Στις
18 Μαΐου 2020 το Γαλλικό Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας, (Conseil d’ Etat)
διέταξε τον πρωθυπουργό Edouard Philippe να τροποποιήσει το διάταγμα
απαγόρευσης της δημόσιας λατρείας λόγω της υγειονομικής κατάστασης
εκτάκτου ανάγκης μέσα σε οχτώ (8) μέρες, σε μια απόφαση ορόσημο η οποία
αναγνωρίζει συγκεκριμένα δικαιώματα τα οποία συνδέονται με την θεμελιώδη
ελευθερία της δημόσιας λατρείας.
Μέχρι
την επόμενη βδομάδα οι εκκλησίες στη Γαλλία θα πρέπει να έχουν την
ελευθερία να οργανώσουν δημόσια θεία λειτουργία και άλλες θρησκευτικές
ακολουθίες/τελετές, οι οποίες είχαν τεθεί σε αναστολή από τη δεύτερη
Κυριακή της σαρακοστής εξαιτίας της πανδημίας του COVID-19 με το
σκεπτικό ότι η απαγόρευσή τους είναι δυσανάλογη σε σχέση με τον «πόλεμο
για τον κορωνοϊό» που ανήγγειλε ο πρόεδρος Emmanuel Macron στις 16
Μαρτίου.
Το
Ανώτατο Διοικητικό Δικαστήριο της Γαλλίας έκρινε ότι το δικαίωμα της
συμμετοχής σε μια σύναξη ή σε μια συνάθροιση σε λατρευτικά μέρη – και
όχι μόνο το δικαίωμα για προσευχή στο σπίτι ή την ατομική προσευχή σε
παρόμοια μέρη λατρείας – «είναι βασικό δομικό στοιχείο της ελευθερίας
στη λατρεία» και ο περιορισμός τέτοιων συνάξεων συνιστά μια εμφανώς
σοβαρή και παράνομη παραβίαση αυτής της ελευθερίας.
Η
απόφαση είναι ένα χαστούκι για τη γαλλική κυβέρνηση, η οποία έχει
δείξει την πιο σκοτεινή πλευρά της εκκοσμίκευσης στη διατήρηση αυστηρών
μέτρων κατά της θρησκευτικής λατρείας – και συγκεκριμένα της λατρείας
των παπικών – παρά μια ευρεία γκάμα άρσης των περιορισμών η οποία έχει
επιτρέψει σε δημοτικά σχολεία, επιχειρήσεις, καταστήματα και στα
περισσότερα εμπορικά κέντρα, καθώς επίσης σε βιβλιοθήκες και σε μικρά
μουσεία να ανοίξουν ξανά από τις 11 Μαΐου.
Την
απόφαση ακόμη συνιστά επίπληξη και στους Γάλλους επισκόπους και στο
γαλλικό συνέδριο των Επισκόπων, οι οποίοι σκόπιμα απέφυγαν να προσφύγουν
κατά του διατάγματος της 11ης Μαΐου στο Δικαστήριο. Αντίθετα, την 1η
Μαΐου, όταν ο πρωθυπουργός Philippe περιέγραψε λεπτομερώς πώς θα
οργανωθεί η άρση των περιορισμών, ο πρόεδρος του επισκοπικού συνεδρίου,
Eric de Moulins-Beaufort αυθόρμητα ανακοίνωσε πως δεν θα υπάρξει μαζική
συγκέντρωση πριν τις 2 Ιουνίου και παρατήρησε απλά: «Μπορείς να
θεωρήσεις την απόφαση υπερβολικά περιοριστική, παρόλα αυτά χρειάζεται να εφαρμοστεί»
Το
διάταγμα της 11ης Μαΐου πήρε περαιτέρω έκταση επειδή σε αυτό
παραλήφθηκε να οριστεί μια ημερομηνία κανονικής επιστροφής στην δημόσια
λατρεία.
Ενδιαφέρον
παρουσιάζει το γεγονός ότι, οι δικαστές του Δικαστηρίου της Επικρατείας
επικεντρώθηκαν στην θρησκευτική ελευθερία και στα δικαιώματα των πιστών
για να δηλώσουν ότι: η πλήρης και γενική απαγόρευση που ανακοινώθηκε
στις 11 Μαΐου (εκτός από τις κηδείες, οι οποίες γίνονταν ελεύθερα από
την αρχή του περιορισμού κατ’ εξαίρεση) ήταν παράνομη επειδή θα
μπορούσαν να είχαν παρθεί λιγότερο αυστηρά μέτρα διατηρώντας τη δημόσια
υγεία.
Το
Δικαστήριο απέρριψε την επιχειρηματολογία των κυβερνητικών πληρεξουσίων
που αφορούσε άλλους δημόσιους χώρους εκδηλώσεων, όπως τα γυμναστήρια,
τα κέντρα διασκεδάσεων και τα εστιατόρια τα οποία μπορεί να μη δέχονται
το κοινό μέχρι να ανακοινωθεί μια νεότερη ρύθμιση, όχι μόνο εξαιτίας των
δραστηριοτήτων που περιλαμβάνουν, αλλά επειδή η ελευθερία της
θρησκευτικής λατρείας είναι απαραίτητη και προστατεύεται από τις
διεθνείς συνθήκες, το Γαλλικό Σύνταγμα και τους νόμους σε τέτοιο βαθμό
που οι παραπάνω δραστηριότητες δεν προστατεύονται.
Top French administrative authority rebukes president, demands reopening of churches
Ironically, the decision is
also a reprimand for the French bishops' conference, whose
representatives supported the government in its suppression of the Mass.
Mon May 18, 2020 - 8:13 pm EST
Hadrian / Shutterstock.comMay 18, 2020 (LifeSiteNews)
— This afternoon, the French Council of State (Conseil d’Etat) ordered
the prime minister, Edouard Philippe, to modify the decree prohibiting
public worship under the sanitary state of emergency within eight days,
in a landmark decision that recognizes the specific rights attached to
the “fundamental liberty” of public worship. By next week, churches in
France should be allowed to organize public Masses and other religious
ceremonies, which have been on hold since the second Sunday of Lent
because of the COVID-19 pandemic, on the grounds that their prohibition
is no longer proportionate to the “war on the coronavirus” declared by
President Emmanuel Macron on March 16.
France’s highest administrative authority declared that the right to
join a gathering or a reunion in places of worship — and not only that
of praying at home or praying individually in such a place of worship —
“is an essential component of the freedom of worship,” and curtailing
such gatherings is “a grave and manifestly illegal violation” of that
freedom.
The decision is a slap in the face for the French government, which
has shown the darkest side of its secularism in maintaining strict
measures against religious worship, and especially Catholic worship,
despite a wide-ranging “deconfinement” that has allowed primary schools,
businesses, shops, and most shopping centers as well as libraries and
small museums to reopen since May 11.
The decision also reprimands the French bishops and French bishops’
conference, who deliberately refrained from attacking the May 11 decree
in the courts. Instead, on May 1, when Prime Minister Philippe,
detailing how deconfinement would be organized, offhandedly announced
that there would be “no Mass before June 2,” the bishops’ conference’s
president, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, simply remarked: “You can find this
decision exaggeratedly cautious, but it still needs to be implemented.”
The May 11 decree went even farther in that it omitted to give a date for the return of public worship.
Four “traditional Mass” institutes under Roman authority — the
Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), the Friends of the Institute of Christ
the King, Sovereign Priest represented by two canons of the ICKSP, the
Institute of the Good Pastor, and the Dominican Fraternity of
Saint-Vincent-Ferrier — joined forces to plead for the rights of the
faithful.
The Society of St Pius X (FSSPX) also made an emergency recourse,
asking in particular for the right to organize outdoor Masses on public
or private grounds. The Council of State did not respond definitively to
this question.
Lay Catholics were represented by the AGRIF, a French and Christian
“anti-defamation league” that, under existing anti-racist laws in
France, is fully habilitated to represent the rights of Catholics in the
courts. The author of this article had the honor of signing the
recourse as one of the AGRIF’s vice presidents, together with Guillaume
de Thieulloy, another vice president who runs the French conservative
and Catholic news blog “Le Salon beige,” and AGRIF’s president, Bernard
Antony, former European M.P. and founder of a Christian cultural center
(the Centre Charlier, which launched the now famous Paris-Chartres
Pentecost pilgrimage) and of an association that helps persecuted
Christians the world over, “Chrétienté-Solidarité.”
The French Christian Democrat political party PCD, as well as a
traditionalist group, Civitas, a group of lay Catholics from Metz in the
East of France, and Bruno Gollnisch, former European M.P. of the French
National Front, also presented separate recourses.
A large number of arguments, varied but often convergent, were
presented during the emergency hearing at the Council of State last
Friday afternoon.
Any French citizen or group may seize the Council of State in a
particular emergency procedure called a “référé-liberté” by which the
legality of an executive decision may be challenged.
The applications of the groups and individuals named above were submitted from the 12th to the 14th of May and were given wide publicity. It was immediately made clear by the Council of State that the Friday the 15th hearing would group without merging all the requests concerning Catholics’ demands for the restoration of public worship.
The French bishops could easily have presented their own application
at this point, even after having declined invitations to join the
procedure in its preparatory stages before the May 11 decree. They did
not, despite the strength of the arguments against the continued
“confinement” of public Masses. In an interview with the unofficial daily of the French bishops, La Croix,
the spokesman and secretary-general of the bishops’ conference,
Fr. Thierry Magnin, reacted “soberly,” writes journalist Arnaud
Bevilacqua. It would be more appropriate to call his reaction “aloof.”
Said Fr. Magnin:
We have duly taken note of this order and we think it is fair. In
fact, it is in line with a letter that the president of the CEF, Bishop
Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, sent to the Prime Minister on Friday, May 15.
We did not refer the matter to the Council of State, but we wanted to
make our position clear. The Council of State fully supports this
position. It says that the government has gone too far with the ban. Our
position has never been to enter into a wrestling match with the
government. That is the whole point of the letter from Bishop de
Moulins-Beaufort. It is not a matter of crowing over the decision, even
though we obviously think it is a step in the right direction. We have
always been in direct contact with the government. Today, Monday, May
18, I myself have again sent more detailed proposals to regulate the
resumption of worship.
In particular, it is being suggested that churches should be allowed
to organize celebrations with a third of their potential congregation.
But to date, these “behind-the-scenes” negotiations have had zero
success.
Magnin went on to say:
We will continue to work intelligently together. Bishop de
Moulins-Beaufort’s letter to the Prime Minister was clear and in the
relationship we are trying to maintain we can tell each other things in
confidence. I do not believe that the government had the will to
minimize freedom of religion. The associations that brought the matter
before the Council of State made this appeal and we did otherwise by
writing to the Prime Minister because we are in dialogue and there was
the prospect of another meeting with the president on May 25 in the
company of the other religious denominations. These associations have
done what they saw fit, and there are several ways of doing so. We did
not consider filing an appeal with the Council of State, but Bishop de
Moulins-Beaufort pointed out that there was a legal problem, which was
finally raised by the Council of State.
It would seem that the leaders of the French bishops are somewhat
uncomfortable with the procedure that short-circuited their
inter-religious and fruitless talks with the authorities.
This attitude on the part of the central French Catholic hierarchy
would explain why individual bishops, a number of whom have openly
decried the prohibition of public worship, decided not to join the
procedure.
Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne tweeted: “I welcome the decision of the
Council of State ordering the French government to lift the general ban
on gatherings in places of worship. Thank you to all those who
initiated this and thanks to the Lord who inspired this just struggle.”
Bishop Bernard Ginoux of Montauban, who recently called the
prohibition of public Masses “unjust and totally absurd,” adding that
“we cannot be subjected to an order that is contrary to common sense,”
was also satisfied by the decision: “My thanks to justice which has
acknowledged a ‘grave and a legal violation of the freedom of worship.’”
Both the traditional priestly institutes and fraternities and the
AGRIF quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to
underscore why Catholics have an urgent spiritual need of Mass, at which
they should assist in person, because during Mass, the sacrifice of the
Cross is renewed, where they can receive the body and blood, soul and
divinity of Jesus Christ in Communion as a necessary spiritual
nourishment.
This may seem a strange argument in front of administrative judges
who monitor the activity of the public authorities of a secular and even
secularist Republic such as France. But Jérôme Triomphe, who was one of
the lawyers of the priestly institutes, told LifeSite that it was
necessary to explain Catholics’ specific needs in order to prove to the
Council of State that not only had a fundamental liberty such as freedom
of worship been restricted — and this can be allowed for proportionate
reasons in the face of sanitary emergency — but that there was an
“urgent” reason for putting a stop to the restriction.
Interestingly, the judges of the Council of State focused on
religious freedom and freedom of worship of believers in order to say
that “the absolute and general prohibition” decreed on May 11 (apart
from funerals, which have been possible since the beginning of
confinement) was illegal because less stringent measures could be
applied while preserving public health.
They rejected the government representative’s arguments regarding a
number of other public venues, such as sports centers, dance halls, and
restaurants which may not receive the public until further notice, not
only because of the activities involved, but because freedom of
religious worship is “essential” and protected by international
treaties, the French constitution, and laws in a way that those
activities are not.
The judges did take into account the fact that gatherings of up to 10 people are now allowed in other public venues.
In a statement to LifeSite, Jérôme Triomphe said: “This victory is a
very important decision of general principle regarding the fundamental
rights of worship, of which the French government had thought that it
was not essential to the rights of believers. It is just as essential
for a Catholic to receive spiritual nourishment, in particular through
sacramental Communion, as to take physical nourishment, because man does
not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God.”
κανένα σχόλιο