WILL FRANCE COME TO ITS SENSES?

Fr. KRYSTIAN GAWRON

The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, celebrates its 850th anniversary of its existence this year. It is a place most visited by tourists (13 million people every year). In the jubilee year, there are more tourists and pilgrims. On 21 May this year, about 4 p.m. in the church there were nearly 1500 people who had to be quickly evacuated. People realized what it was about, just in front of the main entrance.

A desperate step of a French writer and journalist

78-year-old Domoque Venner came up to the altar and committed a suicide by shooting at himself. At once an ambulance arrived – but only in order to confirm death and the police - in order to accuse Archbishop of Paris at once! And the culprit had been pointed to by the very suicide in his testament left by the altar: lobby steering the policy of the government of France towards the family! Prelate priest Patrick Jacquin, a rector of the cathedral, stated that the suicide had not been known in his parish.

The weekly ‘La Croix’ restricted itself to three sentences of a mention on page 11 (22 May 2013). Official media say about mental disorders of the suicide. Only ‘Le Figaro’(22 May 2013) gave a long comment on many pages, distancing itself from accusations of the media ‘correctness’. It turns out that Domonique Venner was a famous writer and an appreciated historian. He was highly appreciated by, among the others, Lucien Jerphagnon, Jean Tulard, Jacqueline de Romilly or Ernst Junger. The publishing house Pierre-Guillaume de Roux says about a dozen books of Dominique Venner, such as: ‘Baltic States’(about the participation of the French army in the war in 1920), ‘The whites and the reds – history of the civil war in Russia 1917 – 1921’, ‘Critical history of the Conspiracy’, ‘History and traditions of the Europeans’. Venner even founded a periodical ‘Nouvelle Revue d’Historie’ in 2002. So, it is difficult to consider the prominent intellectualist as ‘an emotionally unbalanced man’. Surely it was a gesture of helplessness.

Testament left behind on the altar

The desperate gesture of revolt will remain a mystery. ‘Le Figaro’ partially publishes the text of the sheet of paper left by him on the altar. The basic motif of the dramatic gesture of Dominique Venner was ‘the law of Taubira’, removing the term: ‘father’, ‘mother’ from French vocabulary and recognition of the so-called homosexual married couples, even with the perspective of having children by them. ‘The law of Taubira’ ‘was passed’ despite the national protest in whole France. It was approved by the Senat and signed by the president Francois Holland (at night of the same day). In his testament, Dominique Venner wrote that it was ‘law slandering France’. He stated that the resistance against this law ‘could not be restricted to manifesting against ‘marriages’ of homosexuals. New, speculative and symbolic gestures are needed in order to remove coma and shake anesthetized consciences, in order to remind about the roots of identity. Just now and here our fate is being settled till the last second, and just this second has the same value as the rest of our life. I think that one must be oneself till the last second. I take death onto myself in order to wake up dormant consciences. In this way I have an attitude against invasive individuals, who destroy quoins of our identity, especially the family, the basis of our civilization for many thousands years’ – he wrote.

‘Samurai of the West’

The editor of ‘Radio Courtoise’ says that Dominique Venner followed the example of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishimy, who had committed a suicide for the sake of defended ideas in 1970. A kind of a justification for the gesture towards the current policy of the French government is the latest book of Dominique Venner entitled ‘Samurai of the West – Breviary of the steadfast’, which is going to be published in June 2013.

Will France hear him? How does the president Francois Holland feel? Does Christiane Taubir, the minister of justice and the author of ‘reform’ concerning the marriage and the family, have pangs of conscience? Will the national protest against the ‘law of Tabura’ (and many other protests) allow France to regain the name of ‘democratic country’ on 26 May 2013? And, for now, France of the presidency of Francis Holland does not deserve this name.

(AA)

"Niedziela" 23/2013

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl