{"id":25477,"date":"2017-11-07T08:48:22","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T08:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=25477"},"modified":"2017-11-07T08:48:22","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T08:48:22","slug":"france-court-orders-removal-cross-saint-john-paul-ii-statue-acn-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/11\/07\/france-court-orders-removal-cross-saint-john-paul-ii-statue-acn-malta\/","title":{"rendered":"FRANCE &#8211; Court orders removal of cross from saint John Paul II statue &#8211; ACN Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">FRANCE<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Court orders removal of cross from St John Paul II statue<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Conseil d\u2019Etat, France\u2019s top administrative court, has ordered the removal of a cross from a statue of Pope Saint John Paul II in Plo\u00ebrmel, a small city in Brittany. The court stated that the cross\u2019 \u201cpresence in a public location is contrary to the law\u201d and gave the town six months to comply with the order,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The 25 ft tall statue portrays Pope Saint John Paul II praying beneath an arch adorned with a cross. Since it was erected in 2006, the statue has been a source of controversy. It was criticized by some locals and the secularist National Federation of Free Thought, which campaigned for its removal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">France\u2019s conservative parties have decried the court\u2019s decision, which they describe as \u201cmadness\u201d and \u201cdestructive to the country\u2019s history.\u201d users. The decision also led to a strong backlash on social media, with users staring a campaign in support of keeping the cross. Several people protesting against the decision on Twitter by using the hashtag #montretacroix (show your cross).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Patrick Le Diffon, the mayor of Plo\u00ebrmel, considers the statue to be a work of art and is opposed to its dismantling. However, the mayor wants to avoid a religious battle and said he hopes to resolve the problem by selling the public land where the statue is located to a private investor who would keep the cross.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The court\u2019s decision provoked a strong response from the late John Paul II\u2019s native Poland and sparked a diplomatic feud between the two countries. Poland\u2019s prime minister, Beata Szydlo, said that religious censorship is undermining the values of Europe. Secularization and the dictatorship of political correctness are \u201calien to our culture, which leads to terrorizing Europeans in their everyday life,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cOur great Pole, a great European, is a symbol of a Christian, united Europe,\u201d said Szydlo and offered to have the statue relocated to Poland, to save it from \u201cthe dictates of political correctness\u201d and\u00a0\u201csecularization of the state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>ACN Malta<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FRANCE Court orders removal of cross from St John Paul II statue &nbsp; The Conseil d\u2019Etat, France\u2019s top administrative court, has ordered the removal of a cross from a statue of Pope Saint John Paul II in Plo\u00ebrmel, a small city in Brittany. The court stated that the cross\u2019 \u201cpresence in a public location is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>FRANCE - Court orders removal of cross from saint John Paul II statue - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/11\/07\/france-court-orders-removal-cross-saint-john-paul-ii-statue-acn-malta\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FRANCE - Court orders removal of cross from saint John Paul II statue - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FRANCE Court orders removal of cross from St John Paul II statue &nbsp; The Conseil d\u2019Etat, France\u2019s top administrative court, has ordered the removal of a cross from a statue of Pope Saint John Paul II in Plo\u00ebrmel, a small city in Brittany. 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