Papolatrie

Pope worship! That's what France's left and secularists are calling the French effort to honor the pope by flying the tricolor at half staff and instructing regional prefects to visit and pay their respects to local bishops. I've been waiting for this for days, waiting to watch France' past catholicism collide with it's present secularism. Of course it's not just secularism but a growing muslim population that - as a whole - takes its faith much more seriously than the catholics theirs that fuels this debate. The law forbidding veils and other ostenstatious displays of religion in the public sphere (read: schools) seems to contradict the State's instructions to honor the dead pontiff. Naturally this will all blow over in a couple of days, but it just goes to show that a religious debate - catholic/secular/muslim/jew - is always lying just below the surface. It's the itch that's constantly begging to be scratched.