Church buys controversial statue in nearby Ploërmel

I was amused to read a news article on Connexion France about a dispute over a statue of Pope John Paul II in the town of Ploërmel - which is only 20 miles from our Brittany Gite.

According to the Connexion article, a dispute had arose because the statue of the Pope had a cross on the top - a symbol that broke France’s 1905 law of separation between Church and State.

The town council has agreed to sell the statue to the Catholic Church for €20,000.

By selling the statue and the church moving it from a public carpark to a nearby Catholic private college, the dispute that would have required the cross on the top to be removed appears to have been resolved.