In the Masonic Temple
The great hall is full, with about 300 people present. The women are
dressed in black. The Grand Master is presiding, surrounded by his council.
As always the protocol is scrupulously respected. I am announced, welcomed,
and asked to speak. The auditorium listens in a silence that one might qualify
as religious. After my intervention about "The Church and secularisation"
some difficult questions are addressed to me:
- "Why do you stay in the Church ?"
- "Strangely, it seems that you lack the courage to break the last
links that still connect you to the Church."
- "You had the audacity to express disagreement but you do not dare
to take the step that would free you."
- "Wherever you go, you trail behind you the weight of belonging
to a retrograde institution."
- The auditorium seemed to be very at ease about this questioning and
awaited with curiosity what I had to say:
"If there has to be courage to leave, does it not also need courage
in order to remain ? Does the audacity required to leave the Church have
more merit than the audacity to remain within it ?"
"The experience that I have of the Church is not limited to a disciplinary
measure or to institutional heaviness. The Church has given me access to
the fountains that have given me life. It is the Church that has allowed
me to listen to the Holy Scripture just as She received it. I listened to
the Gospels just as Saint Agustine was able to do so in the 4th century
or Saint Francis of Assis in the 13th century. The Christians with whom
I share my life are for me the Church. If I left the Church I would leave
them. I would feel I was practising treason."
The Church of Batignollles - I go regularly
by to visit the 30 hunger strikers: Chinese, Turks, two from the Maghreb
and a Frenchman who is taking part as a sign of solidarity.
In this Protestant Church I had the joy of becoming the godparent of
a young Chinese woman who is not legalised as a resident of France. She
gave me her photo which I always carry with me. She awaits my visit with
impatience and knows that she can count on my solidarity.
Today the news is not good. There is consternation. The Prime Minister
has refused to regularise those illegal residents who are employed "in
a clandestine work place which is the result of criminal activity."
The hunger strikers, confused by all this, remain determined. Their struggle
is also ours. Their future commits us more than ever.
Jacques Gaillot
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