The “Catholic card” in the race for the Élysée.
With French presidential elections less than three months away, Catholic faithful in this deeply secular Country, will play a crucial role in the voting results.
According to the survey, these Catholics are all moderate conservatives.
The survey carried out by the TNS-Sofres institute for the French Catholic weekly Pelerin and the Centre Sèvres in Paris, the Jesuit Theology and Philosophy Faculty, was particularly revealing.
The study found that the outgoing president, Nicolas Sarcozy would expect to get 33% of the Catholic vote, while his rival, François Hollande (who in recent days opened up a hornet’s nest by proposing the 1905 law on Church-State separation should be inserted into the Constitution) would only get 25%.
Catholic news agency Adista pointed out that this shows a reversal of power in comparison to the voting intentions of the general electorate, 30% of which favour the socialist candidate over Sarkozy’s 25%.
In the second round of voting, involving the abovementioned contenders, it has been estimated that 53% of Catholics will vote for the current president (against 41% of voters as a whole) and 47% will vote for Hollande (against a total of 59%).
These figures seem to confirm an ongoing trend: according to a similar survey carried out for the French Catholic daily La Croix, in 2007 Nicolas Sarcozy had won 33% of the Catholic vote against the 22% that voted for the socialist candidate Ségolène Royal. Marine Le Pen who took the reins of the National Front party, replacing her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, also scores highly among Catholics.
Indeed, the voting intentions expressed in the first round of voting put her in third place, with 21% of the Catholic vote, whilst 18% of the general electorate would vote for her.
France has a population of 61.350.000 inhabitants, of whom 46.427.000 is Catholic: 75, 5% of the population.
The Catholic Church is split into 98 ecclesiastical districts; there are 16.553 parishes and 674 other kinds of pastoral centres. There are currently 186 Bishops, 21.074 priests, 42.425 monks, 1.577 lay members of secular Institutions and 62.831 catechists. Then there are 134 minor seminarians and 1.299 major seminarians. A total of 2.108.240 students attend 10.195 Catholic education centres, from nursery and primary schools to universities.
In relation to the total number of charities and social centres owned by the Church or run by clerics or monks, France currently has: 94 hospitals, 103 medical practices, 520 old people’s homes and homes for the disabled and the handicapped, 96 orphanages and nurseries, 49 family planning clinics and other life protection centres, 247 special education and social re-education centres and 65 other institutions.
The simultaneous publication, in France, of two books written in light of the imminent elections, proves how hot the debate is. On 19 January a text entitled Extrême-droite, pourquoi les Chrétiens ne peuvent pas se taire (“The radical right: Why Christians cannot keep silent”) was published and signed by Etienne Pinte, a UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) MP and former mayor of Versailles and by Fr. Jacques Turck, former director of the French Episcopal Conference’s (CEF) National Council on the Family and Society and parish priest in Issy les Moulineaux.
Adista underlined that in the book, the two figures place an emphasis on the incompatibility of the Gospel’s values and the Church’s social doctrine with the political plans of radical right parties. “Our book – said Pinte in an interview with French magazine Témoignage Chrétien (Christian Testimony) – does not tell people not to vote for the National Front party but reminds Christians that they would be contradicting themselves if they adopted its ideology.”
“This question is related to the concept of humanity,” he said to Le Monde: “The National Front stands for the rejection of difference, of anything that is foreign, of Europe; it represents withdrawal into oneself. On the contrary, through its writings and social doctrine, the Church represents welcoming, sharing and openness.”
It is hard not to think that the other very recent publication, Quelle société voulons-nous? (“What society do we want?”), a collection of some speeches made by Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris and President of the CEF was not intended as a series of “guidelines” ahead of the elections distributed by the CEF last October.
The Episcopal Conference’s website says no indication is given as to the vote, only “some food for thought to awaken people’s awareness”: but having seen the wording, it is difficult to imagine that this “food for thought” is any different from the contents of October’s document, which spoke about the defence of life and of the traditional family.
In an interview on Rtl.fr, the Archbishop was asked what he thought of the theory put forward by Pinte and Truck. He replied: “I am not sure that the Gospel has anything to say about the National Front.”
“I think – he continued – that Pinte is right to remind readers of the existence of evangelical values which we try to be testimonies of and put into practice,” for example “by rejecting a political programme that is based solely on the rejection of another,” but, he concluded, “this not limited to the National Front.”