Atheist Former Prime Minister Criticises “Liturgical Casualness”

Edouard Philippe, the French socialist prime minister until July 2020 and presently mayor of Le Havre, doesn’t believe in God, nevertheless he thinks that “in the heart of humanity there is a notion of the absolute and of eternity.”

“That's why I like to go to churches; that's why I love the sacred,” he says in the recently published interview book "The truth about Edouard Philippe." He is unable to explain what “absolute,” “enternal” and “sacred” could possibly mean without God.

Philippe confesses that he is “not uncomfortable” at mass. At church ceremonies, funerals, and weddings, “I try to listen to what they say.” During Mass, he thinks about the dead, “and sometimes I think about my own death.” He believes that “the level of the French clergy has declined” but has a “very respectful relationship” with the Bishop of Le Havre.

The state of the liturgy leaves Philippe unhappy, “I find that for some years now there has been a form of liturgical casualness. Which shocks me. The guitar at mass, I've never understood. For me, the sacred is either very sober, like the bareness you find in monasteries, or very pompous.”

Picture: Edouard Philippe, © Jacques Paquier , CC BY-SA, #newsYtzphbqvtm