“Secularism is indispensable. It’s a protection so everyone has peace, believers and non-believers,” according to one French citizen.

“For most of the French, religion was an enemy of democracy, liberalization, freedom,” says this political scientist who specializes in Islamic studies, and “a synonym for public disorder.”

St. John's University history professor John Rao, a traditionalist Roman Catholic, has made the three-day pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres Cathedral more than half a dozen times and says the experience is filled with ritual, ceremony, and spiritual fervor.

St. John's University history professor John Rao, a traditionalist Roman Catholic, has made the three-day pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres Cathedral more than half a dozen times and says the experience is filled with ritual, ceremony, and spiritual fervor.