The Élysée confirmed on Thursday, September 14, Emmanuel Macron will attend the mass that Pope Francis will give at the Vélodrome stadium on September 23 during his visit to the Mediterranean meetings in Marseille.
The head of state adores the Marseille city, its “city of hearts”, he said, and his football team. Emmanuel Macron will go to the Vélodrome stadium, but to see only one “man in white”, as Pierre Bachelet sang, and not eleven, those of OM. This decision sparked an avalanche of criticism from the left, in particular from the Insoumis. Jeac-Luc Mélenchon judges that Emmanuel Macron is thus trampling on secularism and the 1905 law on the separation of Churches and State.
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As always, we must distinguish the letter and the spirit of the law. Nothing in the 1905 text prohibits a sitting President from going to mass. From General de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy, via Jacques Chirac, many have done it. This is also not the first time that a President will attend a papal mass, although the last one was 43 years ago. It was Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, in 1980 on the occasion of a mass given at Notre-Dame by John Paul II.
A confused political message
On the other hand, we can legitimately consider that this choice contradicts the spirit of the law of 1905 which guarantees the freedom of conscience of believers and non-believers, but which separates religious organizations and the State, necessarily neutral, since the Secular Republic “does not recognize, employ or subsidize any religion”. Moreover, proof that his presence was not self-evident, the Élysée underlines that the President will not participate in the Eucharist, that is to say that he will not receive communion.
Emmanuel Macron made this choice out of personal conviction – a few years ago, he said he wanted “fix” the link he judged “abyss” between the State and the Church. But also undoubtedly to wink at a Catholic electorate rather classified on the right.
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The problem is that this political message blurs two others: the firmness displayed by the government to protect secularism threatened by religious communitarianism and illustrated by the ban on wearing the abaya at school; and the intention to legislate on the end of life. In the majority, the presence of the head of state at the papal mass will fuel the fears of those who worry about his cautious silence on the establishment of active assistance in dying, a reform to which the Catholic Church strongly opposed.