Francis is not their pope anymore, and they are not afraid to say so out loud. Just a few days before the pope's visit to Marseille on September 22 and 23 – and as a new influx of migrants disembarked on the Italian island of Lampedusa has rekindled European debates on the migratory crisis – a section of the French far right, which has certainly never been fond of the Argentinian pope, is adopting a stance that deviates from the conventional Catholic stance on pontiffs.
Leaders of Eric Zemmour's Reconquête! party are not upset about the French president's planned attendance at the pontifical mass. In their eyes, this is not a matter for controversy, nor is it according to the right-wing Les Républicains (LR). Fifty-seven LR senators introduced a bill on Monday to "enshrine France's Judeo-Christian roots" in Article 1 of the Constitution. This initiative, which came just a few days before the pope's visit, was prompted by LR senator Stéphane Le Rudulier, whose constituency includes Marseille, and who is a spokesperson for Bruno Retailleau, head of the LR senators. The latter spoke on Tuesday morning on radio France Inter of a "flood of migrants" in Lampedusa.
The presence of Pope Francis and his planned speech on migrants is what is bothering the most radical fringe of the far right. Zemmour and his allies Marion Maréchal and Stéphane Ravier have even invoked the Bible or Christian authors in their criticisms. "I disagree with Pope Francis," declared Maréchal, the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen who will lead Reconquête in the European elections, on BFM-TV on September 14. She questioned the pontiff's emphasis on charity. "I think [he] has no business in politics, and he's too involved in it," said Maréchal, who professes her Catholic faith. "The pope is only infallible on dogma, and in this case, he's looking through the lens of a South American who doesn't know the type of immigration we're experiencing and obviously doesn't fully understand what we're facing."
"From Christianity, I learned a very beautiful idea of Saint Augustine's – you can't do good to the point of evil," echoed Zemmour on BFM-TV on Sunday, in a statement which, according to several exegetes, invented a quotation from the Roman philosopher and theologian. Jean-Marie Salamito, a specialist in the history of Christianity in the ancient world, said that he had been unable to find "either in French or in Latin" the idea – or anything similar – "incorrectly attributed" to Saint Augustine. "The idea that one can do good and end up with evil seems neither Augustinian nor Christian to me," this associate member of the Institute of Augustinian Studies told the newspaper La Croix.
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