‘God has undoubtedly decided to take over’: France’s continuing (and surprising) Catholic shift against secular progressivism
This year’s Easter Vigil was the busiest in years in France. Figures released last week by the bishops’ conference of France announced that 7,135 adults would receive the sacrament of baptism at the Easter Vigil. This is a 32 per cent increase on 2023 when 5,463 adults were baptised.
This is an encouraging trend that dates back to the start of this century, but in recent years there has been another significant factor: baptisms among the young have been rising steadily. In 2024, an unprecedented 36 per cent of those receiving the sacrament are aged between 18 and 25. In 2019 this figure was 23 per cent of adult catechumens.
This demographic is also heavily represented in the 700 seminarists currently training to join the priesthood. Of this number, 83 per cent were born in France and 27 per cent are aged between 18 and 24. Forty-four per cent are in the 25 to 29 age bracket.
Monsignor Leborgne, Bishop of Arras and the President of the Council for Catechesis and the Catechumenate, described the rise in the number of adult baptisms as: “An immense joy, and one that was partly unexpected.” Asked to account for the good news, he replied with a smile: “God has undoubtedly decided to take over.”
Though, he admitted, there are other reasons: “So many certainties have collapsed in recent years. Pandemics, increased violence, the return of war, the ecological crisis, terrorism…Questions that we thought were outdated are being asked again.”
One of those who took the sacrament of baptism this year was a young student, who appeared on television last week to explain her decision. “It’s increasingly hard to make sense of the world in which we’re living,” she said. “I feel there’s a spiritual malaise. It’s up to each of us to find our own path but for me, Catholicism answers my questions.”
Unquestionably, the pandemic is a significant factor for the gentle revival of Catholicism in France, particularly among the young who, emotionally, were most affected by Covid. Not from the virus itself, but from the government counter measures: the closure of schools and universities, which lasted for two months from March to May 2020, and also the longer closure (nine months in total) of cafes, restaurants, cinemas and other places the young like to congregate.
Evidently, the isolation made many re-assess their lives.
At the same time, the “malaise” cited by the student is not just spiritual; it is also cultural and moral. Catholicism has been under attack in France this century by Islamist extremists and also by secular (laïcité) radicals, as I described in these pages last Christmas.
It is significant that the numbers of baptisms are particularly high among the working-class, and that a significant number (one in three) live in rural areas. Increasingly France feels like two countries within one: the “Anywheres” and the “Somewheres”. The former tend to live in the big cities and are affluent middle-class, globalist and progressive, whereas the “Somewheres” live in the Provinces and have more traditional values with a deep attachment to their region.
Until last summer I lived in Paris. Then I moved to an isolated part of Burgundy. The church is at the heart of my village and I am fortunate to have within easy reach the magnificent cathedral of Sens and the impressive churches of Auxerre, Villeneuve-sur-Yonne and Joigny.
The parish priest of Joigny, Matthieu Jasseron, is representative of the Catholic revival in France. The 38-year-old had built up a following of over one million followers on Tiktok, the social media platform. He disengaged from the platform last December because he was becoming too popular.
“I am a priest not a guru,” he said. Nevertheless, his social media popularity pointed to the desire among many young for answers.
Another inspirational figure for young Catholics is Henri d’Anselme. In June 2023 he confronted a man in an Annecy playground who had just stabbed some babies and toddlers in front of their terrorised mothers. The 24-year-old D’Anselme is a practising Catholic who was in Annecy as part of a religious peregrination across France.
Asked by a television reporter what had inspired him to act, d’Anselme referenced his Catholicism, describing it as “the greatness that nourishes me”.
It is rare that Catholics are portrayed positively in a mainstream French media that leans overwhelmingly to the secular left. They are usually portrayed as reactionary and obstacles to Emmanuel Macron’s progressive agenda. In recent months this has included a bill enshrining a woman’s right to an abortion in the Constitution and an Assisted Dying Bill.
The malaise that France has experienced this century has been spiritual, cultural, ideological and economic. Monseigneur Ginoux, the former bishop of Montauban and now a bishop emeritus, said in a recent interview, that “many people are lost in these contemporary times”.
For a growing number they are finding the answers in the Church.
Photo: Guy de Kerimel (centre), Archbishop of Toulouse, presides over a procession of the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday in the streets of Toulouse, France, 29 March 2024. (Photo by PAT BATARD/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images.)
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