A secular Europe?

Friday, February 15

The leader of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams suggested last week that some aspects of Sharia law be introduced into the UK legal system.

In general, the law across Europe is secular, and churches play a small and diminishing state role. Churches act as service deliverers rather than legal fora for dispute resolution.

• France is the 'ideal' type of a secular society in which the power over almost all aspects of life has been wrested from the church. In other societies, there are various degrees of recognition.
• In the United Kingdom, by contrast, the Church of England is established and it runs many of the country's primary schools, as does the Catholic Church.
• In Germany, the Catholic, Anglican and Jewish faiths enjoy (partly because of the church's role as a constraint on National Socialism in the 1930s) official sanction, and people have to opt out of an automatic tithe. Religion is a compulsory subject in some Laender schools.