a symposium to think about the future of communal churches

Should we resolve to destroy certain churches? In January, the former Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot sparked a lively debate by asserting that the public authorities could not keep all the “village churches”. The future of churches will be at the heart of discussions at a symposium organized on Friday June 2 by the Pilgrim Heritage Institute at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, entitled “Communal churches at the service of the common good? “.

Future of religious heritage

Historians, theologians, jurists, but also elected officials and representatives of heritage associations will intervene throughout the morning with the senators. The symposium is placed under the high patronage of Catherine Morin-Desailly, senator for Seine-Maritime, and will be led by Benoît de Sagazan, director of the Institut Pèlerin du Patrimoine, and Samuel Lieven, editorial director of Le Pèlerin (edited by Bayard Presse, as well as La Croix).

It follows on from the information report on the future of religious heritage, written by senators Pierre Ouzoulias and Anne Ventalon, published in July 2022. In their report, which recalls that the 35,000 French municipalities own more than 40% of places of worship – mainly Catholic – recommend supporting mayors in maintaining their religious heritage and allowing religious buildings to be reclaimed. To be safeguarded, believe the two rapporteurs, this heritage must once again become “meaningful and useful” for the population, including non-practitioners.

Support for mayors

This is how this symposium “would like to show how it is possible to open up churches, of communal property and assigned to worship, to new uses in the service of the common good”. Father Gautier Mornas, responsible for sacred art at the Conference of Bishops of France, will for example answer the question of their “use compatible with worship”, while Benoît de Sagazan will present a “typology of shared uses in worship churches.

The question of supporting municipalities in the maintenance and attractiveness of their churches will also be addressed by Aude Maisonneuve, head of the heritage department, and Armelle Dallibert, both of the Calvados departmental council. The Senate report of July 2022 indeed recommended pooling financial resources and town planning councils at the departmental level. He also put his finger on the absence of an inventory of religious buildings and their condition. An inventory that Édouard de Lamaze, president of the Observatory of Religious Heritage, will present on Friday.

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