Starting his first visit to France as pope, Benedict XVI
touched Friday on central themes of his papacy - including the tensions between
faith and reason and church and state as well as his efforts to reach out to
Muslims and Jews - and he urged an increasingly irreligious Europe to look back
to its intellectual roots in Christian monastic culture.
"What gave Europe's culture its foundation - the search
for God and the readiness to listen to him - remains today the basis of any
genuine culture," the pope said.
The pope spoke before 700 academics, cultural figures and
Muslim leaders at the College des Bernardins, a new cultural center in a
13th-century monastery, a location he called "emblematic" for his
remarks.
"Amid the great cultural upheaval resulting from
migrations of peoples and the emerging new political configurations, the
monasteries were the places where the treasures of ancient culture
survived," he said.
He continued: "It is through the search for God that
the secular sciences take on their importance."
His message sought to counter a deep vein of anti-clericalism
in France, which has long drawn sharp distinctions between issues of faith and
matters of temporal power.
"At this moment in history, when cultures continue to
cross paths more frequently, I am firmly convinced that a new reflection on the
true meaning and importance of secularism is now necessary," the pope said
earlier at a ceremony with President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace.
But, in contrast with history's long chronicles of
confrontation between the poles of divine and earthly power, the pope proposed
a "distinction between the political realm and that of religion in order
to preserve both the religious freedom of citizens and the responsibility of
the state toward them."
The pope distinguished between the state's legislative and
social responsibilities and religion's role "for the formation of
conscience" and the "creation of a basic ethical consensus in
society."
The pope's four-day stay in France had been planned to mark
the 150th anniversary of what the Vatican recognizes as the apparitions of the
Virgin Mary to a 14-year-old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, at Lourdes in
1858. But he broadened his journey at the invitation of Sarkozy, who spoke
during a visit to Rome and the Vatican last year of a "positive
secularism," saying religion "should not be considered a danger but
an asset."
Roman Catholics make up about 60 percent of the French
population of 65 million. But only 11 percent of people said they regarded religion
as "very important," according to a survey by the Pew Research
Center. France also has a growing Muslim minority of six million and smaller
groups of other faiths.
In an interview in fluent French with reporters traveling
with him on an Alitalia airplane from Rome, the pope was asked what his message
was and replied that it "seemed evident to me that secularism in itself is
not in contradiction with faith."
Religion and politics, he said, "should be open to each
other."
The pope's visit to France came almost exactly two years
after he stirred Muslim ire with a speech about Islam in Regensburg, in his
native Germany, quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying that the
Prophet Muhammad brought "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Paris Mosque, described that
controversy as "ancient history," The Associated Press reported.
"Through his speeches we know that he is a man of peace and
dialogue," Boubakeur said.
Church Reunion