European Rally for Secularism

Good morning to all listeners,

This is Christian Eyschen on the microphone.  I am the secretary-general of the French Libre Pensee.  I would like to speak to you today about the European secular rally that took place on  Saturday December 6 in Paris, at the Labor Hall, a mythical place where so many hopes and revolts were expressed in history.

In an over-crowded hall,  humanists, secularists, rationalists and a great number of free thinkers from all Europe and from all France met to refuse that the wheel of  history turn backwards, to express their refusal of the anti secularist  provisions of the draft of the European constitution.

From England, Slovakia,  France,  Germany, Iceland, Austria, Poland, Luxembourg, Italy, Finland, Spain, from the Czech Republic, from Denmark and Norway, 32 associations of fourteen different countries said NO to a Vatican clerical and religious Europe.

To quote a famous song by Charles Aznavour :  " They've come, they are all there, even Giorgio, the accursed son ".  He was there too.  In France, the CAEDEL (Europe and Secularism), the Rationalist Union, the Committee Secularism and Republic, the Atheist Union was on the same platform as the French Libre Pensée in defense of  the 1905 Law of separation  of the Church and the State which is seriously threatened by the European constitution.

Answering the call of the National Secular Society of England and of the French Libre Pensée, those 32 associations, representing the secular conscience in Europe, jointly refused Article 51 of the future European constitution.

That this article reads :  " - The Union respects and does not prejudge the status under national law of Churches and religious associations or communities in the Member States"…

"Recognizing  their identity and their specific contribution, the Union shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue, with these Churches and organizations."

Let us point out some obvious facts,  a constitutional treaty is not a novel with a beautiful story.  It is a legal text which binds the interested parties.  When Article 51 says  " the European Union will respect " the various forms of relationships between the Churches and the States", that means that it will protect them by integrating them in the Community Law which is superior to the  various national regulations.  When the ratification of this constitution is achieved,  all forms of relationship between religions and the States, i.e. the concordats, established Churches and State religions, the clerical statute of Alsace - Moselle, the Church taxes, the offence of blasphemy,  all that will be integrated in the Community Law.

From now on, when a nation wants to repeal a concordat - be it Bonapartist, Hitlerian, pro-Franco, Mussolinian or salazarist -  in order to do so in legal conformity with the European Law, the agreement of the 25 countries wil be made compulsory, in the sama way as when they want to modify the European constitution. That is to say, it is an impossible task.

That is why the Vatican is urging in all Europe to endorse Concordats before the final ratification of the European constitution.  This is the result :  over  the 25 Member States or future member States of the European Union, 14 member States have a Concordat with the Vatican.  And most of the other Member States have established religions!

And consequently,  once the institutional relationships of the Churches and States are forever preserved forever, the third clause makes religious Churches and organizations "established partners " of the European Union.

Thus in a fundamental way, the European constitution calls into question the right of nations to self-determination by binding the future generations to the decisions of those of yesterday.  It is the divine order imposed to all, for all and for ever and ever.

In addition, the preamble to the constitution, in its current form, puts the contribution of the Enlightenment and Humanism on the same level as the burden of religious obscurantism.  Let us repeat it again and again, a constitutional text is not to be a book of history nor a romance.  It does not tell about the past, it is supposed to build the future.  By making religious heritage a legal article in a text that is aimed to define the working of institutions, it means that religions are the horizon that cannot be exceeded legally  and politically by nations in Europe.

From now on, the message is clear:  Europe was religious  yesterday, it must remain so tomorrow.  Europe of Churches, temples, synagogues and mosques is being made in Brussels and that they want it to be signed in Rome with the Vatican's blessings.

We must not move back in Europe, because all our social benefits in our respective countries are points of support for the people marching for their freedom on all the continents.  In defense of secularism wherever it exists, to conquer it wherever it is still lacking, such is our common fight which we carry out with the precious help of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.  The Secular International exists, we met it, it is called IHEU.

Babu Gogineni,  executive director  of the IHEU chaired this European Rally besides and Roy Brown, its president, was the first to speak and said  that this meeting "was part of the world fight for the separation of religions and the States… Presently, European Churches suffer  a drop  in Church attendance.  In this context, it is necessary to evaluate the secret work of the Vatican, which tries to increase its power  and its influence.  It knows where to go and where to lead Europe.  Its objective is a Europe where its conservative values will have a special status, nothing but a Roman Catholic Empire… "

He concluded his speech with a wish:  "I would like our rally to send a clear message to the Chiefs of States of the European nations who will meet next week in Italy, and tell them  that article 51 is by no means acceptable for a majority of European citizens, a majority who believes in  democracy and  separation of  Churches and the  State ".

Then, Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society of the UK declared : "President George Walker Bush seems to regard the matter we hold the most "sacred" - the wall between Church and State - with as much contempt as he did the statues of Saddam Hussein.  Never  a week passes without that wall  receiving another battering.  As a direct result of growing religious pressure, the US contributions to essential contraception programmes in the Third World are being slashed. 

About the situation in the UK , he went on : " In the UK, I am ashamed to say that some bishops are still entitled  to vote in our Upper House of Parliament,  the only Western democracy with such a ludicrous and undemocratic arrangement. And  although England's established Church is almost bankrupt after seventy years of continuous decline in attendances, it is still a political force, especially under Tony Blair's government ".

Etienne Pion, president of "Europe and Secularism",  insisted on the antidemocratic character of the future European constitution and openly questioned:  " Can we believe for only one moment that a referendum will be organized on the matter ?  I bet there won't be any…Today the CAEDEL welcomes all the secular and humanist forces in Europe and it proclaims its resolution to work jointly with them in order to build an interdependent, secular and independent  Europe".

Doctor Wolfgang Soos, president of the Austrian Freethought, reconsidered the contribution of Christianity on our continent:  " The History of Europe teaches that every democratic and social achievement was gained against the resistance of the Christian Churches. The links between Christian Churches and yesterday's fascist regimes.  One can regularly observe attacks against human rights such as crusades, the Inquisition and brutal colonizations".

Thierry Pescatore gave the support of the association " Freedom of conscience", the Free-Thought, the Schoolmasters' General Confederation and the League of Education of Luxembourg. Many messages of associations that were not able to attend the meeting were communicated to the participants alongside with  those of the French Rationalist Union, of the radical Humanist Union of Luxembourg and the British Humanist Association.

In their message, the Czech Free-Thought protested  against the influence of the Vatican in business whereas Catholics are a minority : "In the latest census of the population in 2001,  only an absolute minority of 31% declared their religious denomination (27% Roman Catholic, 4% Protestant or Orthodox Churches).  The absolute majority of the population (69%) are representing citizens with no religious denomination.  In comparison to the figures of the 1991 census, the amount of active believers has decreased by 12% ". 

In the New World, on the other side of the Atlantic, we received the support of our freethinker friend Fred Whitehead from Kansas, and of Atheists associations, and also of the Secular Movement of Quebec, which is particularly dear to our hearts.

Joan Carles Marset of the Atheists and Freethinkers Association of Spain publicly questioned:  " Are we ready today, more than 200 years after the proclamation of the declaration of Human Rights of 1789, to give up liberty and the equal rights for  which our predecessors fought ?  Are we been willing to allow that the citizens of the 21st century, ultimately our own children, lose these conquests which constitute the very essence of our dignity as men and citizens? "

Claude Caudal of the Committee Secularism  and  Republic declared "Subsidiarity and multi-culturalism inspired the draft of the  European Union constitutional treaty. This draft is not based on the secular principle of legal separation between public institutions and religious institutions.  It reinforces  and recognizes intermediary bodies, at the citizen's expense."

Ulrike Tietze of the Anti-conformist Center of Germany lengthily reconsidered the action undertaken by this young  and dynamic Association which ceaselessly fights  against the compulsory Church-taxes in her country and for the abrogation of the Hitlérian Concordat of 1933.  Doctor Mueller of the German Freethinking insisted on the same idea:  " The federations of Free Thinkers and Humanists in  Germany support the freedom of conscience and religion, which holds as a principle the separation of the State and the Churches. That is why in Germany we demand, amongst other things, the abolition of the Church-taxes,  of lessons of Christian religion as a subject included in the school program , of theological colleges in public universities, of military chaplaincy, discriminations in the rules of employment for Church employees".

Doctor Skoda of the Prometheus Society of Slovakia reconsidered the consequences of the velvet Revolution of 1989. " Before, he said,  one of the major demands of the Catholic Church was the separation of the Church and the State. The contrary occurred. In 1992 , already, 80% of the civil servants were replaced by people declaring themselves believers.  Since then,  the positions of political dignitaries were put under the control of the Church.  Key positions in the  administration were occupied by ultra-members of Christian political parties.  I must say that the president of the Slovak National Assembly is the nephew of the pope's nuncio  in Bielorussia.

The State has restored enormous properties to the Roman Catholic Church, some of which never belonged to the Church.  These properties are  free from tax, they receive important subsidies and funds from tax-payers also paid by non-believers.  The Church does not have to account for the exact use of  these subsidies".

The representative of the Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics of Italy, very humorously, spoke in his turn :  "We ask for your support against clerical offhandedness and wish to join with the nations that are still able to safeguard their freedom of conscience.  Do not forget that we are a pathological and peculiar case in Europe and in the whole world. We have the Vatican at home, thanks to Catherine of Sienna who brought it back from Avignon to Rome (Lucky Frenchmen !). In addition, while you had the Reform, the Enlightenment, the French revolution in the rest of Europe, in Italy we only had the Counter-Reformation and it is still working."

In Italy, theocracy always survived thanks to the acquisition of privileges, by intrigues, corrupt practices and alliances with all kinds of power,  obvious or occult :  Fascism with Catholicism, the historical compromise between Communists and Catholics, clergy with the P2 Lodge, the Maffia with the political power. And now these mystical oracles which, for centuries, fomented wars, holocausts and genocide, do not hesitate to preach sniveling and hypocritical pacifism ".

Our comrade José Arias, speaking on behalf of Europa Laica of Spain, commented the situation in this country :  "In 1999, the Spanish bishops formulated new complaints concerning religious obligation at Schools to face the desertion from the first communion by a growing number of teenagers… For Europa Laicia, to establish true secularism in Spain, it is particularly necessary to put an end to :

-   the 1953 Concordat and the 1976 agreements binding the Spanish State with the Vatican.

-   the 1980 religious law (the name of which is accurate since it grants privileges to some denominational groups). 

In fact, with article 51 of the future European constitution, it is as if the European Union proposed to affix in its turn its signature at the bottom of the 1953 Concordat, along with Franco's signature.  It is unacceptable, this article must be withdrawn".

With much emotion  the participants in our meeting listened to Lars Gule, leader of the Norwegian humanist association, heiress of the Free Thought.  It counts 70 000 members on a population of three million inhabitants.  Norway is not part of the European Union and Lars Gule indicated  that article 51 is certainly not to give any desire to humanists and  free thinkers from his country to require adhesion to it.

In his turn, George Liénard, secretary-general of the European Humanist Federation, gave the support of the FHE on the initiative of the National Secular Society and the Libre Pensée.  He indicated the detailed action of his European association for the withdrawal of article 51 "keystone of all the European constitution".  He was pleased that the Belgian government, following this action, was the first State to require the withdrawal of this article.  He invited all the secular organizations in Europe to lobby  their respective government and obtain the same position.

The French Libre Pensée was to finish this series of speeches with a vibrating appeal for secularism in Europe. It stated clearly that it said NO to the European constitution and not only because of article 51 and of the reference to the religious heritage in its preamble.

The European Union has but one operating mode, i.e. the catholic principle of subsidiarity.  This word, which is not in the dictionary but in the canon law, was used for the first time in an encyclical called "Quadragesimo anno", written in 1931 for the 40th anniversary of the 1st social encyclical by Leo XIII which was called "Rerum Novarum".

The principle of subsidiarity was translated by this popular phrase : "never entrust an organization of higher rank what can be done by an organization of lower rank". Obviously, that could seem logical but if one examines history, the society that most completely carried out the principle of subsidiarity is France under the Ancien Régime.

Under Ancien Régime the capacities of the State were :  the police forces, Army, justice, law courts, i.e. the repression apparatus and diplomacy.  All what characterizes a modern society :  schools, health services, tax-collecting, all those fundamental elements were entrusted to organizations of lower ranks,  the Church and  "farmer generals".

We note today that when they privatize water companies,  undertaking, school canteens, when they claim tax-collecting by employers directly on the pay-bill, we are back to France of Ancien Régime i.e. they entrust to organizations of lower ranks what belongs to the State, the Republic and local authorities.

As the Community law is higher than the national regulations, then those national regulations have to be changed to integrate subsidiarity.  That was done in France, on March 17, 2003 by a shameful constitutional revision.  This "reform" tends to break all the heritage of the great French revolution.  While destroying the unity and the indivisibility of the public services, they call into question the equality of the citizens before the law.

For the French Libre Pensée, a constitution that works on the basis of principle of subsidiarity cannot be a democratic and secular constitution. 

This is why, we propose to all the advocates of the separation of the Church and the State, to all secular associations in Europe to jointly organize a European demonstration in Brussels " For secularism in Europe ".

Thank you.