19 St Martin-in-the-fields, London

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 Despite its name, this church is in Trafalgar Square. It played a big role in looking after soldiers during the First World War. Dick Sheppard, one of the most well-known English pacifists, used to be parish priest.


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72 London - Saint Paul's Cathedral: Cool people commemorated, but bloody Empire heroes too.

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  Saint Paul’s Cathedral London. I seem to be visiting churches a lot faster than I am finding the time to write them up; I have a real backlog.  Anyway it was great to visit Saint Paul’s cathedral, one of the four cathedrals in London if I remember correctly (two for the protestants two for the catholics - but I am probably missing some orthodox cathedral). It was Christopher Wren who was the architect, and it was built as the first Anglican cathedral on the site - previously they had just recycled Catholic hand-me-downs. His advisors, and the committees, wanted him to be sure to make it not too Catholic. So, no stained glass, and no statues, monuments etc. However, in later centuries, once they got less scared of us Catholics, the statues and monuments came by the dozens - and indeed the 20th century high altar looks like it was looted from the Vatican itself. Lots of people got monuments, mainly heroes of the bloody British Empire, like Wellington. He has the biggest monument, with
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86 Paris, Montmartre, The Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The Gospel is sport!

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 86 Paris, Montmartre, The Basilica of the Sacred Heart This tremendously famous church, which towers over Montmartre in Paris, is more directly political than most. It is often said to have been built as revenge against the Paris Commune, an insurrection during which the workers controlled Paris for a couple of months and showed the wonderful possibilities of workers’ power before being massacred by the authorities. This is not 100% true, in that the plans to build this church were decided before the Paris Commune. Nevertheless, the right wingers of the time certainly presented the church, and the worship of the sacrament in it as penance for the terrible sin of workers’ insurrection. As a result the church is cordially detested by many left wing activists in France (even more than the significant minority of left activists here who cordially detest any religious building). Shortly after the building of the church, it was the site of the National Vow, which again was a very conser
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67 Charenton in the Paris suburbs : Saint Pierre : conflict between Church and State

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  Just outside Paris, this 19th century church carries the inscription above the door : « Liberté Egalité Fraternité » the motto of the French Revolution. The inscription dates back to the conflict between the Church and left political forces at the end of the 19th century. The Church had a huge influence, particularly in education, and one of the huge battles of the day was to win a (relative) separation of Church and State. The conflict was very much calmed by the law of 1905 on laïcité, a law which in France everyone speaks about and noone has read. The law made all church buildings state owned, and ordered that they be leased back to the parishes almost free, and that the state would pay for repair and upkeep. The law also ruled on certain other conflicts, guaranteeing, for example, the right of churches to hold religious processions on public roads. Anyway, in the period before this when the conflict of ideas was very strong, the local government ordered (in 1892) the slogan to be
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