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Originally Posted by Milesian
Surely, once can follow the spiritual traditions of a nation & recognise their worth and benefit without feeling forced into accepting it personally.
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Charles Maurras seemed to have been able to, even though he thought Jesus was a lunatic Jew and the Gospels were trash(he wanted a Catholicism without Christianity as much as possible). This, plus some of his views concerning the relations between church and state, got him later condemned by the Vatican.
Note: I had a debate about this some time back where my opponent(Marlaud) tried to use this incident to prove that Catholicism is against nationalists. It wasn't Maurras's nationalism that got him into trouble but his theology. Pius X spoke foundly of Maurras's movement and even after the condemnation many top Vatican officials actually tried to get it revoked.
Nevertheless, the main result of the Papal condemnation was that many French Catholic nationalists forge themselves into new movements that were more acceptable to the Papacy.
Anyways, the main point is that many non-believing nationalists have supported the Church largely out of respect for its cultural contributions to the national heritage. In fact for some time I was of this persuation.