Faith Declining, Overseas Priest Recruited by French Churches

BBC’s religious correspondent in France recently reported on the declining Christian faith in the country. The increasingly strong force of secularisation in the French society is claimed to be the reason for this.

France, is traditionally and culturally a Catholic country with a considerably large number of protestants and evangelicals. However, the Catholic Church nowadays has lost much of its strength.

In the Lot valley in southwest France, while a large number of churches are gradually closing down because of the lack of congregations, priests are so scarce that one priest may have to oversee a handful of churches at the same time. In fact, many of them may have almost no congregation.

More and more weddings, funerals, and even baptisms are conducted by lay people rather than priest.

The average age of Catholic priests in France is also worrying. In many dioceses, the average age of the priest is over 60. Recent research suggests that French priests have become so old that half of them will die in the next eight years. Theological Seminaries in France say that ordination seems less attractive to young people nowadays.

"Priests used to have higher status in French society," Father Lucien Lachieze-Rey of Toulouse Seminary says, "They were considered respectable and significant. Now, like teachers and engineers, they don't have the respect they used to."

In order to solve the shortage of priest, French-speaking priests are recruited from African countries which are former French colonies such as Senegal, Gambia and Ivory Coast. In one single diocese, there can be as many as 30 African priests.

Father Anatole Kere from Burkina Faso told the BBC that he came to France and hoped to bring back the Christian faith to this post-Christian country. He lamented that French people ignored faith because of material wealth.

"It gives people the sense of having a refuge," he says, "They become uninterested in spiritual things. They don't seem to realise the dangers in neglecting the spiritual side of man."

The same risk has been observed by the French nuns and priests. They said that pews are now empty because of materialism and the breakdown in community life.

In addition, some blame people's aversion to belonging, "They're prepared to take part, but they don't want to belong to an institution."

Some priests support a movement called Focalari, a broad-based, un-dogmatic approach to Christianity aimed particularly at the young, in the hope of bringing people back to church.