Incomplete animal faction - French cows want "Mariage pour tous"

It might seem that the French president, François Hollande, is blowing hot and cold in his support for same-sex marriage, but the country's cows are clear where they stand.

The official organisation representing both France's dairy and beef herds has issued a statement demanding that the draft legislation dubbed "Mariage pour tous" or "Marriage for everyone" be taken literally and be extended to allow cows to tie the knot.

La Normande (from Wikipedia)

Speaking from her pasture in northwestern France, the president of "Oh la vache!", Marguerite la Normande, told reporters that the current proposals were clearly discriminatory.

"At the last count there were more than 3.5 million dairy cows in France alone and everyone knows that we constitute a vital part of the rural economy," she said.

"It's just not fair that the debate so far has centred on marriage between two men or two women. What about us? We also have feelings," she continued.

"And we have the means to protest and get our point across," she added.

"Just imagine the effect it would have, for example, on cheese production, if we up-uddered tomorrow and refused to be milked."

La Normande's "Oh la vache!" has already had what she describes as "moo-ving support" from several government ministers, but there has not yet been any official response from the Elysée palace.

That might be down to the fact that Hollande is still busy trying to work out what he meant when he told the national mayors’ conference earlier this week that the country's locally-elected mayors would have "freedom of conscience" to decide whether to perform marriage ceremonies and then appeared to do a U-turn the following day,

But if the French president has been slow to react, the same cannot be said for groups opposed to "Mariage pour tous".

"It's this sort of threat that the Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, warned against last month," said a spokesman for the movement Civitas, well-known for its objective and humanistic opinions on all social matters.

"The very basis upon which French society is built is in danger if the proposals for same-sex marriage become law," he continued.

"Cardinal Barbarin said it was one step on the road to legalising incest and polygamy - in fact the very destruction of all our principles and morals. And here's the proof now, with cows also wanting to marry. Never!"

La Normande, who has personal reasons for feeling so strongly about the issue, hopes that her organisation will be able to persuade the French president to introduce a new clause into the draft proposals, although she admits she doesn't have a great deal of faith in Hollande sticking to his initial election promise, let alone meeting her demands.

"He's a man who seems to enjoy chewing the cud almost as much as I do, and never actually making up his mind," she said.

"Still I remain hopeful he'll take on board how important this issue is to the French bovine population and take into account our own person feelings," she continued.

"I've been engaged to a bull at a neighbouring farm for over a year. He already has the ring in his nose and I'm just waiting for him to be able to put it on my hoof."

Moo!

Let's all say a prayer - for same sex marriage

Or how a majority of French favour same-sex marriage but the Catholic church doesn't - of course.

In fact it has urged congregations to pray that the government "sees the light" over the matter.

It must have been sheer coincidence don't you think?

The very day that the Catholic church in France asked its faithful to "pray for (traditional) family values" a poll was published showing that an ever-increasing majority of the French are in favour of same-sex marriage.

Cardinal André Vingt-trois, Archbishop of Paris (screenshot YouTube video)

The poll, conducted by Ifop and published by the online magazine  La lettre de l'opinion showed that 65 per cent are in favour of two guys or two gals being allowed legally to tie the knot.

That's continuing a trend over the past decade and a two point progression over a similar poll conducted a year ago.

Oh yes attitudes have changed - well at least those of the public at large. Back in 1996 only 48 per cent of those questioned were in favour.

And the same is true - to a slightly lesser extent - for the other (linked) issue which the government is expected to address with legislation tabled next year - namely that of same-sex couples being given the right to adopt.

In 1996 it had the thumbs up from 33 per cent of French. The latest poll puts it at 53 per cent.

Thankfully though for those whose hackles might be raised at very idea of such an unnatural and antisocial act becoming (shush, don't tell anyone) law, there's always the Catholic church to be relied on to uphold the moral wellbeing of the French.

And it did itself proud on Assumption Day, with the reading out during services in churches across the country of a  "Prayer for France".

Penned by the wonderfully named Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris, the prayer called for churchgoers "to pray for newly elected officials to put their sense of common good over the pressure to meet special demands”.

Hmmn.

Subtle.

And just in case the message wasn't coming across loud and clear there was also mention of children and that they "cease to be objects of the desires and conflicts of adults (fair enough, nobody is going to argue with that surely)" and "fully benefit from the love of a father and a mother”.


Well.

Er, yes. Quite.

Very enlightened.

You can read the full text of the prayer (in French) here.

Once again a demonstration that the Catholic church is bang up-to-date and has its finger on the pulse of what most people believe to be right.

Still it's there to offer us all guidance in our misguided beliefs.

Let's hope the Archbishop manages to get the French back on track before they - or rather the government - commit...ooh...you know it's coming...(a lame and clumsy pun) a cardinal sin.

As a reminder, the government of Jean-Marc Ayrault is committed to introducing draft legislation on both issues some time in 2013.
Over to you Aretha.

Amen.

France's Rolex-wearing "Ferrari priest" is a free man

Antoine Videau was a bad man; a very, very bad man. But he won't be returning to prison.

Antoine Videau (screenshot from video on Corse Matin report)

As the regional daily Corse Matin reports, the 64-year-old, who was convicted last year of embezzlement, had his sentence reduced on Wednesday by an appeals court and is now effectively a "free man".

In place of the original three years with one year suspended, the man who has been variously dubbed the "Ferrari priest" or the "Rolex priest" in the French media has now been given two years with 16 months suspended.

As he has already served eight months, he will not be returning behind bars.

But the court also ruled that he still had to pay €1.3 million in compensation and put him on probation for three years.

For over 20 years the former priest on the island of Corsica had embezzled more than two million euros and, as the national daily France Soir writes, obviously believed that, "Charity begins with oneself."

Videau had been responsible for managing church property, and when he appeared in court last year, it became evident of just how well he had been doing his job - for his own benefit.

He had cashed in cheques from parishioners, pocketed revenue from a convent on the island which had been converted into a Chambre d'hôtes (bed and breakfast) and diverted funds from the will of an archbishop who died in 1998 and for whom he was the executor into the 28 bank accounts he held on the island nicknamed the Île de Beauté and the Côte d’Azur.

As well as proudly wearing a Rolex, he wasn't averse to turning up at Mass driving a (different) sports car and perhaps most famously organised a "cultural trip" to Las Vegas.

Speaking after Wednesday's ruling Videau's lawyer said the gap between the two decisions had given the courts time to "take measure more accurately the allegations made against his client."

"After the commotion that accompanied the original trial, this hearing was much calmer," Jean-Michel Marriagi told reporters.

"But the civil claims (for compensation) are excessive and don't respect certain rules so there will most certainly be an appeal in the court of cassation."

Hmmmn.

No baptism for Kenzo

More problems of a different sort for the Catholic church here in France. A priest has refused to baptise a two-and-a-half-year-old boy because the parents hadn't sent their two older children for religious education after they had been baptised.

The parents of little Kenzo had set July 3 as the date to have their son baptised.

But when the mother, Chrystèle Fernandez, went along to discuss the final arrangements with the priest in the parish of Saint-Jean-Lavérune in the south of France, things didn't quite go as she had hoped.

Instead she was told that Kenzo's baptism couldn't go ahead.

The reason she was given, according to the regional daily Midi Libre, was that the priest, Paul Roudier, wasn't happy that one of her other sons wasn't receiving religious instruction.

"The priest asked me whether my 10-year-old was attending catechism classes," she told the newspaper.

"When I said that we had offered him the opportunity to go but he had refused, he (Father Roudier) said that under such circumstances he couldn't go ahead with Kenzo's baptism," she continued.

Even though Fernandez explained that she had not wanted to force her eldest son to do something against his will but had left the choice up to him, Father Roudier remained resolute in turning down the request for Kenzo to be baptised.

He admitted that the decision has been an "unpleasant one" to take, but for him baptism represented the "starting point" and there was a responsibility afterwards "to educate".

"If you want a child to discover what the church has to offer then you have to give him a taste of it," he said.

"And sometimes that has to be an obligation," he continued.

A disappointment as far as Fernandez is concerned who had hoped that the Catholic church would be a little more flexible in its decision-making.

"We're not regular church-goers but we're still believers," she said.

"Now it'll just have to be up to Kenzo to decide what he wants to later."

The case is far from being an isolated one here in France.

In early February this year, according to the national daily Aujourd'hui en France, parents of a 10-month-old child in the town of Evry, just on the outskirts of the French capital, were told that their latest addition to the family couldn't be baptised because his three older siblings "hadn't been receiving religious instruction" and the parents "were not regular church-goers."

And just a couple of weeks later national radio reported the case of a baby girl in the small town of Saint-Jean-de-Boiseau in western France who was refused a baptism because her older sister once again hadn't been "enrolled in religious instruction classes."

French Catholics split over Pope's comments

Comments made last week by Pope Benedict XVI, when he rejected the use of condoms to fight Aids, continue to make the headlines here in France.

First came political criticism from the foreign ministry, which said it expressed "its very strong concern about the consequences of the statements."

Then there was the decision by French television to carry the on-screen logo of Sidaction, the HIV-Aids awareness campaign, during its weekend programming - including for the first time the retransmission of all religious services.

Now it's the turn of the French in general and more specifically the country's Catholics to express their disquiet, with the release of two separate polls this past weekend.

And, if the polls are to be believed, the results show that they seem to be having some problems coming to terms with what the Pope said.

The first was published in the national daily, Le Parisien, on Saturday and conducted on the newspaper's behalf by Conseils-Sondages-Analyses, CSA.

According to the poll 57 per cent of the French in general - regardless of religious belief - have a "negative opinion" of the Pope following his statements.

Perhaps even more surprising though is the number of French Catholics who hold that point of view - 55 per cent according to the survey with only 29 per cent saying that they held a "positive opinion" of the Pope.

Admittedly the figures looked a little different when those who said they regularly attended church services were asked with 52 per cent saying they still held an overall "good opinion" of the Pope as opposed to 28 per cent who didn't.

Another poll in the national weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, and conducted by L’Institut français d’opinion publique, IFOP went even further and asked France's Catholics whether they thought the Pope should resign or retire.

While 54 per cent said he shouldn't, 43 per cent thought he should although the trend was reversed when asked whether he represented the values of the Catholic church - 49 per cent saying he didn't as opposed to 22 per cent who thought he did.

On issues which reflect the changes there have been within French society, there was also the widely held opinion (again among French Catholics) that the Church had to modify both its statements and position in several areas including contraception (83 per cent), abortion (77 per cent) and homosexuality (69 per cent).

Of course opinion polls are always open to interpretation and there's no disputing that they can also be influenced by those commissioning them and the composition of the questions.

But a similar survey also conducted on behalf of Le Parisien last September, perhaps puts the most recent ones into perspective.

It was carried out just before the Pope's three-day visit to this France when millions turned out to celebrate Mass both in the capital Paris and later in Lourdes in the south-west of the country.

At that time, among the French in general, 53 per cent of those questioned said they had a "positive opinion" of Benedict XVI.

Around 51 per cent of France's 63 million population say they are Catholic.