Showing Faith in France
684175
How a hostage crisis in Iraq moved Muslims to rally around the republic
147745
VALANJOU, France  - The village church and its steeple have dominated the skyline of rural France for centuries, surviving feuding warlords, foreign invasion and the upheavals of the French Revolution.
510686
As a wave of contemporary art installations is being unveiled in cathedrals, churches and chapels across Europe, religious spaces are once again becoming showcases for many artists.
458846
DAKAR, Senegal  - Issa Cisse thought of himself as  French when he left Senegal to help free his colonial masters  from the grip of the Germans at the end of World War II.
460674
LOURDES, France - A frail Pope John Paul II celebrated an open-air Mass on Sunday as several hundred thousand pilgrims, many in wheelchairs, crowded onto a field near a French shrine to the Virgin Mary that is associated with miraculous cures of the sick.    The Mass was a highlight of the Pope's two-day visit to Lourdes, a town in the Pyrenees where Roman Catholic tradition says St...
445189
LOURDES, France  - In an unexpected twist of  globalization, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and other pilgrims  regularly worship at famous Roman Catholic shrines to the  Virgin Mary such as Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal.
183049
France will start enrolling future Muslim prayer leaders into secular universities next autumn to teach them the law, civics and history they need to integrate, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said in an interview.
640738
Chicago Tribune - A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: Anyone wondering how the struggle for the soul of Islam could play out in America should look to Europe. Islamic traditions and beliefs are prompting Europeans to re-evaluate practices and laws as well as prized principles, such as the separation of church and state. Nowhere is this more evident than in France, now home to the largest Islamic community on the continent. For the 11th part of this occasional series, a Tribune reporter traveled to a Paris suburb to examine the future that Europe is straining to handle.
595819
New French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has visited his country's rugby squad, hoping for a World Cup win to boost national morale.
376435
A new advertising campaign to fight anti-Semitism in France aims to shock. The campaign features serene images of Jesus and Mary with the slur "Dirty Jew" scrawled across them as if in graffiti.
58698
MANTES-LA-JOLIE, France -- Fernand Trigano stood beside a rack of $8 jeans and watched French presidential candidate Francois Bayrou work a street market in an immigrant suburb of Paris, shaking hands over baskets of dried fish, stacks of flat bread and mannequins modeling head scarves.
137570
The French are arrogant, rude and surly to foreign visitors. For once - quelle surprise! - the thought comes not from an embittered tourist but the leading French politician behind a damning report on how the ...
565192
Evangelical Christians in France face  growing problems as authorities enforce secularism, favor  Muslims or view them as supporters of President Bush, French  Protestant leaders say.
508785
"The wind has spoken for itself"  Pope Benedict XVI, beset by drab weather and relatively small crowds, ended a pilgrimage to Austria on Sunday by reminding Europeans of their Christian heritage as they grapple with immigration and Islam.Bereft of huge throngs of adoring pilgrims such as the 1 million Brazilians who turned out to see him in May, the German-born pontiff appealed to far smaller gatherings of believers in mostly Catholic Austria not to discard their faith.In a farewell speech, he urged Austrians 'to bring the traditional values of the continent _ values shaped by the Christian faith _ to European institutions.' Read more
592493
At the village of St Anne la Palud in western Brittany, I followed the Celtic saints as they went down to the sea at the annual religious fete they call the "grand pardon". A mission to find out what remained ...
473831
BAGHDAD/PARIS  - A French Muslim delegation in  Iraq said Thursday they had proof that two French hostages held  by Islamic militants were alive, even though France refused to  lift a ban on Muslim headscarves as the school year began.
537014
"With this letter, I wanted to express both my deep spiritual affection for all Catholics in China and a cordial esteem for the Chinese people"  Pope Benedict XVI and French President Nicolas Sarkozy exchange gifts during a private audience at the Vatican Thursday, Dec. via The Macon Telegraph