What is the point of commemorating Saint Bartholomew?

Béatrice Cléro-Mazire

Translation Tony Dickinson

Commemorating a 450-year-old massacre is not easy, especially in a Protestant context, and it is even less self-evident in liberal theological thinking. The Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, historically remembered under the name the name of the holy apostle celebrated on 24th August: Bartholomew, patron saint of butchers, tanners and glove makers, because his martyrdom was to be flayed alive, so the day is aptly named. By all accounts, what happened was a butchery. So why is it that, every year, a liberal parish like the Oratoire du Louvre commemorates this historical episode, going to sing the glory of God in front of the monument erected in memory of one of the victims of this of the massacre, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny? We might call it idolatry, or Protestant identitarianism, or, for the more moderate, an anachronism. This year it is also at the Musée du Désert, a place of Protestant memory if ever there was one, that we remember this sad anniversary.

Gaspard de Coligny, on whose body his enemies exercised a fury that has perhaps no equivalent except that inflicted by the public executioners on the body of Jean Calas, has something to guide us on the boundary of commemorating such an event when he says: « I will willingly forget all things that affect only my private life, be they insults or outrages, provided that in what concerns the glory of God and public tranquillity, there can be safety ». For it is at the junction between « the glory of God » and « public tranquillity » that the liberal theological position is situated. Indeed, it is not a question of providing evidence for the victimisation of Protestants as if they were still threatened under the rule of law which we have; nor is it a question of reactivating the wars that pitted Catholics against Protestants: the theological and political crisis of today is not in the same place as it was in 1572.

So what is the point? It is about remembering that the « religions of authority », as the theologian Paul Sabatier called them, operate on a model that suits both political power and religious denominations, and that when it comes to power and authority, we never stop having to call into question what all too often seems to be taken for granted. Force and authority poorly understood are always current in every human society, and while the simplistic advocates of authoritarian policies, whether civil or religious (and let’s not forget that in some states the two are inseparable), may adopt Augustine of Hippo’s comments: « It is not necessary to consider whether we are using compulsion, but to what end we are using it, that is to say, whether it is for good or evil. It is not that anyone becomes good by compulsion: but the fear of what one does not want to suffer makes one open one’s eyes to the truth ». (Letter XCIII), this leads us to affirm with Pierre Bayle: « And I say to my readers (…) that it is not necessary to consider the end to which one is using compulsion in the case of religion; but if one is using compulsion, and as soon as one is using it, one is carrying out a very ugly action and one very much opposed to the genius of all religion and especially of the Gospel ».

Commemorations can become very useful symbols for the common good when they encourage us to commit ourselves to freedom and peace in the present. The knife of Saint Bartholomew can symbolise the violence of men or the sharpness of their capacity for analysis. Let us hope that the memory of the massacres will help us always to defend intelligence against violence.

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