Definitely, church feuds still have good years ahead of them in Corsica. Here is a new example, with this story of the “cross of discord”, reported by Corsica Morning And The cross. Erected in November 2022 at the entrance to the village of Quasquara (Southern Corsica), located around fifty kilometers inland to the east of Ajaccio, the modest wooden Christian cross attracted lightning from one of the residents who wrote a letter to the mayor a year later, asking him to remove this symbol, in the name of secularism.
If it is true since the law of 1905 that it is prohibited for municipalities to install new religious buildings on public roads, mayor Paul-Antoine Bertolozzi argued for its pre-existence according to the memory of the elders. After a front page Corsica Morning dedicated to this discord, the story went beyond the village and took an insular turn. On April 14, a hundred Corsicans gathered at the foot of the new Calvary, at the call of the Ghjuventù Indipendentista (Independence Youth), which is active in defending the wooden building.
For the administrative court to decide
The story also sparked reactions at the highest levels of island institutions. Femu a Corsica, the majority autonomist party which heads the regional executive, defended Corsica as a “land of religious freedom”.
It will ultimately be up to the Bastia administrative court to decide this matter. The Ghjuventù Indipendentista has warned that it will be able to “mobilize accordingly” if this appeal were to succeed.