austraLasia #1890
'Chargé de mission à la coordination des
acteurs locaux' - Salesian's new role in France
PARIS: 28th June 2007 -- Recent events in France may well
interest our readers, especially if they have little access to
La
Croix, the Paris Catholic daily. On 25th June,
La Croix
ran an interview with Fr Jean Marie Petitclerc sdb who has been
appointed to a role as advisor to Christine Boutin, new Minister for
Housing and Cities in the Sarkozy administration. The
interviewer, a certain Jean-Marie Guénois, focuses on the
priest-in-politics dilemma. Here are some snippets from the interview.
J-MG: Do you see any contradiction between your
status as a priest and entering politics?
JMP: The issue here is "building a civilisation of love" to use a
phrase of John Paul II's. Charity also has a collective, political
dimension - building a more just, more fraternal society.
J-MG: Have you placed conditions and limits on
what you will do? JMP: I want to remain a man of
action. So I will not be letting go my leadership of Valdocco (an
association run by the Salesians in Argenteuil and Lyon. See below). I
will work part time. I have reorganised my life, working now three days
a week in priestly ministry. The condition I have put is that my
freedom of speech as a priest is guaranteed.
J-MG: You say often enough that enemy number one
is the ghetto. What priority does this have for you?
JMP: If I have been made part of Christine Boutin's team, it is
because she has wanted to get away from a policy based on suburbs to
one based on the city itself. The policy we have had for some years,
that consists in giving aid to schools or groups involved with
difficult suburbs, is a policy that has not brought an end to a
spiralling "ghetto-isation". It is not a matter of making cities out of
suburbs but returning suburbs to their place in the city and
encouraging initiatives that will allow citizens to mix with other
citizens.
He is asked what it means to be in charge of 'coordinating
local actors/protagonists'. He explains it as getting parents,
teachers, leaders, local groups, all citizens on board in the fight
against exclusion. At this point he goes on to explain that his advice
is to free up the situation in the suburbs, especially where youth and
education is concerned, and encourage initiatives enabling citizens to
meet other citizens outside their local suburb. He would see a varied
rhythm in city life which does not see all students on holiday at the
same time, and which looks to development of outer-city zones.
The interviewer comes back to the
priest-in-politics, with an 'are you left or right' question, which
Petitclerc neatly deflects with a line or two from Don Bosco about his
politics being, rather, those of the Our Father and 'thy kingdom come'.
A more astute question is whether a priest at the service of the
Republic is not caught up in the whole 'secular' issue. Fr Petitclerc
reminds his interviewer that there are two very different notions of
'secular', one enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic, the other
opposed to religious expression. He for one, he says, is happy to
belong to a nation where his religious beliefs are no hindrance to his
exercising certain responsibilities.
Fr Petitclerc is a prominent figure in French
society, widely respected for his views but even more for his practical
response (as a Salesian and citizen). He weighed into the debate last
year after 'ghetto' suburbs in many French cities exploded into
violence. You can read up about his work at Argenteuil-Valdocco
in www.sdb.org by clicking on the current FOCUS (home page) and seeking
the 2004 archive.
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