In 1980, the French Catholic Bishops launched a brochure, receiving official imprimatur and titled ‘United Europe in Pope's Teaching’. It said ‘Pope Pius XII called to a new organisation for Europe’. Facing an overwhelming wave of secularisation, ‘the main remedy resides in bringing back the Christian traditional values that organised along the centuries unity and welfare for all our continent. Christianism, part of our European common legacy, could and must give a new spirit and a new soul for a new Europe facing the threats of materialism’.

Against human progress, they want to bring back the eternal order of fields and churches where religion was above all other matters. Far from clerical domination over our society, the purpose of Libre Pensée is to offer worldwide Humanism as the positive alternative to religion and to advocate for strict separation of State and Church in all countries.

As Humanists and Freethinkers, we believe humanity no longer needs primitive, obsolete, dangerous religions. Religious prohibitions, the offence of blasphemy, the threat of banishment, and fatwas are some of the many devices that have been created by religions to prey on our fears, enforce belief, and hinder our emancipation.

From the caste system of the Hindus; to Romans 13.1-7 of the Christian Bible; to Sura 16:72 of the Islamic Qur'an; to the unrestricted, exploitative capitalism of the Protestants; to the Eastern Orthodox Church's support of Czarism and Stalinism; "revealed teachings" have justified the organisation of tyrannical social hierarchies and the maintenance of economic exploitation. That's why religions have always been the instruments of social oppression.

From Tolerance to Freedom of Conscience

The German philosopher Schelling said : "Once dawn is there, the Sun will not be missing. All ideas have to be realised first in the sphere of knowledge before they become facts in History."

Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklarung, is the real heart of European common legacy, a Humanist tradition and a common struggle to obtain freedom of conscience. In this process, we have to point to the birth of modern Freemasonry, in 1717. Based on religious pluralism against all dogmas, “the natural religion” of Protestant ministers Desaguliers and Anderson, this distinct society was one more association - and not the least - of the Enlightenment melting pot. The original Masons were men of tolerance, struggling for freedom of religion. Most of them spearheaded the American and French revolutions. And masons such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison pushed forward the way of full freedom of conscience by separating and protecting religion - a private matter - from government and state.

Secular masons were the cornerstone of separation of school and religion first, then the separation of Church and state in 1905 in France. That is why, one century later, French freemasons, in a show of brotherhood, gathered with their banners and sashes in the centennial celebrations launched by Libre Pensée in the streets of Paris on December 10th 2005.

From Freedom of Conscience to Separation

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the USA which reads as ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’ formulated and realised the fundamental principles that have brought humanity out of the dark night of the ancient monarchical and clerical regimes.

We can find the political formulations of the First Amendment in the work of the French revolution, in the 1793 Table of Human Rights and in the great laws of liberty of the Third Republic. One by one, the French people established the right to petition, the right to assemble, universal franchise, the freedom of the press, the freedom to establish free political parties and the intangible right to establish independent Labour unions to fight for the workers’ rights.

Freedom of conscience is of primary importance in constructing the society in which we wish to live. The acknowledgment of this freedom of conscience has been demonstrated many times in history:

 in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in 1787,
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 in the 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State in France,
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 in the 1911 Law of Separation of Church and State in Portugal,
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 in the Separation of the Churches and the State in Mexico in 1917,
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 in the Decree of Separation of Church and State in the USSR in 1918,
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 in the 1931 Separation law drafted by the Spanish Republic.
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Therefore we demand two things:

1. On a personal level, we stand for the international development of secular Humanism. If belief in gods is maintained, then there can be no dignified place for humans. We have to choose, and we have chosen human beings. We point out that atheism (in places like India and ancient Greece) is a very old philosophy, existing earlier than most religions and sects.

2. Because true freedom of conscience can only exist through the neutrality of States and public services in metaphysical matters (religious or anti-religious), we demand the complete separation of state and church in all countries. No government has a right to impose religious belief or non-belief on its citizens.

For Secularism in Europe

In 2003, the Federation Française de la Libre Pensée and the National Secular Society of the UK suggested that all European secular organisations should jointly organise a mass demonstration in Paris on 6th December 2003, the focus of which would be: a defence of secularism in Europe and a rejection of Article 51 of the proposed European Constitution. With IHEU presiding, hundreds of secularists, free-thinkers, Humanists and rationalists came together in defence of secularism in Europe and to promote secularism in new areas. On 18th June 2004, the Intergovernmental Conference adopted the proposed Constitution, which incorporates Article 51, then Article 52, the intention of which is to guarantee excessive religious privileges and to confirm the power of the churches in EU institutions, in spite of the Union’s commitment to freedom of conscience. If such a provision were to be adopted, no people, no nation, no State in Europe could ever successfully challenge state religions, church-state agreements, blasphemy laws and the church taxes that already exist in a great many member countries or are proposed in future. Furthermore, Article 52 obliges privileged consultation with religious and other philosophical groups throughout the Union “in an open and transparent dialogue”. This is objectionable because it is undemocratic and will also lead to an entrenchment of religious power and influence.

The second clause of Article 10 makes official the principle of subsidiarity and makes this principle the basis of the so-called Constitution. As National Federation of the Libre Pensée we recall that this principle is a direct heritage of the Canon Law ; it was used for the first time in the encyclical "Quadragesima Anno", written in 1931 for the 40th anniversary of the first social encyclical by Leo XIII "Rerum Novarum".

Article 10 gives hallowed status to the Community regulation over national regulations, making European Laws compulsory in every one of its components for all the Member States. The Preamble specifies that the draft of the European Constitution is inspired "by the cultural, religious and Humanistic heritages", putting thus at equality religious obscurantism and the progressive philosophy of the Enlightenment!

Article 52, not only maintains the privileges of the Churches in each Member State, but it also defines them as permanent established partners of the European Union. When Article 52 says "the European Union shall respect the various forms of relationships between the Churches and the States", that means that it will protect them by integrating them in the Community Law which is superior to the various national regulations.

From Rome to Berlin: still a Vatican Europe

After the earth-shattering rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty in 2005, we are currently experiencing a new attempt to impose a new constitutional avatar on the peoples of Europe.

On 25 March, 2007, Angela Merkel presented a Declaration of the 27 EU Member States to re-launch the “constitutional process” to be implemented by 2009.

On the same day, Pope Benedict XVI launched an appeal in Rome : “…do not tire and do not be discouraged! You know that you have the task of contributing with God's help to the building of a 'New Europe”… A press release (Zenit) issued: “Europe must be aware of its own Christian roots and of the public role of religion: such is the message from the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) which gathered in Rome on 23-25 March, with more than 400 participants”

The Vatican, alongside with a few others, is going to strongly campaign and demand a reference to God and Christianity in the preamble of the draft of the European Constitution. They are going to draw the attention of public opinion on this.

But, like in 2005, the deeply clerical content of the Constitution won’t be in the preamble but rather within the Constitution itself. Let’s remind ourselves that Article 70 provided the possibility to express religious practice and denomination in the public sphere. And that Article 52 gave important privileges to the Churches. Therefore, it seems clear that the absence of any reference to God or Christianity in the Declaration of Berlin does not mean in the least that this future Constitution will be secular.

In 2005, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, one of the main leaders of COMECE, unveiled the manoeuvre : "The preamble of the European Constitution is not the main issue. What is the preamble ? It is a foreword. The substance of the Constitution is what is written in the Constitution and I am very pleased to say that the fundamental options of the Constitution are good and acceptable from a Christian point of view."

Once again, they are going to entertain the audience in Europe on the issue of the preamble in order to make religious domination more acceptable in the Constitution itself. Moreover, a complementary manoeuvre is beginning to take shape at the Council of Europe.

As usual, the Vatican has two strategies. Through the European Union or through the Council of Europe a Vatican Europe is still marching on. We call upon Freethinkers, secularists and Humanists in every country in Europe to be ready for mobilisation against a Vatican Europe.

(Adapted from a lecture given at All Ireland Humanist Summer School, Carlingford, on 18th August 2007)

Philippe Besson is a member of the National Committee of la Libre Pensée, the French Federation of Freethinkers, founded in 1866.