As a customary precaution intended for his contemporaries, vacationers on their way to one of the sites of our marvelous religious heritage, Victor Hugo wrote these lines: “ Each face, each stone of this venerable building is a page not only of the history of the country but also of the history of science and art. “. Thus, the author of Notre Dame of Paris takes us beyond the borders of spirituality alone, and encourages us to think about the complexity of a common identity. The one that has shaped French and European cultures for centuries.
READ ALSO: Does the Catholic Church still have a role to play today?
For forty years, the Church has been confronted with a major haemorrhage of the faithful. If in 1981 the “eldest daughter of the Church” had 70% Catholics, France now has only 32%. If the decline of religion in the West, and particularly in France, is a striking fact of the beginning of the 21st century, it is also at the origin of a vast upheaval in heritage, much less explored by our contemporaries. While the church was historically the center of social and parochial life, whose vocation was mainly spiritual, its use is changing in the light of fundamental changes in religious practice. Formerly only a place of belief, churches are now turning into places of heritage visits.
Museumification
The great abbeys and cathedrals of the metropolises become high places of globalized tourism. Tourist coaches, audio-guides and sometimes paid entrances: the most remarkable churches in large cities are now, like any museum, more a place for wanderings and “selfies” than for prayers and silence. The small churches in our countryside are no exception to this transformation from the spiritual to museumification. The rural exodus and the decline in demography in rural areas have contributed to the desertification of tens of thousands of chapels in our villages. Now relayed to the rank of small isolated museums, these churches are limited to their cultural dimension only, for those who are lucky enough to still be maintained.
READ ALSO: “Our historical heritage is the rampart that protects us from the excesses of the time”
It is not a question here of blaming the visitors, public authorities and parishioners who maintain their sites through tourism of course, but rather of placing the church, whether one is a believer or not, at the heart of the life of the City, and not only for its heritage value. Even more than architectural works, these buildings are the subtle and harmonious extension of a thousand-year-old civilization. From the small church of Saint-Gènes-de-Lombaud, built in the 11th century on the ruins of a pagan temple, to the flamboyant Gothic Notre-Dame cathedral described with passion by Hugo, these monuments, all majestic, are a stone to the common building of our identity. The 60,000 religious buildings built on our territory are an integral part of the landscape. Like a valley or a hill, they form its extension and permeate the history and geography of France. Thus, destroying our churches or abandoning them would amount to breaking with the cultural continuity that they symbolize.
Christian roots
Although an agnostic, François Mitterrand understood this continuity. While the socialist candidate was returning from Château-Chinon where he had campaigned, he told his driver to stop on the edge of the village of Sermages. There, he was charmed by the small bell tower of the communal church which dominated the Morvan landscape, so much so that he made this image of Épinal the emblem of his presidential campaign. The politician as the intellectual that he was had grasped the sincere affection that the French had for the chapels of their villages, not for the religious symbol that they may represent – he had erased the tip of the steeple judged aggressively clerical – but good for the image of this authentic and rural France that it represented. A true allegory of its flagship slogan, ” the quiet force », this peaceful and reassuring vision of our country brought him to power on May 10, 1981.
READ ALSO: “The disappearance of Paris”, another blow to the head of Anne Hidalgo
Forty years later, while our country has changed profoundly, the churches remain at the heart of our lives. Through unforeseen events, like the coronavirus pandemic, the French are reconnecting with France’s Christian roots. Like a somewhat fortuitous and misunderstood meeting, they find themselves in front of one of the churches that punctuate towns and villages.
Fleeing the hell of successive confinements, a people from the metropolises has taken root, temporarily for the most part, with these campaigns of which many are unaware. From year to year, neo-rurals, in particular thanks to the turning point of telework, put down their luggage in one of the villages of France. As often, the story is facetious and full of twists and turns. After decades of rural exodus, here is now that of doubts about urban life and its share of discomforts. If the countryside is repopulated, what will be the future of these churches? Will they be polished showcases of the neo-urban world or will they, through the magic of their stones, give the keys to the spiritual world to their visitors?
“If the countryside is repopulated, what will be the future of these churches, our heritage?”