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Catholic churches in France have a bad landlord: the French government
In a fine example of Gallic counter-intuitiveness, almost all of France’s Catholic churches are owned by the State – and most don't appear to be doing well out of the unusual arrangement
When it comes to the headless statues adorning churches all over France, they represent important bishops, martyrs, saints, the Catholic Faith; the struggle for freedom of conscience and to believe in something beyond this vale of tears and cold rational reasoning. But while the famous cathedrals in cities such as Paris and Marseilles are likely to get taken care of, based on what any visitor to churches in rural France will see, the State hasn’t kept up its side of the bargain in the majority of cases. On the winter solstice (21 December), the sun’s light comes in at an angle that illuminates decorative capitals atop the columns to the side of the nave – and which are too high and dark to see at other times – revealing their strange, ornate stone images carved out of the whacky, cosmic breadth of the medieval imagination.
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