Plan for Mormon temple rattles Catholics in a French suburb

The number of Mormons on France’s mainland increased from 10,000 in 1970 to slightly more than 30,000 in 2000, according to data from the French Mormon church. As of late 2011, there were 36,600 Mormons on France’s mainland, accounting for 0.06 percent of the population. There also are 25,000 Mormons in  French overseas territories – there is a Mormon temple in French Polynesia, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.

Waning Catholicism?

Mr. Schlegel says France's Catholics no longer see attendance to church as a religious requirement and have a more individualistic approach to faith.

“I don’t think that people have a feeling that they are breaking a rule when they don’t go to Mass,” Schlegel says. “They simply forgot that it is an obligation.”

Further, only 7 percent of practicing Catholics are 18 to 24 years of age and 9 percent are 25 to 34 years of age. Portier, the political science professor, says younger generations know very little about Catholicism.

“You have here a serious difficulty for the institution to perpetuate itself because the new generations often hear about the church only through a few reports on television, through a few memories from the grandparents, but never through firsthand experience,” Portier says.

The lack of youths in the church extends even to the clergy, which over the past decade has been increasingly forced to recruit priests from abroad, mostly from Africa and Asia, to fill its ranks. There are roughly 1,600 foreign priests who account for 10 percent of all clergymen in France, according the Rev. Jean Forgeat, who heads the department of the Catholic church in charge of welcoming the priests when they arrive in France.

Mr. Forgeat says the foreign priests usually are much younger than their French counterparts. The average age of foreign priests is 42 while the average age of French priests is 72, according to Forgeat.

Fear of indoctrination

It is against this backdrop that the temple project in Le Chesnay unfolds, perhaps explaining why the prominent arrival of a new religion arouses such concern. Some parents even fear their children could be converted to Mormonism against their will, according to Carloz.

Dominique Calmels, the national communication director of the French Mormon church, says the controversy surrounding the temple project is unfortunate, adding that he is open to discussion with residents of Le Chesnay.

“There is something that surprises me,” he says. “Le Chesnay is a city of people that are of a rather high standing, they are intelligent people, they are brilliant people. How is it that they are suddenly scared of being indoctrinated? But you don’t get indoctrinated. You are indoctrinated if you want to be indoctrinated. I have a hard time imagining that people living in Le Chesnay would suddenly all decide to become Mormon.”

Calmels says he hopes the temple will be built in 2013 and 2014 and will open in 2015 or early 2016.

Previous

1 | 2 | 3