The German government and representatives of the country’s large Muslim community said on Thursday they had agreed a number of practical proposals to resolve conflicts between German schools and Muslim practises.

The government cannot legally enforce the proposals because, in Germany’s federal system, each of the country’s 16 states regulates education law.

Yet the proposals — agreed upon at a high-profile summit in Berlin aimed at boosting the integration of Germany’s Muslim residents — testify to an increasingly open and rational debate in Germany about Islam.

“These suggestions are not a cure-all, but should be seen as the groundwork for solutions that teachers, pupils and parents have to agree on together,” the German Islam Conference (DIK) said in statement.

(Photo: German Interior Minister Schaeuble chats with delegates of the Islamic Conference in Berlin, 25 June 2009/Wolfgang Kumm)

New official data shows that between 3.8 and 4.3 million Muslims live in Germany — a higher number than previously estimated –  meaning about 5 percent of the overall population.

Some 36 percent of Germany’s Muslims described themselves as strongly religious and 50 percent as moderately religious.

The DIK was set up to try to help Europe’s second biggest Muslim population after France integrate into mainstream Germany society, amid worries about the potential radicalisation of disillusioned young Muslims.

Proposals touched on sensitive issues such as Muslim pupils’ participation in sports and sexual education classes to religious holidays.

Delegates at the conference agreed that schools should try to offer separate swimming lessons to girls and boys and to ensure there are separate changing rooms to enable the participation of all Muslim pupils.

Given that legal school holidays in Germany are based on Christian customs, practical consideration should be given to Islamic religious holidays.

“Schools should take these holidays into account when fixing its calendar for the school year. This affects in particular the dates chosen for exams,” the DIK said.

Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and religious reflection, should be taken into account in particular when planning school trips, internships or school parties.

Regarding sexual education classes, these were necessary and compulsory, but schools should let parents know in advance how and what they planned to teach.

“In the class itself, teachers should be sensitive in their choice of words and carefully select the media, that they show with caution,” the DIK said.

(Photo: Muslim women walk in front of the newly built Ahmadiya mosque in the Heinersdorf district of Berlin, 16 Oct, 2008/ Fabrizio Bensch)

Tips were not only reserved for schools, however. The conference suggested that parents should make sure their children got enough sleep during Ramadan and that, if their daughters wore a headscarf, they should take care it did not lead to ostracism.

Germany seems to be treading a careful path in order to avoid the kinds of conflicts with its Muslim community that other countries have incurred, such as France which provoked controversy in 2004 by banning pupils from wearing conspicuous signs of their religion at school, including headscarves.

But will its tentative proposals be heeded without any kind of legal enforcement?

Today is Reformation Day, the anniversary of the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg in eastern Germany and set off the Protestant Reformation. It is a public holiday in the five eastern German states, in Slovenia and — this year for the first time — in Chile.

Chile? Isn’t that traditionally a Catholic country? Even the Catholic parts of Germany don’t celebrate Reformation Day.

Yes, Chile is traditionally Catholic, but now only about 70% so. Like elsewhere in Latin America, Protestant churches — especially evangelicals and Pentecostals — have spread rapidly in recent decades. They now make up just over 15% of the Chilean population, up from 7% in 1970. It’s not a new story, but creating a holiday especially for Protestants is a symbolic step towards recognising the changes in the religious landscape in Latin America.

The holiday is not officially called Reformation Day but Día Nacional de las Iglesias Evangélicas y Protestantes — National Day of the Evangelical and Protestant Churches. President Michelle Bachelet mentioned the Luther link in a speech (here in Spanish) about the new holiday, which she stressed was a sign of equality of faiths in Chile’s secular state. She also called it a form of recognition of the contribution made by the evangelical churches to national progress in all fields, of their preaching of values that enrich our existence and strengthen the culture of tolerance and respect.”

Do you think if other Latin American countries will follow Santiago’s example? Should they?

Apropos Luther, Der Spiegel has an interesting article in English about how Wittenberg — whose population is only 10% Protestant — may be in for a remake to turn it into “a true Protestant Rome” . This is part of the preparations for the 500th anniversary of Reformation Day in 2017. But Calvin Year (“Calvin09″), the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth, is coming up soon and Geneva will certainly play up its claim to that title.

For a country keen to improve relations with the Vatican, France has made some surprising faux pas this year. Things have been going well on the surface. President Nicolas Sarkozy has sung the praises of religion in public life several times this year. Pope Benedict was warmly welcomed during his visit to Paris last month. But behind the scenes, Paris has apparently flubbed what should be a routine procedure — naming a new ambassador to the Holy See.

The Foreign Ministry refuses to comment on ambassadorial nominations until they are accepted by the country involved. But with the post open for an unusually long period of 10 months, newspapers in Paris and Rome have begun writing about the delay. Even the Paris Catholic daily La Croix got into the story today. It seems Paris has been rebuffed twice for proposing a gay candidate and a divorced one. The Argentinians could have told Paris to play safe with a solid family man.

The problem began when the former ambassador,  Bernard Kessedjian, died on 19 December 2007, one day before Sarkozy delivered a speech in Rome defending France’s Catholic heritage.  Sarko’s first choice to replace him was Max Gallo, a popular historian and novelist who stresses the Christian roots themes dear to Pope Benedict. Not a diplomat, but a leading intellectual and an interesting choice. Gallo said thanks but he preferred to stay in Paris.

After months of delay, Paris finally proposed a senior Foreign Ministry official. This one was an experienced diplomat, but there was a problem with his “personal profile,” the Vatican said. It turns out he lives in a civil union with a male partner.  That would make no difference in many possible ambassadorial postings around the would, but who ever thought it would go unnoticed by the Vatican?

A second writer was also considered, novelist Denis Tillinac, an old friend of former President Jacques Chirac. But he’s divorced, so the Vatican baulked at his nomination as well. This had happened to Argentina’s candidate earlier this year and it should have been obvious the Vatican would make no exception for the French here.

Some other names circulated, including that of Stéphane Chmelewsky, the Foreign Ministry’s advisor for religious affairs who organised the pope’s visit to Paris. On Monday, Le Monde reported that France’s current ambassador to Moscow, Stanislas Lefebvre de Laboulaye, had been proposed and accepted. Even if Paris finally got it right this time, it may still take a while before this is announced.

So what does this say about Sarkozy and his bid to improve relations with the Vatican? Maybe that this policy, which has been decried by the opposition as a cynical pitch to gain support on his right wing, may not be as well thought out as it seemed. La Croix quoted an anonymous French diplomat as saying: “The explanation for this is the total ignorance at the highest level of the French state about what the Church really is.”

P.S. — Just before hitting the button, I noticed John Allen’s story “Pro-Obama Catholic predicts ‘very positive’ ties with Vatican” based on a conference call with Douglas Kmiec, a Catholic law professor who says that Catholics can vote for Barack Obama despite his pro-choice stand on abortion (which the Church rejects). Given the problems the French are having, it would seem unlikely that he would pass muster at the Vatican either.

Pope Benedict’s speech to France’s bishops at Lourdes was a classic example of an “iron first in a velvet glove” address. Delivered calmly and in elegant French, it basically laid down the law to a group that has been among the most critical in the Church of his turn towards traditional Catholicism. It was billed as a meeting but was in fact a monologue. He read it out without hardly ever looking at the 170 cardinals and bishops before him and left right after finishing the text.

“Benedict XVI gave the bishops a veritable road map to help them trace the paths of the future for the church in France,” wrote Jean-Marie Guénois, religion correspondent of Le Figaro. “He wanted this meeting. It’s the only one he imposed on the organisers. Which shows the importance, in his eyes, of what he wanted to tell them.”

The most striking part was his call to the bishops to make more place for traditionalists. The French bishops lobbied the Vatican last year before Benedict liberalised the use of the Tridentine Latin Mass, arguing that giving the traditionalists too much leeway would undermine the authority of the bishops. The “tradis” are especially strong in France, both in the form of those loyal to Rome and those who have broken with it. The culture war between them and the majority church is deeply rooted and mutual suspicion is strong. Bishops worry that traditionalists want to form a “church within a church” if given the slightest chance. Among mainstream Catholics, that can translate into a high sensitivity to anything seen as rolling back the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

“I am aware of your difficulties, but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time, you can find solutions satisfactory for all, lest the seamless tunic of Christ be further torn,” the pope said while talking about the Tridentine mass. “Everyone has a place in the Church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected.”

To bishops faced with serious priest shortages, Benedict warned the bishops not to rely too much on the lay people who now replace missing priests in many functions. He urged them to continue to try to encourage vocations instead. “Where their specific missions are concerned, priests cannot delegate their functions to the faithful,” he said.

With a growing number of Catholics divorcing and then remarrying outside the Church, bishops in several developed countries have asked whether the Vatican could relax the marriage laws that require an annulment before a divorced Catholic can remarry in the Church. Benedict recognised that “a particularly painful situation concerns those who are divorced and remarried.” But he said he could not change Church teaching: “The Church, which cannot oppose the will of Christ, firmly maintains the principle of the indissolubility of marriage, while surrounding with the greatest affection those men and women who, for a variety of reasons, fail to respect it. Hence initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted”

Benedict also encouraged the bishops to remind the French of their country’s Christian roots now that President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he wants to take a more flexible approach to laïcité, the traditionally rigid separation of church and state. He said: “Drawing attention to France’s Christian roots will permit each inhabitant of the country to come to a better understanding of his or her origin and destiny. Consequently, within the current institutional framework and with the utmost respect for the laws that are in force, it is necessary to find a new path, in order to interpret and live from day to day the fundamental values on which the Nation’s identity is built. Your President has intimated that this is possible. The social and political presuppositions of past mistrust or even hostility are gradually disappearing.”

Things are changing, but this is still a touchy issue in France, where many Catholics are wary about reopening the debate on laïcité. One of them, for example, is François Bayrou, a prominent centrist politician and practicing Catholic who boycotted Benedict’s speech at the Elysée Palace because he thought it violated the separation of church and state. But he was here in Lourdes for the pope’s mass on Sunday, as a private citizen. Another issue is whether the bishops want to be seen to be so close to Sarkozy himself. “Speedy Sarko” was quite close to France’s Muslims a few years ago, before they fell out in a big way. He has made pitches to the Jewish community with mixed success. The Catholics are the focus at the moment, but you never know with Sarko when his attention will shift elsewhere.

The bishops gave Benedict a standing ovation at the end of his address, which is probably to be expected during a papal visit. It remains to be seen how much of his road map they follow.

Did the Irish reject the European Union’s Lisbon treaty last June because they are “losing their Christian memory?” Cardinal Seán Brady, the top Catholic cleric in the once staunchly Catholic country, thinks that can partially explain the vote.

The cardinal told a conference in County Mayo on Sunday that many Christians in Europe think the EU bases its values on a lowest common denominator that “invariably coincides with the secular and relativist tradition within Europe - that which denies moral absolutes with an objective basis - rather than the religious view.”

They think the EU is suffering from what the late Pope John Paul called a “loss of Christian memory,” he said, according to reports in the Irish press. As Brady put it:

“Successive decisions which have undermined the family based on marriage, the right to life from the moment of conception to natural death, the sacredness of the Sabbath, the right of Christian institutions to maintain and promote their ethos, including schools - these and other decisions have made it more difficult for committed Christians to maintain their instinctive commitment to the European project.”

The Irish Times noted Brady contrasted the EU to the United States, where he was pleased to see presidential candidates openly talking about their faith.

Ireland’s European Affairs Minister Dick Roche told the Irish Independent that he thought Dublin would have to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty to avoid isolation within the EU. The treaty aims to reform EU institutions to better adapt them to the expansion of the Union in recent years.

Roche attended the same conference as Brady but doesn’t seem to have addressed the religion issue in his interview.

Holding another referendum is not popular in Ireland, a recent poll showed , so it’s not clear one would actually happen. But if it does, it will be interesting to see if Brady’s comments are taken into account.