Perhaps we do not know it, but even the Church has been seized by the technocratic constitution of European authorities. In 1980, it established the Commission of Episcopates of the European Community (COMECE), which institutionally ensures a “dialogue” with the European Union, in accordance with Article 17.3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. (one of the Treaties of Rome of 1957). This, as in every European election, launched a call for participation in the European elections. On the one hand we find the promotion of European construction, on the other the observation that the modalities and principles of European construction have moved away from Catholic principles. The thing is even clearer in the declaration “Europe be yourself!” issued jointly with the Conference of European Churches, the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy and the network of Christian movements All Together for Europe.
The Church hampered by European secularism
In short, the Church now finds itself somewhat hampered by European construction. Certainly, it has supported it since the end of the Second World War. The support of the Holy See for the Christian Democratic supporters of the invention of a pan-European economic-political organization was significant – enough to lead to a polemic against “Vatican Europe”. Whether it was a rather Atlanticist and defensive perspective at the heart of the Cold War, before the death of Stalin, whether it was a more European and projective perspective afterwards, in all cases the Saint- Headquarters supported everything that made it possible to avoid a return to war between European states and to ensure a form of long-term cohesion for the continent. This did not prevent a true Catholic plurality, the perspectives not being quite the same between supporters of a federalist approach, defenders of the national interest through European supranationalism, architects of taking into account from Eastern Europe…
No doubt we did not realize it, but the second half of the ⅩⅩth century was that of the dechristianization of the national conception.
However, the Church finally discovered the accelerated secularization of the continent, and, on a legal level, a voluntary secularization with the withdrawal of the “Christian roots” of Europe in the preamble to the treaty of the European Constitution (2004). In a way, she finds herself placed in the situation of a mother discovering that her daughter has voluntarily torn herself from her womb and no longer wants to have much to do with her. The blow is all the more sensitive since at the same time there resurfaces an actor that a part of the European episcopates, and particularly the French ones, had more or less abandoned since the Second World War: the nation, and in particular the religiously defined nation.
The return of the nation
No doubt we did not realize it, but the second half of the ⅩⅩth century was that of the dechristianization of the national conception. This is quite clear in the French case. The ⅩⅨth century saw the construction of a Catholic nationalism in opposition to republican and secular nationalism. He exalted France, the eldest daughter of the Church, the Gesta Dei per Francos, in short, it made France an actor chosen by God from all eternity, or almost, to ensure the establishment of his kingdom on earth before the arrival of the end of time. This Catholic myth functioned until the First World War, and lasted more or less until the Second, before disappearing and remaining only in marginalized strata, and being partially reactivated on the occasion of the Algerian War, especially around 1958. Catholic nationalism then saw its messianic dimension recede in favor of a partially ethnicizing form whose discriminatory effects were largely attenuated by a theoretical and practical evangelism rooted in the mutations preceding and accompanying Vatican Ⅱ .
In the end, Catholic nationalism, which can also be a nationalist Catholicism, thus finds itself opposed to the majority of the episcopate and to the declarations of hierarchs who carefully intend to dissociate themselves from all populism.
However, since the mid-1980s, and accelerated from the 2000s, with the growing visibility of the demographic weight of populations of immigrant origin and of Islam, Catholic nationalism has increasingly tended to leave aside his evangelism, without necessarily recovering his messianism. It thus resonates clearly with an ethno-nationalism with populist connotations fueled by the dissolution of socialization and politicization structures, deindustrialization, and the reclamation by populations of immigrant origin of their Frenchness. He also renews his cultural anti-liberalism by taking note of the accelerated secularization of cultural norms, thus being able to replay his old hostility to many aspects of post-1789 modernity. He can therefore clearly demonstrate his opposition to European construction, arguing for the importance of historical roots, national realities inherited from the past, the failure of social constructivism and the “constitutional patriotism” theorized in the FRG (notably by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas).
The poor bishops
In the end, Catholic nationalism, which can also be a nationalist Catholicism, thus finds itself opposed to the majority of the episcopate and to the declarations of the hierarchs who carefully intend to dissociate themselves from all populism and everything they consider to be exploitation. politics of religion. This means that in fact, they have lost the memory of what was the nationalist Catholicism of the ⅩⅨth and first ⅩⅩth centuries of which many of their predecessors were thuriferians. This also means that since the Second World War they have ignored the nation as a political community of destiny which continues to work for the French, still and always in disagreement on its content and the way of making it emerge and live. . Finally, this means that they have difficulty perceiving social transformations and knowing what to do with them in an attempt to remain credible pastors for their faithful and trusted interlocutors for political leaders. In short, when autumn came, the bishops found themselves very helpless. But they continue to talk. Because what else is there left for them to do?
