The bishops of France will not take a position between the two towers of the election, but Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, President of the Conference of Bishops of France, implicitly criticizes the proposals of extreme right candidates and euthanasia .
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Not more than in 2017, the representatives of the Catholic Church will take a position between the two towers of the presidential election, confirmed Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, the President of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) , who closed his spring plenary assembly Friday, April 8, in Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrenees). “There is a certain issue in these elections, he argued on Thursday night at a press conference, but we do not believe that it is relevant that a moral institution points out for which does not vote or For whom to vote. “The Archbishop of Reims has, however, added that the bishops” would react if the Christian faith is used “in a political objective.
The five years ago, the absence of a position of the episcopate before the second round where, for the second time, the extreme right had hoisted his candidate – in the occurrence Marine Le Pen – had controversial in Catholics. In recent years, the share of voters claiming practicing Catholics and voting for the extreme right, long below that in the rest of the electorate, tends to grow.
Eric de Moulins-Beaufort returned to the document published in January by the CEF. Title “Esperance does not disappoint”, this text summarizes their main points of attention in the countryside (defense of religious freedom, questions of bioethics, environment …).
In his closing speech of the plenary assembly, Friday, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort has nevertheless insisted, with strong words, on several very political themes and who can be interpreted by reference to the projects expressed by certain candidates, including extreme right. While the bishops had invited Hlib Lonchyna, the Bishop of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Sparkie of Paris – who celebrated with them a Mass in Greco-Catholic Rite -, the President of the CEF mentioned “his supplication for that country who struggles for truth and justice “. “The charity of Christ presses us,” he added, because he still dies in Kharkiv or Maroupol. “He also talked about the ecology, to which the episcopate devoted a work of Reflection over several years.
Alert on growing anti-Semitism
The Archbishop of Reims also evoked the memory of Cardinal Jules Saliège. Archbishop of Toulouse under the regime of Vichy, the prelate remained in history for broadcasting, on 23 August 1942, while the mass deportations of the Jews of France were in progress, a letter in which he denounced with force ” Scenes of terror “in the French camps where were grouped by the Judifs raped, especially those of Noah and Rébébéou, close to Toulouse. “The Jews are men, Jews are women. Foreigners are men, foreigners are women, wrote. All is not allowed against them, against these men, against these women, against these fathers and family mothers. They are part of the human race. They are our brothers like so many others. A Christian can not forget it. “Cardinal Saliège stood up, recalled the prelate,” while the Vichy regime had published antijuives laws and contributed to the raids of the Nazis “. The thesis of Petain, “shield” of the French against the occupant Nazi, defended by Eric Zemmour, is not that of the President of the CEF.
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