A NEW term has entered the Catholic vocabulary in France in the run-up to the visit of Pope John Paul II next month. It is de-baptism - a form of protest devised by those opposed to the visit and the Catholic Church in general, whereby non-practising Catholics make a formal request to their parish to have their names struck off the baptism register.
The campaign was first launched by a libertarian group called Vivre au Present - Living in the Present - based in the southern city of Montpellier.
The organisation's basic aim is to protect secularism in France and to fight any move towards closer links between church and state.
In recent months a range of diverse groups have rallied behind the campaign.
These include left-wing activists, a communist trade union, intellectuals, anti-racist groups, and the Green Party. They are also opposed to any public money being used to fund the pope's visit.
The Montpellier group has drawn up forms which those wishing to be de-baptised can send to church authorities.
These basically state a person's opposition to Catholic teaching, in particular on issues such as abortion, homosexuality and AIDS, and include a request to be struck off the parish baptism register. They say they have now received more than 300 requests for the forms.
An official at the Archbishop's Palace in Paris said they received 20 such demands during June and July. He said that while the numbers were small, they were worried about the way the requests were made.
"At the beginning of August, a woman called us. She insulted the Pope and demanded that her name be crossed off the register before he visits the country. She even threatened to take legal action," he said.
The people leading the campaign are not slow to use strong language either. Ms Celine Vincent of Vivre au Present says she regards Pope John Paul II as a criminal "when he compares abortion to genocide, suggests abstinence as the only answer to AIDS, and rejects family planning for Third World countries."
The church authorities around the country have, however, opted for a non-confrontational approach. In Reims, for example, the church responded to these requests by saying a note of the person's demand had been written on their baptism certificate and that copies of it would no longer be available.
One of the main reasons the Pope's visit has sparked a debate on relations between church and state is its timing.
Pope John Paul arrives in France on September 19th and on September 22nd will attend a special service in Reims celebrating the 1,500th anniversary of the baptism of Clovis in 496. CIovis was the first King of France to be baptised, and it thus has symbolic significance for Catholics and their opponents alike.
A number of protests have now been organised to coincide with the visit. The biggest of these is expected to take place in Paris on September 22nd.
On the same day at a camping ground outside Montpellier, a "de-baptism party" is planned. Organisers say it will include debates on religion, Opus Dei and the Vatican. All those who have been, or want to be, de-baptised are invited, as are some 20 local libertarian organisations.
Authorisation has also been given for a protest in Tours, the city the Pope flies into on September 19th. The fact that he will be met at the airport by President Jacques Chirac and accompanied by the Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe, to the airport at Reims, from where he flies out, has also angered protesters.
An organiser of the Tours protest said: "It doesn't bother us that the Pope is saying a Mass here or elsewhere, but it is a private affair and it should not concern the State or the local communities."
While the church says it is worried about these protests, they are unlikely to draw much support from the mainstream, which, it must be said, is equally ambivalent about the Catholic Church itself - while a 1992 survey found 80 per cent of the population were theoretically Catholics, only 12 per cent actually practised their religion.