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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AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia1
'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.
_________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia1
