Pave: Chanoine d’honneur de Saint-Jean de Latran

Le jour 221 de Sarko

Here is the original IHT headline that caught our eye:

SARKOZY MEETS WITH POPE
AND CALLS ON FRANCE TO REMEMBER CHRISTIAN ROOTS

If you recall the EU-sprung-fully-formed-from-the-godless-humanist-brow-of-Europa name-and-title-clotted* preamble of the failed EU constitution, well, this is big news.

[Yawn.] Here's the tabloid rewrite:

OFFICIAL VISIT TO ITALY GETS PERSONAL FOR FRENCH PRESIDENT

The lede was rewritten too to work in a tease on Sarko's latest squeeze, Carla Bruni.

ROME December 21, 2007 (IHT) - Affairs of state and more personal ones mixed to bring Italy and France a little closer as the French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, arrived here Thursday on his first official visit.

What follows is junk reporting on Mdm. Bruni, then back to the Vatican.

In the evening, Sarkozy was named canon of the Basilica of St. John's,** the cathedral of Rome, an honor bestowed on French leaders since the 15th century [Henri IV, 1604]. There Sarkozy, who has praised the role of spirituality in public life, spoke of the importance of the church as well as "other great religious and spiritual movements to enlighten our choices and build our future."

On a continent where public officials speak of religion far less openly than in America, he also said he agreed with Benedict that Europe could not ignore its Christian roots - to do so, he said, "commits a crime against its culture."

But he also underscored the importance of a secular state, which he described as "the freedom to believe or not, to practice a religion and change your faith."

LE PRÉSIDENT SARKOZY CHANOINE D'HONNEUR
DE LA BASILIQUE SAINT-JEAN DE LATRAN
20 décembre 2007 (CEF)

While the press goes gaa-gaa over Mdm. Bruni, we are left wondering about Republican France, a France that boasts Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, a France whose national anthem*** calls for the blood of -- among others -- her less worthy aristocrat sons (Qu'un sang impur | Abreuve nos sillons, Let impure blood | Water our furrows) in its refrain (thus repeating the call seven times).

Yet this same Republican France maintains an order of knighthood and her every president is invested as a coprince. Now we learn that the titular head of secular Republican France† is also some sort of ecclesiastical person -- canon of the Basilica of St John Lateran,** no small holding -- in the Roman Catholic Church.

So we are wondering, just what sort of secular egalitarian republic is the Republic when its president, in the trappings of president, is also a titled chevalier, a princeling, and an ecclesiast of Holy Mother Church?

This seems the story in need of pursuit, not the curvaceous Mdm. Bruni.

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* The EU constitution preamble runs to 941 words. Of these only 272 (29%) speak to EU founding principles. The remaining 669 (71%) are the names, titles, and forms of address of the signatories. Conspicuously absent from the convoked personages is God. And absent God, His Christian Church also goes missing.

† It is also a republic of religious public holidays: Pâques, Lundi de Pâques, Ascension, Pentecôte (observed in the breach), Assomption, Toussaint, and Noël. Also Fête des Rois (Épiphanie), La Chandeleur (la présentation de Jésus au temple et la purification de la Vierge), and Vendredi saint (Good Friday) are all widely observed. And metal workers have the holiday of St. Eloi off.

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