had shown "deep, total and even cruel indifference for years," protecting itself rather than the victims of what was systemic abuse, said Jean-Marc Sauve, head of the commission that compiled the report.
Loggers in France fell oak trees for reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral, damaged by fire in 2019 / Martin Bureau / AFP via Getty Images
Dom Thomas Georgeon is the abbot of the Abbey of La Trappe in France. He spoke with Sojourners' Jenna Barnett. Françoise Le Gall helped with interpretation.
“IT WAS LIKE a part of us was burning. Before being a historical monument, Notre Dame is a church: a place where people are going to pray, celebrate the sacraments, and the presence of Christ in the middle of Paris.
Somebody from Italy asked me if the fire was a sign from God about the church in France. To see how the firefighters worked for days and days, risking their life to save the building ... there were Christians praying when the cathedral was burning, and there were other people saying, ‘I’m not Christian but this place is a part of my life.’ The cathedral was a symbol of Christ in the middle of this city, and a sign of a community brought together.
Some private forest owners were asking for donated oaks for the rebuilding of the Notre Dame. They had to be between 100 and 200 years, very straight, could not have knots on the trunks, and had to have a diameter between 60 and 80 centimeters. I spoke about it with the community, saying ‘We’ve been asked to contribute to the rebuilding of the frame of Notre Dame, and I think we should say yes.’
I blessed the trees in the forest—something very simple. I said a prayer for all the people who are working on the reconstruction of the cathedral, asking also for the blessing of God on our community in our participation in this process.
When the forestry expert told me that our two oaks will [help rebuild] the spire, I said, ‘Oh, I love it.’ Because there is an idea of elevation in our contemplative life—trying to elevate the world toward God. I don’t know where our oaks will be, but if we are at the bottom, a little bit hidden, we know that we will support the whole spire, as we are trying to support the world with our prayers.”
A gospel choir performs at the 2020 gathering of the Christian Open Door Church in Mulhouse, France, Feb. 18, 2020 in this still image taking from a video. Christian Open Door Chuch/Handout via REUTERS.
The prayer meeting kicked off the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in France — one of northern Europe's hardest-hit countries — to date, local government said. Around 2,500 confirmed cases have been linked to it.
Image via Beverly Banks
After three months, Mirzai traveled to the Oinofyta camp near Athens. Mirzai recounted his difficult journey from Greece to Italy, riding for 36 hours under a truck before reaching the border. He said he then spent 15 days in Italy before traveling to Paris with a smuggler.
Image via RNS
In France’s highly secularized society, anyone who talks about religion and politics risks being written off as a closet demagogue, a Catholic traditionalist, or a potential radical Islamist. Officially, the twain should never meet.
Image via Reuters/Max Rossi
Pope Francis urged the United Nations on March 28 to seek the "total elimination" of nuclear weapons, speaking as the United States and some other major powers boycotted a conference considering a global ban.
In a message to the conference that started in New York on March 27, Francis called on nations to "go beyond nuclear deterrence" and have the courage to overcome the "fear and isolationism" he said was prevalent in many countries today.
Image via RNS/Pascal Rossignol
Every year, there are several hundred hate crimes committed against French Muslims. Of these, the majority of victims who have been physically assaulted are women in headscarves.
So what will be the impact of the Court of Justice’s ruling on an already beleaguered minority of headscarf-wearing Muslim women?
Image via RNS/Reuters/Marko Djurica
According to two extensive recent opinion polls, majorities across Europe are deeply concerned about Muslim immigration and support an immediate end to it, even as Europeans vastly overestimate the actual Muslim populations of their countries.
Voters in several countries back a complete immigration ban at levels notably higher than those in the United States. Anti-immigration politicians in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere are gaining ground in Western Europe.
Image via RNS/ Elizabeth Bryant
Across Europe, governments and local communities are searching for ways to counter extremism after a wave of largely homegrown terrorist attacks.The question is all the more important for France, the target of three terror strikes in two years, and Western Europe’s biggest exporter of extremist fighters.Yet while countries such as Britain, Denmark and Germany have long been involved in deradicalization efforts, France is a relative newcomer to such programs. Some believe the country’s fiercely secular mindset and conflicted relationship with Islam pose additional obstacles.
Image via Reuters/Philippe Wojazer
Since coming to power in 2012, the government has made abortion completely free as part of the National Health Service, scrapped a requirement that a woman must be “in distress” to obtain permission to abort, and dropped a weeklong “reflection period” between applying for and carrying out an abortion. It decided to act again in part because several anti-abortion sites were found to be ranked higher on search engines than the government’s own abortion information site. Although their home pages appear to be neutral, the sites and their advice hotlines — run mostly by Catholic anti-abortion activists — are on closer inspection clearly against abortion and stress the physical and psychological damage they say the procedure can cause.
Image via Sergey Kohl/Shutterstock.com
On Dec. 19 a truck drove into a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, killing at least nine people and injuring more, in what law enforcement officials suspect is a terrorist attack, reports the Guardian. The Christmas market was set up in Breitscheidplatz, one of Berlin’s most-frequented shopping areas.
A police spokesperson announced that the incident may have caused a gas leak. The Christmas market has been evacuated and an information point has been established for people in search of missing loved ones.
Image via TheVagabond/Shutterstock.com
Now, Donoghue, 47, has written The Wonder, a story based on “fasting girls” — a crop of pre-adolescent Victorians, some of them religiously motivated, who seemed to survive for months or years on no food and little water. Some were revealed as frauds, some gave up their fast, while others wasted away while family, friends, doctors, and clergy watched.
Image via Sean Hawkey/World Council of Churches.
As of Oct. 25, French authorities have begun demolishing the migrant camp known as “the Jungle” in the city of Calais, reports CNN. The camp — stretching nearly 4 square kilometers — was home to more than 3,100 migrants. Many of these migrants have been bussed from the camp to other regions in France.
image via tumblr / MAERIL
A young artist by the name of Maeril created a fantastic comic for anyone witnessing islamophobic harassment in public. It was published on her Tumblr and later on Facebook through her work with The Middle Eastern Feminist.
Image via RNS/Reuters/Tim Wimborne
The United Nations human rights office has called on French beach resorts to lift their bans on the burkini, calling them a “stupid reaction” that did not improve security but fueled religious intolerance.
France’s highest administrative court last Friday suspended one seaside town’s ban on the full-body swimsuit sometimes worn by Muslim women, on the grounds it violated fundamental liberties.
French President Francçois Hollande leaves the Church of St. Louis of the French in Rome on Aug. 17. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Francis met with French President Francois Hollande at the Vatican just three weeks after an elderly priest was brutally murdered by Islamist militants in northern France.
The Vatican said the meeting on Wednesday was private and released no further details of what was discussed.
Image via REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/RNS
France was convulsed by another horrific attack on July 26 as armed men burst into a Catholic Church near Rouen and slit the throat of a priest who was saying Mass.
The slain priest, the Rev. Jacques Hamel, 84, was one of four people taken hostage by the attackers, who authorities said had claimed to be from Daesh, the Arabic term for the Islamic State group.
Image via Stefano Rellandini/REUTERS/RNS
Pope Francis has telephoned leaders of the terror-stricken French city of Nice, asking them what he could do to help in the wake of last week’s gruesome truck attack and promising to meet with the families of the victims as soon as possible.
The pontiff made his call out of the blue on July 17, reaching the former mayor of Nice and leader of the region, Christian Estrosi, through the head of a national association of Italians who live in France.