Professor Paul Sabatier who taught at the state college of sciences of Toulouse and Father Jean Baptiste Senderens, professor at the Institut Catholique de Toulouse at a time when state and private higher education were at war, and when the French republic voted the separation of Church and state, were able to go beyond the political events of the time to collaborate and publish an important body of scientific work about heterogeneous catalysis. Together they were awarded the Jecker Prize of the French Academy of Sciences. Partly thanks to that research Sabatier was awarded the chemistry Nobel Prize with Victor Grignard in 1912. Both Sabatier and Senderens were among the first promoters of what is called today “French positive secularism”.