欧洲天主教的命运（双语）

IN THE small world of traditional French Catholicism, everybody knows about Abbé Francis Michel. For the past 23 years this small, stubborn figure in his well-worn soutane has been responsible for the cure of souls in the village of Thiberville in Normandy. The locals like his conservative style, even though his Latin services would not suit all French churchgoers. The village’s 12th-century church, and the 13 other places of worship under his care, are kept in good repair by his supporters. (These days, some priests in rural France must cope with as many as 30 churches.)
在一个传统的法国天主教信徒的小圈子里，每个人都认识神父弗朗西•斯米歇尔（Francis Michel）。23年来，这个矮小且固执、穿着陈旧法袍的人一直担任着诺曼底的蒂贝维尔村落居民的心灵救赎工作。尽管他的拉丁语布道并不适合所有去教堂的法语听众，但是当地人仍然喜欢他的保守风格。村里一座12世纪时期及另外13座都由他经管的每座教堂，皆因他的支持者而一直保持着良好的修缮。（近年来，有些法国乡村的神父必须负责多达30座教堂。）

Since the start of the year Abbé Francis has been at war with the region’s bishop—in church terms, a liberal—who has been trying to close the parish and move him to other duties. Uproar ensued in January when the bishop came to mass and tried to give the priest his marching orders. Most villagers followed Abbé Francis as he strode off to another church and celebrated in the old-fashioned way. He has made two appeals to Rome, both rejected on technicalities; a third is pending.
自今年年初弗朗西斯神父就与教区主教开始了一场“战争”。主教是一位教会标准下的自由主义者，他一直企图关闭教区，遣送神父另行他职。今年一月，主教来到教堂的弥撒上，指令神父离开，惹来了一片鼓噪声。当弗朗西斯神父走去另一座教堂时，全村大多民众随后跟着，以传统方式为他庆祝。神父曾两次向罗马上诉，但都被以技术问题为由遭到拒回。他的第三次上诉仍在待理之中。

To Father Francis’s admirers Thiberville is a pinpoint of light against a sombre background: the near-collapse of Catholicism in some of its heartlands. In the diocese of Evreux, Christianity has been part of the fabric of life for 15 centuries. Of its 600,000 inhabitants, about 400,000 might call themselves, at least loosely, Catholic. But the number of priests under the age of 70 is a mere 39, and only seven of those are under 40. That is just a bit worse than average in a country that, as recently as the 1950s, boasted 40,000 active priests; in a few years, the number under 65 will be a tenth of that. This suggests a body that is not so much shrinking as dying.
在神父弗朗西斯的崇拜者看来，蒂贝维尔代表了黯淡背景色之下的一线光明：天主教在其部分中心地带已临近崩溃。在埃夫勒教区，基督教作为人们生活的组成部分已达15个世纪之久。教区的60万居民中约有40万大概会把自己称为（或起码是宽松意义上的）天主教徒。可是，这里未满70岁的神父仅仅剩下了39 人，其中40 岁以下的只有7人。该教区的状况只略逊于全国平均状态。而这个国家就在近期的上世纪50年代中，还宣称它拥有40000名在职神父；未来几年内，65岁以下的神父将缩减到上述数字的十分之一。如此看来，与其说神职人员这个群体正在萎缩，不如说它正频临死亡。

On closer inspection French Catholicism is not dead, but it is splintering to the point where the centre barely holds. The brightest flickers are on the fringes: individuals like Abbé Pierre, founder of the Emmaus movement for the homeless; “charismatics” whose style draws on Pentecostalism, and traditionalists who love Latin rites and processions. Meanwhile, the church’s relatively liberal mainstream is almost in free fall. As conservatives like Abbé Francis see it, it is largely the liberals’ own fault: “They keep selling and closing properties, while we [traditionalists] are busy building and restoring.”
更进一步观察法国的天主教可见，它其实并没未死去，却因四分五裂，几乎失去了中心。那些最亮丽的星星之火分散在边缘地带，比如像皮埃尔神父这样的神职人士：皮埃尔是为无家可归者发起马忤斯运动（Emmaus movement）的创始人、风格类同五旬节派的灵恩派（“charismatics”）以及热衷拉丁仪式和列队的传统教派。相比之下，教会相对的自由主义主流教派正迅速解体。类似神父弗朗西斯这样的保守派认为，这主要是因为自由主义者本身犯下的过错：“他们在不断地出售和关闭教堂产业，而我们[传统派]在积极地兴建和修复。”

Among Europe’s historically Catholic lands, France is an outlier. Its leap into modernity took the form of a secular revolution; that differs from places like Ireland or Poland, where church and modern nationhood go together. Things are different again in Bavaria or the southern Netherlands, where the church inspires local pride; or in Spain, where Catholicism is at issue in an ideological war.
在欧洲的传统天主教土地上，法国是个异数。它以一种世俗革命的形式奔向现代化，它既不像爱尔兰和波兰等国那样将教堂和国家现代化同步并举；也不像巴伐利亚或荷兰南部地区的教会去激发地区荣耀之情；它没有像西班牙天主教那样置身于一场意识形态战之中。

But in many European places where Catholicism remained all-powerful until say, 1960, the church is losing whatever remains of its grip on society at an accelerating pace. The drop in active adherence to, and knowledge of, Christianity is a long-running and gentle trend; but the hollowing out of church structures—parishes, monasteries, schools, universities, charities—is more dramatic. That is the backdrop against which the paedophile scandal, now raging across Europe after its explosion in the United States, has to be understood. The church’s fading institutional power makes it (mercifully) easier for people who were abused by clerics to speak out; and as horrors are laid bare, the church, in many people’s eyes, grows even weaker.
但是，在欧洲的许多地区，天主教一直持有至高权力，直至1960年后，教会才加速不断地失去了对社会的控制。人们对基督教的依附与认知的弱化趋势是长期而且和缓的，但教会机构——教区、寺院、教会学校、大学、慈善机构——空心【注：人数骤减】的速度则速猛得多。这是人们必须要了解清楚的背景，知道为什么先由美国爆出的恋童癖丑闻，如今会风卷残云一般荡涤欧洲。教会衰落的权力使曾经受过教士侵犯的人（恩赐地）感到更容易公开揭发它们。一旦惊人丑闻暴露于光天化日之下，教会便在大众眼中变得更加虚脱了。

A couple of decades ago Ireland defied the idea that modern societies grow secular: churches were packed. But last year, after a decade of mounting anger over clerical malpractice, the nation was stunned by two exposés of cruelty by men and women of God. First, a nine-year investigation found that thousands of children had been maltreated at church-run industrial schools and orphanages. Then a probe of the archdiocese of Dublin, over the three decades up to 2004, not only found widespread child abuse by priests but police collusion in hiding it. Five Irish bishops offered to step down; the pope has accepted three resignations and is considering the others. When a new bishop, Liam MacDaid, took office on July 25th, he presented a stark picture: “Society has forced us in the Irish church to look into the mirror, and what we saw [was] weakness and failure, victims and abuse.”
二十年前，爱尔兰顶住了现代社会向世俗发展的挑战：教堂里信徒济济。去年，在十年来对神职人员的渎职积压如山的愤怒之中，全国又因两起 “上帝的男女”残酷行为曝光而震惊。先是一宗9年的调查，查出了成千名儿童在教会办的产业学校和孤儿院里受到虐待；再一起是对都柏林大主教管区一宗长达30年的探查，及至2004年为止。从中不仅揭出了神父虐待儿童行为泛滥成灾，还发现警方也牵涉窜通一气隐瞒罪行。五名爱尔兰主教因此请辞下坛，教皇已经接受了其中三人并考虑其他两人的请辞。当新主教利亚姆•麦克戴迪（Liam MacDaid）于7月25日上任时，说了一个严酷的现实：“社会已经逼着爱尔兰教会去照镜子，我们从中看到的[是]弱点与失败，受害者与虐待”。

Ireland is still a churchgoing nation; about half claim to attend mass weekly, and there has been an uptick since the economy turned sour. But in a land that used to export priests and nuns to the world, vocations have dried up. In a couple of decades there could be a French-style implosion. That need not imply a collapse in Christian belief; but as one Catholic history buff puts it, rural Ireland could go back to its early medieval state, when a largely priestless folk-religion held sway. Already, popular religion—local pilgrimages, or books on Celtic prayer—does better than anything involving priests. And Ireland’s political class, once so priest-ridden, now distances itself from the clergy.
爱尔兰依旧是一个去教堂做礼拜之国，约有半数人声言自己每周参加弥撒，自经济衰败之后人们去得更勤了。但是，在这块曾经向世界输送神父和修女的土地上，圣职资源已经枯竭了。再过二十年，也许会出现法国式内崩【注：因空心而倒塌】。其实这并非意味着基督教信仰的崩溃，而就像有位天主教历史研究者所描述的，爱尔兰的乡村可以回到中世纪早期，基本依靠无神父的民间宗教来统治。其实，爱尔兰的流行宗教形式——地方朝圣或凯尔特祈祷书——都好过依靠神父。爱尔兰的政治阶层曾受控于神职人士，现在他们则与教士们保持了距离。

A state within a state
国中之国

In Belgium, where Catholicism used to hold a disparate nation together, relations between church and state have been transformed in a spectacular way. On June 24th, as the country’s nine bishops were conferring at their headquarters, the building was taken over by the police. On the same day police raided the home of a retired archbishop, drilled holes in the tomb of at least one cardinal (looking for hidden papers) and took away 450 documents from the office of a church committee that was probing clerical abuse. The committee, headed by a layman, resigned in protest.
比利时的天主教会曾经帮助一个多民族之国和谐相处，如今教会和国家之间已转化成各走各的阳关道。 今年6月24日，正当9名主教在其总部教堂商议事务时，警察封锁了教堂。同日，警方突袭了一名退休大主教的住处，在至少一名位红衣主教的墓顶上钻洞打孔（寻找匿藏的文件），并从一个正在查询教士虐待事件的教区委员会办公室里取走了450份文件。这个由普通教徒领导的委员会以解散表示抗议。

What the Belgian and Irish stories suggest is the collapse of a centuries-old order in which the church functioned as a sort of “state within a state”—administering its own affairs, and often the affairs of its flock, by a system of law and authority that ran in parallel with, and could trump, the authority of the state. Europe’s enlightenment may have put an end to the sort of formal theocracy in which popes commanded armies and kings ruled by divine right. But in a messy mixture of ways the authority of church and state has remained intertwined across Europe.
发生在比利时和爱尔兰的事件揭示了一个长达数百年的陈规旧序，即教会作为一个“国中之国”的构建倒塌了——它曾依靠一套自身法律和权力机构，与国家的法律与权威机构齐驱并驾，打理自家（大多为信徒）的事务，教会有时甚至胜过国家权力。欧洲启蒙也许最终落下了旧式神权统治的帷幕：那个由教皇指挥军队，国王借神权来治理国家的时代结束了。然而，这种结束的方式十分混杂，其间教会和国家权力持续纠缠不清，是为欧洲的普遍现象。

Even now quasi-theocracy dies hard. Ireland’s hierarchs have lost their grip on secondary and higher education, but primary schooling is still a church-based affair; even non-Christian youngsters are drilled in Catholic teaching. In France the Catholic hierarchy had until recently an informal place in the establishment. Nicolas Sarkozy may be the first French president who does not see the archbishop of Paris as a natural interlocutor. Mr Sarkozy, whose own roots are secular and Jewish, speaks of the church from an outsider’s distance.
今天，即使是“准神权”也难以轻易消逝。爱尔兰教主失去了对中、高等教育的控制，但小学仍属于教会的事务，即使是非天主教信仰的学童也要接受天主教的宗教教育。在法国，天主教在国家权力机构中一直保持着某种非官方的地位，直到最近才有所改变。尼古拉斯•萨科奇可能是第一位未把巴黎大主教当成理所当然谈话对象的法国总统。萨科齐先生的信仰具有世俗和犹太根源，他以教会圈外人的角度来谈论教堂。

As the Irish case shows, the most insidious links between church and state are often informal ones, which can leave priests and bishops virtually exempt from scrutiny. But all over Europe the child-abuse scandal has made secular powers keener to reassert their authority, and less willing to accept the Catholic church as a semi-autonomous power. In almost every country, therefore, the church is in decline as an institution—a situation in contrast to its vibrancy in Africa, Asia and much of Latin America, and the energy brought by Latinos to the church in the United States. But its decline across Europe is not uniform; in each country, the church faces a different mixture of threats and residual strengths.
爱尔兰的情况表明教会和国家之间最隐晦的潜关系往往是非正式的，这种关系可以让神父和主教得到实际上的豁免权。但是，欧洲遍地的虐童丑闻促使政府更急于重申手中的权力，更抵触天主教的半自治权利。因此，几乎在每一个国家，作为公共机构的教会都在走下坡路——而与此恰恰相反的状况是它在非洲、亚洲、绝大部分的拉丁美洲的活力程度、拉丁裔为美国教会带来了能量。但教会影响在欧洲各地的衰退程度并非一致，它在每个国家遇到的是不同组合的威胁和教会的余留势力。

Across southern Europe an intense, atavistic attachment to Catholic tradition remains, sharpened by a perceived challenge from the fast-growing Muslim neighbours. In Italy Catholicism, as a mark of cultural difference in a homogenising world, is held dear in some unlikely quarters: among atheist intellectuals, for example. As recently as 2006 a research institute, Eurispes, asserted that the share of Italians calling themselves Catholic had risen by eight percentage points over 15 years, to 88%. It also found that 37% of Catholics claimed to be regular mass-goers. Despite the decline of its flagship party, the Christian Democrats, the church has muscle; it has seen off challenges to Italy’s strict curbs on in vitro fertilisation.
在整个欧洲南部，依然保留着一种强烈回归天主教传统的依附情节，它因穆斯林邻居在快速增多，感到挑战而加剧了。意大利天主教，作为一个文化差异同处和谐世界的标志，在一些不可能的地方得到供奉：如进入无神论的知识分子之中。意大利一家研究所Eurispes跟据不久前的2006年的一项调查宣称，15年来，意大利人自称是天主教徒的人数上升了8个百分点，达到了88％。调查还发现，37％的天主教徒说自己按时去做弥撒。尽管它的旗舰党“基督教民主党”失去了影响力，教会仍然强壮，它在意大利对 “体外受孕” 的严格限制上赢得了胜利。

Belief survives, but trust has gone
信仰犹在，而信任无存

But Italians are less pious than they pretend. A study of central Sicily, published this year, found that only 18% of people actually went to church, although 30% said they did. And the Eurispes study of Italy found that 66% backed liberal divorce laws and 38% supported euthanasia. Only 19% favoured abortion on demand, but 65% could accept the practice in cases of rape. Strikingly, more Catholics than non-Catholics supported cohabitation by unmarried couples. Behind supposed religious uniformity lies a range of views. “Rather than Catholicism, it is more accurate to talk about Catholicisms,” says Giuseppe Giordan, a sociologist of religion. “There are those who identify completely with the teaching of the pope, and those who dissent—both from the traditionalist and liberal viewpoints.” Among those who—paradoxically—find Pope Benedict XVI’s church a tad liberal are xenophobic groups that fear Islam: they groan at the sight of Catholic charities running halal soup-kitchens for immigrants.
可是，意大利人并不像比他们表面上那么虔诚。今年刊登的一项西西里岛中心地区的研究发现，虽然有30％的人表示去教堂，但实际上只有18％付诸行动。Eurispes发表的意大利研究发现66％的人们支持自由离婚，38％支持安乐死。只有19％赞成按需要堕胎，但65％可以接受因强奸受孕的堕胎。令人惊诧的是，相比非天主教徒，有更多的天主教徒支持夫妇未婚同居。在原本同一宗教信仰的背后是众说纷纭的观点。 “与其笼统说‘天主教’，不如更准确地说是各种天主教”，宗教社会学家朱焦尔（Giuseppe Giordan）如是指出： “有些人完全认同教宗的教导，有些持不同看法——来自教会传统主义和自由主义的两种观点都有”。   其中，恐惧伊斯兰的排外团体（自相矛盾地）认为教宗本笃十六世的教会过于自由主义，他们抱怨天主教慈善机构“汤厨房”为移民提供了清真汤。

Across much of traditionally Catholic Europe, there is massive dissent from the church’s teaching on morality. If the Vatican has lost credibility in this area, says Mr Giordan, it is for reasons that go beyond sex: it has failed to see that since the 1960s, there has been “a huge anthropological change in favour of…freedom of choice. People are no longer prepared to obey instructions.” The pope’s defenders—like Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano—would insist that Pope Benedict does believe in human freedom: he would prefer a small church of freely committed believers than a giant flock herded in by custom or constraint. But in many parts of Europe, critics of the Vatican feel it still tries to tilt the playing-field—by clinging on to old privileges—rather than embracing religious freedom.
大多数传统欧洲天主教国家对教会的伦理说教产生了大量异议。如果梵蒂冈已经失去了在此领域的信誉，焦尔先生说，那就有比性问题而更加深远的原因了：自上世纪60年代起就出现了“一个巨大人类学的变化... 获得选择自由。人们已不愿意再俯首听令”。教宗卫士如梵蒂冈日报《观察家》（L’Osservatore Romano）的编辑，乔瓦尼•玛丽亚•维安（Giovanni Maria Vian）坚持本笃十六世是奉信人类自由的：比起一个因习俗或约束才聚拢的庞大信众，他宁要一个小教堂的自择并坚定的群体。但在欧洲许多地方，梵蒂冈的批评家认为教会仍然利用宗教影响力，抓住传统特权不放，不愿接受宗教信仰自由。

The end of obedience
不再臣服

In Spain the church presents all these contradictions: it is culturally very strong, and rooted in one half of a divided society. It is losing its sway over people’s behaviour but retains a loud and controversial voice. Some 28% of people in Spain call themselves practising Catholics, and another 46% non-practising Catholics; as many as 38% profess devotion to a particular saint or image of Christ or the Virgin Mary. But secularism, and a long-term backlash against the Catholic authoritarianism of the past, is on the march: 2009 was the year when town-hall weddings finally overtook those in church.
西班牙的教会出现了以下种种矛盾现象：它在文化上的影响依然非常强势，成为一个分裂社会中一半人的信仰根基；它正逐步失去对人们行为的影响，却仍然有个引发争议的高嗓门。西班牙约有28％的人自称为忠实履行信仰义务的天主教徒，另有46％为非履行义务教徒。多达38％的人虔诚地供奉某个特定圣人或耶稣或圣母玛利亚的圣像。但是世俗主义者以及长期强烈反对天主教权威历史的人数越来越多：2009年破了一个记录: 这年在市政府举行的婚礼终于超过了教堂的婚礼。

In recent weeks thousands of Spanish Catholics have joined church-backed rallies against a new, liberal abortion law, part of the ruling Socialists’ programme of radical change. In other measures, gay marriage has been legalised and religious (in effect, Catholic) education has been downgraded. Rallies in favour of the new abortion law were just as large, though, and a centre-right government would be unlikely to change it. The church can still mobilise, but it cannot impose its will.
最近几个星期来，数以千计的西班牙天主教徒在教会支持下，卷入了各种反对新堕胎法的集会。该法是执政的工人社会党实行激进改革计划的一部分。在其他措施中，同性婚姻已经合法化，宗教（实际上即天主教）教育已降到低年级。由于支持新堕胎法的集会气势【与反对派相比】同样强壮，一个居中偏右的政府不太会改变此法。教会虽然还能鼓动信众，却不能强行推行自己的意愿。

Among the Catholic nations of Europe, Poland stands out as the only place where seminaries are full and priests abound. The percentage of churchgoers remains high, though it peaked, at 55%, in 1987. But Catholicism has no monopoly over Poland’s public square; the country played host this summer to a European gay pride march, and this year’s musical hits include a song by a famous crooner, Olga Jackowska, in which she discloses that she was abused by a priest as a child. Nor is Polish Catholicism immune from social changes; a survey of Polish priests found that 54% said they would like to have a wife and family, and 12% said they already had a stable relationship with a woman.
在欧洲的天主教国家中，波兰是仅有无二的国家：它的神学院里学生和神父人头满满。波兰去教堂的人数比例一直保持高位，该数字在1987年的时候达到了顶峰，为55％。虽然如此，天主教却无法独占波兰的公众广场。波兰今年夏天成为欧洲同性恋豪情大游行的东道国；今年登上金榜的音乐中有一首著名低音歌手奥尔加•杰可瓦斯卡（Olga Jackowska）的歌曲，歌词披露她在童年时期曾遭到一名神父侵犯。此外，波兰天主教也无法在社会变迁中独“善”其身。在对波兰神职人员的一份调查中发现，54％的人表示他们希望拥有妻子和家庭，12％表示自己已经与一名女性组成了稳定关系。

But for Poles Catholicism retains a huge emotional power. It is true that Polish Catholicism has a vitriolic fringe, prone to bigotry and anti-Semitism. But there are several positive traditions on which the church can draw, ranging from the efforts of John Paul II to improve relations with Jews to the tolerant nature of the 17th-century Polish Commonwealth, which had room for Protestants, Jews and Muslims. Unlike the once-mighty Latin churches at whose behest the New World was conquered, the Polish church sees itself as honourable but embattled: a defender of the nation against invasion and a comfort in its darkest days.
在教宗看来，波兰天主教具有强烈的情感力量。诚然，它有刻薄粗暴的敏感线，容易产生偏见和反犹太主义。但它也有一些教会可以借鉴的积极传统：从若望保禄二世努力改善与犹太人的关系，到17世纪波兰联邦对新教徒、犹太和穆斯林族的宽容大度。波兰教会非同于曾经权盛一时的拉丁教会【注：罗马教会】，在后者的祝福下“新大陆”【注：美洲】被征服了。波兰教会认为自己是光荣的并且陷入了战争：它是保国反侵战争的卫士，是替国家在最黑暗时期安抚心灵的使者。【注：不同之处在于，拉丁教会外扩强征；波兰教会抵御反抗】

Embracing humility
谦虚使人进步

Poland’s tradition—or rather, some carefully selected bits of it—is one place to which the Vatican might look if it wants to shake off the habit of arrogance that has bedevilled its responses to the child-abuse scandal. It is true that most of the cases took place in the 1960s and 1970s; the culture of cronyism and impunity which made such horrors possible is now well in the past, and most of the institutions involved have been shut for decades. But many of today’s senior bishops were part of the world that tried to cover these things up. That is deeply embarrassing for the elderly men who now run the church, including the 83-year-old pontiff. And their reaction has ranged from slow to staggeringly insensitive.
波兰教会的传统——或者是经过仔细选择的一部分——是梵蒂冈可能需要关注的地方，假如它想帮助波兰改掉傲慢习惯的话。这种傲慢使教会对虐童丑闻迟迟无所作为。虽说案件大多发生在60年代和70年代，一个任人唯亲与豁免惩罚的文化环境滋生了如此恐怖事件。时过境迁，当年大部分的牵涉机构已经关闭了数十年。但今天的高层主教中有许多人当年加入了企图掩盖事件的圈子，这让现在主理教堂的高龄人十分难堪，其中包括83岁的大主教，因此他们对事态的种种反应程度由迟钝到难以置信的冷漠。

As a rule of thumb, the reaction has been especially clumsy in parts of Europe (including Rome itself) where the church has recent memories of enjoying unchallenged power; and much more intelligent, and appropriately humble, in places where the church was used to fighting its own corner in a noisy democratic space.
按常理判断，对付事态特别笨拙的部分欧洲教会都是近期来权力未受挑战的（包括罗马本身）；反观那些通常要在喧嚣的民主空间中争夺自己寸土地盘的教会做法则明智得多，外加适当的谦逊态度。

Take the sunny Saturday in May when the Dutch diocese of Roermond, in the country’s Catholic south, commemorated 450 years of life. In deference to the public mood, the festivities were reduced in scale, and a note of repentance was added to a dignified cathedral service. A small group of child-abuse protesters rallied outside, but the impression was left of a church already working to clean its stables.
比如，在五月里一个阳光明媚的星期六，荷兰南部的鲁尔蒙德天主教区举行了450周年庆祝仪式。考虑到公众情绪，他们缩小了庆祝活动的规模，在庄严的大教堂演说词中加进了悔过语。虽然有个小型反对虐待儿童的团体在教堂外集会示威，但人们感到教会已经在清理自身的污垢。

In the French city of Lyon, where St Irenaeus hammered out some of the basics of Christian doctrine 19 centuries ago, the church is downsizing in a different way. One of its best-known priests is Father Christian Delorme, an admirer of Gandhi who has been speaking out for poor Muslim immigrants since the 1970s. As pastor of two parishes near the city centre, where families of Spanish or Portuguese origin rub shoulders with North Africans, he is kept down to earth by having to conduct at least 200 funerals a year. Some of his colleagues, he says, refuse to take funerals because they feel they should be preparing their flock for the time when there are no priests available. But he officiates willingly, feeling that this is his biggest chance to meet people who are mostly unchurched. At 60, he regrets the decline of the progressive French Catholicism that flourished in his youth—and also of Christian culture in general. Businessmen he lectures to do not even know the rudiments of doctrine.
法国的里昂市在19个世纪前就由圣•爱任纽于（St Irenaeus）反复斟酌制定出一部分基督教的基础教义，如今该市的教会正以一种不同的形式逐渐缩小。它最有名气的神父之一克里斯琴•德洛梅（Christian Delorme）是甘地的崇拜者，他在上世纪70年代起便挺身替贫穷的穆斯林移民的说话。神父管理的城市中心附近两个教区，那里来自西班牙或葡萄牙的家庭与来自北非的家庭之间不断摩擦制造冲突。神父低调从事，每年主持了不下于200场葬礼。他说，他的一些同事拒绝主持葬礼，认为这样有助教徒准备好将来教堂没有神父的那一天。但神父仍然心甘情愿地继续工作，觉得借这个时机最佳，他可以接触到平常从不进教堂的人。 时年60的神父在年幼时见识了一个进步的法国天主教的昌盛时光，现在却为它及整个天主教的每况愈下感到遗憾。听他布道的商务人士甚至不了解基础的教义知识。

But he is too busy, and intellectually active, to wallow in gloom or pessimism. As he sees things, the regime of laicité has protected the French church from the dangers of power over the vulnerable. Catholic schools exist in France—but not the vast network of unaccountable authority that led Irish, Belgian and Bavarian priests into temptation. French Catholicism is a battered tree, but it can still sprout new and unexpected branches. In places like Italy, where the church shelters behind a high wall of culture and convention, the hardest days may still lay ahead.
不过，他太忙了，且十分理智地投入教务，不让自己沉湎于黯淡悲观的情绪之中。在他看来，有个政教分离的政府已经在保护弱势群体，限制法国教堂滥用权力。法国有天主教学校——但它们并不是由一个不承担责任的权力组成的庞大关系网，那个网才会导致像爱尔兰，比利时和巴伐利亚教士们的堕落行为。法国天主教是棵受损的大树，它还是可以发芽，长出意料之外的新枝。反观意大利的教会，隐藏在文化与传统高墙的荫庇之下，其最艰难的日子可能还在前方。