The War on the Religious Orders.
The twentieth century dawned with black and lowering skies, presage of
storms to come. Even while the hymns of thanksgiving were echoing among
the vaulted roofs of cathedral and chapel, the powers of darkness were
assembling in high places to formulate plans of destruction. The word
had gone forth that Catholicity must die, the oath had been taken in the
secret lodges, the generals of the campaign were chosen, and work began
in earnest.
The war with the Church was on. It had its skirmishes ever since 1879.
Any president or minister who dared to favor the cause of Catholicity
must fall. "They must temporize, resign, or die." MacMahon was forced to
resign; Carnot was assassinated; Casimir Perier resigned; Felix Faure,
for having steadfastly opposed the revision of the Dreyfus case, died
almost immediately after swallowing a cup of tea at a soiree, and the
Dreyfus case was made out against the Catholics. President Loubet was
elected on February 18, 1899. In taking up the reins of government he
was made to understand unmistakably that he must follow out the
directions of a party whose slogan was: "Death to the Church!"
[Illustration: WALDECK-ROUSSEAU.]
One fact which shows that the spirit of the Government, which followed
upon the accession of Loubet, was born for persecution, was the case of
the Assumptionist Fathers. The latter were accused of interfering in the
elections of 1898. A case was made out against them "for violation of
the Penal Code interdicting gatherings of more than twenty persons." The
real accusation brought against them, however, was to the effect that
they had favored the _wrong_ candidates, that is, candidates not
agreeable to the dominant powers. The prosecutor, Bulot, in his
arraignment, cited the names of thirty-one deputies who, he declared,
owed their election to the influence of the Assumptionists. The
Assumptionists were condemned, and their congregation dissolved as
illicit.
_ANTI-CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT._
The complexion of the new Government which ruled from 1899 to 1902 may
be seen from the following extract taken from the revelations of Madame
Sorgues, sub-editor, a few years ago--of Jaures' Socialist organ, _La
Petite Republique_:
In fighting the battles of Dreyfus, Jaures and his friends
brought about a singular meeting of the two most
irreconcilable camps.... The first service rendered was to
restore the tottering Socialist press.... All the advanced
(i. e. anti-clerical) dailies have passed into the hands of
the great barons of finance; they are their journals now, not
the journals of the workers.... They cast their eyes on
Waldeck-Rousseau, the clever rescuer of the Panama people....
The agent of the Dreyfus politics had the happy thought of
introducing into the Cabinet, Millerand, the Socialist
leader, with the consent of his party. Socialism by becoming
ministerial would be domesticated and rendered inoffensive
against capital.
The Cabinet was thus in the hands of men little disposed to show
fairness towards anything Catholic. In the Chamber of Deputies of that
term there were four hundred Freemasons out of five hundred members; in
the Cabinet out of eleven ministers, ten were Freemasons. This was the
illustrious band which was to make laws for the guidance of thirty-seven
million Catholics.
At the head of this ministry stood Waldeck-Rousseau, President of the
Council. Waldeck-Rousseau personified the policy which obtained during
the two first years of the century, that is, the policy of duplicity and
deception. It was necessary, in the beginning of the campaign, to entice
the Catholics into a trap, after which their annihilation must follow as
a matter of course. In the art of deception Waldeck-Rousseau was an
adept.
_ASSOCIATIONS LAW._
The instrument by which the deception was exercised was the infamous
Associations Law of 1901. The Congregations had ever been the
_bete-noir_ of the anti-clericals. They represented Religion in its
perfection. In 1892, when the Fallieres-Constans bill against the
religious congregations was broached, and M. Carnot, its spokesman, had
presented it before the Chamber, the _Temps_ remarked: "Its purpose was
to resolve the difficult problem of according the right of association
to everyone, with such reserves, however, that the Catholics might not
benefit by it, and that the Congregations might by it be destroyed." In
the bill of Waldeck-Rousseau-Trouillot, prepared in June, 1900, such
embarrassments were simply set aside. It was determined "to take the
bull by the horns." The new project was, therefore, twofold; the first
part assured a large liberty to associations _non-suspected_; the second
part gave the Government a means of suppressing all religious orders. It
read as follows: "No religious congregation can be formed without an
authorization given by a law which shall determine the conditions of its
workings. It cannot found any new establishment except in virtue of a
decree emanating from the Council of State.--The dissolution of a
congregation, or the closing of an establishment can be pronounced by a
decree rendered by the Council of the ministers."
[Illustration: EX-PRESIDENT LOUBET.]
The project which bore the names of Trouillot and Waldeck-Rousseau began
by declaring all religious congregations "illicit," under the pretext
that the members of these associations live in community, that they make
the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and that Article 1118 of
the Civil Code declares that "only such things as enter into commerce
can be made the object of a convention," and that poverty, chastity and
obedience are things which do not enter into commerce.
M. Emile Faguet in his _L'Anticlericalism_ (Paris, 1905) scourges this
method of persecution:
This argumentation was seething with sophisms. In the first
place it transposes into the Penal Code a disposition of the
Civil Code and it makes a crime of that which is only a
judiciary incapacity: the party who makes a contract upon
something which does not enter into commerce cannot
judicially exact the execution of that contract if his
co-contractor should refuse. That is all that is meant by
Article 1118, and there is no penalty against a man who makes
a contract not conformable to Article 1118 of the Civil Code.
Indeed, if such were the case, marriage would be illicit, for
it is a convention of obedience, fidelity and protection
between two persons, and obedience, fidelity and protection
are not matters of trade; hence marriage would be contrary to
Article 1118.
But, it will be said, we must count as illicit every
convention which is contrary to good morals. Without doubt;
but it is difficult to conceive how living in common, and
taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are
opposed to good morals.
Finally this position of the question betrays a voluntary
confusion of the terms "convention" and "vow." A vow is not a
contract, it is a resolution which one takes and in which one
persists. Thus in no way does Article 1118 affect the
question of associations and congregations.
It is strange indeed that these sapient legislators, after
declaring religious associations illicit or criminal,
contradict themselves by inviting these same "criminal"
associations to seek authorization; which amounts to saying
that the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry wished to sanction some
things which it considered as essentially wrong. Thus the new
law stultifies itself almost in its opening sentences, while
it makes it quite plain that the subversive intentions of its
author were to affect all religious congregations without
exception.
Waldeck-Rousseau belonged to the same school as Jules Ferry; he believed
in maintaining _provisorily_ the Concordat, but he made it plain that he
intended to laicise all the public service, and especially that of
teaching, in which the congregations held so large a part. In a speech
at Toulouse, October 28, 1900, after arguing that the development of the
monastic possessions ought to be arrested, he declared:
Two classes of youth, less separated by their social
condition than by the education they receive, are growing up
without any mutual acquaintance, until the day comes when
they shall meet and find themselves so unlike that they will
not be able to understand one another. Little by little two
different societies are being prepared--one of them, becoming
more and more democratic as it is borne on by the great
current of the Revolution, and the other, more and more
imbued with doctrines which one would not have believed able
to survive the great movement of the eighteenth century.
In this sentence was contained his plea for compelling the teachers of
the second class of youth, the congregations, to seek authorization,
while at the same time he made it evident that none should be authorized
whose methods should not be in accordance with the principles of the
French Revolution.
Another element in the deceptive policy of Waldeck-Rousseau was the
endeavor to bolster his proscriptive laws upon the assertion that they
were intended to protect the secular clergy from the encroachments of
the regulars. Hence the phrase: "The Church against the chapel." He
ignored the fact that the secular clergy had no need of such protection
inasmuch as the harmony between them and the religious orders was never
called into question except by these anti-clericals who hated both
religious and seculars.
Still further the same Waldeck-Rousseau took pains to falsify himself on
more than one public occasion. Thus he assured M. Cochin and Mgr.
Gayraud that the law of July, 1901, would permit members of religious
congregations to teach in establishments belonging to persons not
members of the congregation, although he knew at the time that decrees
were being formulated to prevent such practice.
When the iniquitous law was yet before the Chamber the Holy Father, Pope
Leo XIII., in a letter to the superior generals of the orders and
religious institutes, complained bitterly of its purpose:
We have endeavored by every means to ward off from you a
persecution so unworthy, and at the same time to save your
country from evils as great as they are unmerited. That is
why on many occasions we have pleaded your cause with all our
power in the name of religion, of justice, of civilization.
But we have hoped in vain that our remonstrances would be
heard. Behold, indeed, in these days, in a nation singularly
fecund in religious vocations, and which we have always
surrounded with our most particular care, the public powers
have approved and promulgated laws of exception, apropos of
which we have, a few months ago, raised our voice in the hope
of preventing them.
[Illustration: ORPHANS DISPERSED IN PERSECUTION.]
The Livre Jaune, published in 1903, and containing diplomatic documents,
prints the words of Cardinal Rampolla in the name of the Holy Father:
The Holy Father, obedient to the duties imposed on him by his
sacred ministry, has ordered the subscribed Secretary of
State to protest, as he does protest in his august name,
against the above law, as being an unjust law of reprisals
and of exception, which excludes honest and worthy citizens
from the benefits of the common right, which equally wounds
the rights of the Church, which is in opposition to natural
right, and which is at the same time replete with deplorable
consequences. It would be superfluous to point out how such a
law, on the one side, restrains the liberty of the Church
guaranteed by a solemn contract, and prevents the Church from
fulfilling her divine mission by depriving her of precious
co-operators, while on the other hand, it increases
bitterness of spirit at a moment when the need of
pacification is most vital and pressing, and it takes away
from the State the most zealous apostles of civilization and
charity, the most efficacious propagators of the French name,
the French tongue and French prestige abroad.
The effects of this law which has been well characterized as
anti-social, inhuman, anti-religious, and anti-French, began to be felt
at once. Many religious orders, such as the Jesuits, the Assumptionists,
the Benedictines, Carmelites, etc., foreseeing that legal authorization
would be denied them, abandoned their country, their colleges and their
convents; many others still hoped. The Government into whose hands they
had fallen had invited them to seek authorization, and there was no
reason, apparently, to suppose that this invitation was only a mockery.
Still others, which had formerly been authorized, imagined that they
might still continue in the enjoyment of such recognition. Both the
latter classes were, however, deceived. According to the new law a
congregation "might not found a new establishment except in virtue of a
decree issued by the Council of State." It was thus difficult to see how
the law could effect the establishments already founded. The
promulgators of the bill, however, intended to confine themselves within
no limits, and hence their purpose was very soon made plain. By a
circular of December 15, 1901, the law was formally extended to include
all establishments, both old and new, going back as far as those
recognized in 1825. Later still, January 23, 1902, the Council of State
decided that: "in the case of the opening of a school by one or more
congregationists, that school should be considered as a new
establishment opened by the congregation, whoever might be proprietor or
tenant." A few days later, February 8, Waldeck-Rousseau sent notice of
the same to the prefects. By these various circulars the law was thus
aimed at all new schools founded by the congregations, at all new
schools not founded by the congregations, but directed by religious, and
at all old schools founded by the congregations.
It is a notable fact that these iniquitous extensions of an evil law
were perpetrated in spite of the clearest assurances of the Government
that the two latter classes of schools should not be touched. Even as
late as February 4, 1902, the Government responded to a request of the
Holy Father for an explanation of its intentions, by a note from M.
Delcasse, which reads as follows:
Paris, February 4, 1902.
The Council of Ministers have decided that the law of July,
1901, should not have a retroactive effect, and did not apply
to educational establishments opened in virtue of the law of
1886. The conclusions of the Council of State enumerated in
your despatch of January 29, do not touch them. This was a
point with which the Nuncio was very much preoccupied. Mgr.
Lorenzelli appears to be fully satisfied with the decision of
the Council, of which I immediately made him
cognizant.--Delcasse.
The actions of the Government were thus in direct contradiction with its
assurances. Its protestations of fairness and leniency were falsified by
its circulars and decrees. Its intentions were aimed at extermination
complete and irrevocable.
The ending of Waldeck-Rousseau's career was pathetic and tragical. In
1904 he arose one day "from his bed of sickness to unburden his
conscience by protesting against the anti-clerical fury of his ci-devant
supporters and instruments. In vain he denounced the violations of his
law of 1901, travestied by that of 1904 suppressing even authorized
congregations. The verve of the great tribune had abandoned him. His
speech was but a hollow echo of its former eloquence. Twice he reeled
and was forced to steady himself by clinging to the railing. When he
arose for the second time, to reply to the sarcasms of M. Combes, he
suddenly lost the thread of his discourse, and before he had ended many
benches were vacated; the forum, where his words had so often been
greeted with wild applause, was almost empty." (Brodhead.--_Religious
Persecution in France._)
His death came two years later. It was rumored that he attempted to
commit suicide. Whether he received the last sacraments or not is not
known. He had left instructions, however, that he was to be buried from
his parish church of St. Clothilde.
_THE COMBES MINISTRY._
The seventh legislature was dissolved at the beginning of April, 1902,
and preparations were at once begun for the election of its successor.
The point at issue in the approaching elections was the vindication or
the condemnation of the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry, which had now been in
office for three years. The result was entirely satisfactory to the
parties whose life had been lived in open hostility to the Church. The
Ministerialists, that is to say, the supporters of the administration of
Waldeck-Rousseau, won 69 seats in the Chamber, as against 131 by the
several elements of the opposition. The new legislature counted among
its members ninety-six Radicals, eighty-three Republicans of the Left,
135 Radical-Socialists, forty-one Unified Socialists, fourteen
Independent Socialists. Here were 369 men out of 500, every one of whom
was pledged to exert every effort, by fair means or foul, to overthrow
the life and power of the Church in France. As soon as the result of the
election had become known Waldeck-Rousseau, as if satisfied with his
work of destruction, resigned the ministry and retired to private life.
Before abandoning the active field of political life, Waldeck-Rousseau
was careful to point out the man he desired to take his place and carry
into execution the laws he had devised. This man was Emile Combes, the
most violent of politicians. To this man, M. Loubet, who could not bear
him--but who passed his life in doing what he disapproved of, and in
condemning in his speeches the very political acts which he signed with
his name,--to this man M. Loubet hastened to confide the Presidency of
the Council, and the direction of the Government. M. Combes! It is a
name of ill omen, which echoes like the sound of a funeral bell among
the cloisters in the empty convents, and by the firesides of Christian
homes. The aged mutter the name and grow pale as if they had said an
unholy thing. The little ones shrink to their mothers' side as the
horror of that name strikes upon their innocent ears, for it brings back
the memory of dear sisters who have vanished, engulfed as it were in the
cavernous jaws of the anti-Christ. It is a name at which many lips
hesitate when they utter the prayer! "Forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive those who have trespassed against us." Yet, they will hesitate
only for the moment, for in those very communities which he has robbed
and persecuted a prayer will ever go up to God for his conversion. It is
the way in which the true Christian takes revenge upon those who wrong
him.
[Illustration: EMILE COMBES.]
Emile Combes is a native of Roquecourbe, in the south of France, where
he was born on September 6, 1835. His parents were good, honest people,
filled with that simple piety which characterizes the true French
peasant. He had an uncle, the Abbe Gaubert, cure of Bion to whose
generous interest the future politician owed his first advances in life.
Through the influence of this good man the young Combes entered, in
1846, the _petit seminaire_ of Castres, the scholars of which were
supposed to have the first promptings of ecclesiastical vocation. During
his college days the young man certainly gave every evidence of profound
faith and devotion. The lessons of his pious mother made him, as he says
himself, believe to the very depths of his soul. In his twentieth year
he entered the Grand Seminary at Albi. While in this institution he
received minor orders, thereby proclaiming to the world his intention of
preparing for the priesthood. For two years his purpose remained
unchanged. He even fortified himself therein by deep and special studies
in scholastic theology, and has left as memorials of his better life two
treatises in that matter: _A Study of the Psychology of St. Thomas
Aquinas_, and _The Controversy between St. Bernard and Abelard_, copies
of which are still extant in the library of the Sorbonne at Paris.
Whether the vocation of Emile Combes was real or not, he certainly
abandoned it in the midst of his ecclesiastical studies. He quitted the
Seminary and became a professor in the College of the Assumption at
Nimes, an institution established by the Abbe d'Alzon, founder of the
religious order of the Assumptionists. Here he remained for three years,
until 1860. He taught then in another Catholic college at Pons.
Hitherto there had been no certain indications of a weakening in his
faith. But in 1864, as he was attending the medical school at Paris, he
met with Renan. The acquaintanceship developed the seeds of that atheism
which has since become his ruling quality.
To one who reads French history it ought not to be surprising that a
Catholic seminary should have sheltered the youth of a man like Combes.
Voltaire was a pupil of the Jesuits, whom he betrayed; Renan was once a
student in St. Sulpice; Gambetta, the leader of anti-clericalism in the
stormy 80's, studied in his boyhood in a _petit seminaire_. That they
proved false to their early teaching is not remarkable when one
considers the disaffection of an apostle who was privileged to enjoy an
intimacy with the Savior of the world.
It was during his vacations in 1865 that Combes was initiated into the
Freemasons. It marked the first step in that path which he was soon to
follow with persistent energy. In 1868 he received his degree as doctor
of medicine, a profession which he practised at Pons. In 1874 he was
elected Mayor of that town. His real political life began in 1885 when
he was elected senator. Re-elected in 1894, he accepted the ministry of
Public Instruction, Fine Arts and Worship in the Bourgeois Cabinet,
wherein he showed himself one of the most obstinate promoters of lay
education as opposed to that of the clergy. It was at this time that he
inaugurated, in his relations with the Vatican relative to the
Concordat, the policy which, ten years later, led to the separation of
Church and State.
[Illustration: A PROTEST OF FRENCH AUTHORS AGAINST COMBES.]
As President of the Democratic Left in the Senate he lent his efforts to
the policy of Waldeck-Rousseau from 1899 to 1902. He was elected
President of the Senatorial Commission on the Law of Associations; he
contributed largely to its adoption, and notably to the vote on Article
14, when he declared in the tribune his conviction of the moral
incompatibility of the profession of teaching with the doctrine and life
of the monastic orders. On June 7, 1902, upon the recommendation of
Rousseau, he succeeded to the Presidency of the Council thereby becoming
Premier in the Government.
His first words upon taking up this office signalized his determination
of carrying on to its ultimate issue the war just inaugurated against
the Catholic Church. "What can the new Cabinet do," he asked, "what can
any cabinet do but continue the policy of that which precedes us, a
policy which is resumed by saying that it has been nothing more than an
incessant war of the Republican party against two dangers which
republican unity alone can overcome; Caesarian reaction, and theocratic
pretensions. That is the policy which we are determined to pursue and
which we invite you to pursue with us until we have completely disarmed
the enemy."
An _order of the day_ was passed voting confidence in the Government,
and thus adopting as the policy of the Chambers, the war plan enunciated
by the President of the Council. This was the work of the four groups of
the Left, all radical and anti-religious to the depths of their hearts.
The _bloc_, as they called this cohesion of the different parties of the
ministerial majority, was thus constituted, and adopted as its plan of
action the war against Catholicity.
The new Premier set to work at once to put into execution the law of
July 1, 1901. Beginning with schools recently opened, that is, posterity
to the late law, he closed at one stroke on July 15, 1902, as many as
2500. The congregationist teachers were allowed only eight days before
abandoning their establishments and retiring to their mother houses. It
was an illegal act in itself; it not only aggravated unduly the rigor of
the law, but it was also irregular in form, since Article 13 of the law
declared that a measure of this nature could not be taken except "by a
decree emanating from the Council of the ministers," and not by a simple
circular as in the present case.
Cardinal Richard, upon learning of this execution, wrote immediately to
M. Loubet a letter to which many other bishops hastened to give their
adhesion; M. Jules Roche published a letter to the President of the
Council (Combes) in which he proved that the law had been violated; a
petition was presented to M. Loubet by a delegation of the Christian
mothers from the district of Saint-Roch. To these protests the
Government answered by a presidential decree of Aug. 2, 1902--this time
in legal form--whereby it declared the closing of 324 other
establishments.
The war went on. In Brittany many scenes of open conflict took place as
the troubled peasantry strove to prevent the sudden spoliation of those
institutions which they held dearest on earth. They had reason indeed to
rebel, as the persecutors aimed not only at the extinction of their
beloved teaching orders, but also at the destruction of that cherished
Breton tongue which they had inherited from their fathers. The show of
violence here and there manifested brought its inevitable consequences
from a power only too anxious to find pretexts for persecution. The
powers of many mayors were revoked, many ecclesiastics were deprived of
their livings and correctional measures were pronounced against all who
dared to take part in the various manifestations. Then came other
decrees in August, laicising _en masse_ the greater part of the public
schools as yet directed by the congregations.
When the matter was brought into the Chamber (Oct. 13, 1902,) protests
went up eloquently from a number of indignant deputies. Conspicuous
among these were such bright names as Messrs. Aynard, Baudry d'Asson,
Denys Cochin, George Berry, de Ramel, Charles Benoist and the Count de
Mun. The answer of the latter to the policy of Combes is worth
recording:
Majorities may cover your actions and sanction your
decisions, but nothing can efface the evil you have done. The
country--for I speak not of Brittany alone--can never forget
those scenes of odious violence executed by your orders,
wherein we have witnessed commissaries of police, followed by
armed marauders, storming the doors of private houses, not
merely the doors of a religious dwelling, but the doors of my
own house, to drive out into the streets humble ladies who
consecrate their lives, their labors and their devotion to
the instruction of the children of the people. Nothing--and
understand it well--nothing can make us forget that; nothing
above all can make us forget that you have condemned the
soldiers of France to assist at such scenes, and to march
with tears in their eyes, in the midst of a distracted and
desperate crowd, the pathway of your persecutors. That shall
never be forgotten! That shall never be pardoned.
While these things were going on the bishops of France framed a
collective letter petitioning the Chambers to accede to the application
for authorization made by the congregations. This letter when published
contained the signatures of seventy-four bishops; only seven, for
different reasons had deferred signing, though fully in sympathy with
the movement. This letter, moderate and respectful, as it was, and
merely asking in the way of petition for favors that might easily be
granted, was treated by the Council of State as a hostile manifesto and
was declared "abusive" and as such it rendered its authors culpable
before the law. The Archbishop of Besancon, together with the Bishops of
Orleans and of Seez, were considered as the promoters of the document,
and as such were deprived of their salaries.
When the war against all new establishments was well under way, the
"Bloc" then took up the question of congregations unauthorized but
applying in due legal form for the favor of authorization. This the
orders had been instructed and encouraged to do. Their treatment
displayed at once the insincerity and hatred of the Government. A
"Commission on Congregations" was formed, composed of thirty-three
members, of whom twenty-one were Freemasons. The Commission instructed
the anti-clerical Rabier to draw up a bill. The discussions of the
Chamber upon this bill, resulted in the dissolution of fifty-three
orders of men. On March 18, 1903, twenty-five teaching congregations
were suppressed, comprising 11,763 religious divided into 1690
communities. A few days later twenty-eight preaching orders received the
same sentence. Among these were the Capuchins, the Redemptorists, the
Dominicans, the Passionists, the Salesians, the Franciscans, the Oblates
of Mary Immaculate, the Benedictines, the Fathers of the Oratory, the
Barnabites, the Carmelites and many others. On March 26, the
Carthusians, considered as a commercial order, were condemned by a vote
of 322 against 222. It was at this time that the anti-clerical Rouanet
uttered that saying so significant of the whole Governmental policy: "We
need not concern ourselves with either legality or right." The
proscriptions were hardly pronounced than measures were at once taken
for the liquidation of the property belonging to the dissolved
congregations. We need not linger to relate the pathetic scenes
accompanying the consequent expulsion of these fifty-three orders of
men, nor the wave of indignation it produced throughout France and the
civilized world.
[Illustration: CARDINAL RICHARD.]
After the congregations of men the war was carried on against similar
orders of women. It was to no purpose that Messrs. Plichon and Grousseau
demonstrated in the Chamber the confusion manifested in the articles of
the bill which designated as teaching orders the congregations devoted
to the hospitals, and those whose lives were purely contemplative; it
was in vain that they showed forth the success of the incriminated
orders that they brought forth the declarations of the majority of the
municipal councils pronouncing for the maintenance of these orders. Even
M. Leygues who had voted for the law of July 1, 1901, as Minister of
Public Instruction at the time, declared that the new bill by rejecting
the demands of the Sisters _en bloc_ was contrary to that law. In
spite of all protests the project was voted and carried by a majority of
285 to 269. Thus eighty-one congregations of women were at a single blow
dissolved.
On August 9, 1903, M. Combes speaking at Marseilles before a congress of
teachers declared:
I have refused 12,600 petitions for authorization. This
figure suppressed 9,934 teaching establishments, 1,856
hospital corps, and 822 establishments of a mixed nature, i.
e. hospitaller and teaching. Out of the 9,934 teaching
establishments there are 1,770 situated in communes still
wanting, I am sorry to say, in public schools.
The _Temps_ of December 4, 1903, declared that 10,049 schools had been
closed within a period of eighteen months, and that there remained only
1,300 yet to be suppressed.
To these 10,049 schools must be added 165 colleges and 1,347 schools
conducted by the twenty-five orders of men suppressed on the 18th of
March preceding, as also the 517 establishments directed by the
eighty-one congregations of women proscribed on June 24, thus
representing a total of 12,000 congregationists schools stricken in the
space of eighteen months, with about 50,000 religious thrown out upon
the streets, and more than 1,000,000 children deprived of their beloved
instructors.
Charles Bota in his _Grand Faute des Catholiques de France_ thus
reflects upon these sinister events:
One can well imagine what went on in the mother-houses, the
communities and the schools which the decrees of suppression
invaded, bringing ravage and desolation! What sad and
heart-rending scenes! The odious perquisitions of procureurs
and police commissaries goaded on by superior orders, or
even perhaps--it looked that way sometimes--by the quality of
the victims; the painful, insidious interrogatories wherein
the simplicity and timidity of souls habituated to peace was
violated; the alarm of the aged religious, of the sick and
the infirm as they begged to know what it all meant; the
returning religious hunted from their houses coming back to
the mother-house to cast themselves weeping into the arms of
their superiors, while the latter pointed out how the house
was too small to receive them and too poor to afford them
food; the uncertainty as to the morrow, the privations, the
anguish, the moral tortures, the desperation of all; one
should have seen such scenes near at hand to comprehend all
that they meant. 'Ah!' cried M. Emile Olivier, 'all the
cruelty, the tears, the consternation contained in those few
words written by an official scribe upon the desk of a
minister--On such a day, such a congregation of women will be
dispersed.' They merited no regard, no commiseration those
poor women so good to others, so delicate, so pure, that
Taine could call them the pride of France.
The efforts of the enemy had thus far touched only unauthorized
congregations. There were still many orders which lived in the
possession of full authorization and which according to the existing
laws had nothing to fear from the hatred of the anti-clericals. In this,
however, they were very much deceived. A new bill directed at all
religious teaching orders, of whatever kind or description, was
introduced in the Chamber on February 29, 1904. Its first article,
declaring the suppression, asserted "teaching of every order and of
every nature is interdicted in France to the congregations." It was
adopted by a majority of eighty-seven votes on March 14. The second
article stated that from the date of the promulgation of the law the
teaching congregations could not receive new members, and that their
novitiates must be dissolved. This article also--with the exception in
favor of congregations destined for foreign schools--was adopted. It was
decided, moreover, in article fourth, that novitiates for foreign
missions could not maintain any of the dissolved congregations. The law
was carried before the Senate, towards the end of June. It became a law
of the land, with the official signature of M. Loubet, on July 8, 1904.
The triumph of anti-Christianism was thus complete, and the death
sentence had been pronounced against the very existence of the monastic
life in France.
It might be of interest to introduce here some appreciations of the
Premier who had done so much harm to France and who was soon to begin
the first scenes in the last act of our sorrowful drama. M. Emile
Faguet, though not a Catholic, nor inspired by any definite admiration
for Catholic principles, thus characterizes M. Combes in his
_l'Anticlericalism_:
M. Combes, considered unanimously as the protege and
choice--no one knows with what secret designs of M.
Waldeck-Rousseau; ... M. Combes taken up--no one knows by
what weakness--by M. Loubet, who felt for him the very
contrary of sympathy; M. Combes, a minister who was incapable
according to the opinion and avowal of everyone, nevertheless
maintained himself in office as long, and even longer than
Waldeck-Rousseau, in spite of mistake after mistake, in spite
of co-laborers as incapable as himself, despite the
procrastination systematically employed as an instrument of
his rule, only because he was a determined anti-clerical,
headstrong and brutal, whom nothing could arrest in the
pursuit of his design and precisely because, as he had said
himself, 'he had accepted his office for that alone' and
because he was absolutely incapable of seeing anything else
in the government of France and in all modern history.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT FALLIERES.]
_L'Echo_, (Lyons), with admirable brevity thus summarizes the salient
points in the character of the Premier and his policy:
M. Combes is a sectary, a renegade seminarist given over to
Freemasonry. His policy is the vigorous application of the
anti-liberal law, the refusal of all authorizations asked by
the Congregations, and the abrogation of the Falloux law.
M. F. Veuillot, writing in the _Univers_, pays his respects to the
minister in no measured terms. He says M. Combes is "devoid of talent,
virtue, honor--a brute unable to conceive a generous thought, to realize
a great work, to produce anything useful, to show any effort of a
patient and beneficial kind. The brute, however, has formidable fists,
and he strikes out blindly before him. The man is without a breath of
intelligence, a single sentiment of delicacy. He is but a commonplace
mediocrity personified, rancid with hatred and puffed up with pride. As
he cannot leave anything to make him famous, he will be notorious to
posterity for his brutality alone."
Finally, the Abbe Felix Klein, in the North American Review for
February, 1904, remarks:
M. Combes and his friends, who imagine that they are the
leaders of all progress, are committing again the errors of
the Middle Ages. That which Philip II. did in Spain, in his
making use of the Inquisition; that which Louis XIV. did in
France, in revoking the Edict of Nantes and in driving out
the Protestants; that which England did, in her treatment of
the Pilgrim Fathers, the anti-clericals in France are doing
today in their hatred of the religions orders. They are
placing these orders beyond the law; they are preventing
members of these orders from living as they see fit to live,
and from earning their daily bread; they are practically
forcing these members to leave France, all solely because of
their ideas and innermost convictions. It is the old crime of
heresy reversed. Since 1789, the French state has professed
no longer to recognize religious vows, either to protect or
to attack them; and in this it does well. But how illogical
it is, then, to deprive certain individuals of their civil
rights, merely because they take vows which it does not
recognize! How does it concern the state if young men and
women take the vow of chastity before God, and lead a life in
common, devoting themselves to doing good in the manner they
deem best? Is it not monstrous that, in the beginning of the
twentieth century, the government of a great country should
arrogate to itself the right of interfering in a matter of
this kind, even that it should bring such subjects into the
scope of its deliberations? Whether this vow be good or bad
it is a question for one's own conscience. Let those who
think it bad endeavor to turn others from it by means of
persuasion; but to try to prevent it by brute force is the
most retrograde course in the world.
The measure of true civilization is indicated by the degree
of respect in which one person holds the rights of another;
every man and woman, so long as not encroaching on the rights
of others, is inviolably entitled to act, and, a fortiori, to
think, to believe, to pray, as he or she wishes. The French
Government, by preventing certain categories of citizens from
acting together, solely because their ideas are not its
ideas, has gone backward several centuries on a capital
point, and has resurrected one of the most shameful practices
of the past, the misdemeanor of opinion.
_THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE._
The congregations dissolved and dispersed, nothing now remained but the
final act in that great tragedy which had been progressing for more than
one hundred years. The proposal was in order to lay the axe at the roots
of religious life, and by one fell stroke to extinguish the very
existence of the Catholic Church in France. Years have passed since this
last work was begun; the Church has not been extinguished; she is even
rising to a greater, a more glorious life; the promise of Christ is
showing its realization in the midst of a people who, but yesterday,
were ready to sing the requiem over her ruins.
The project of separating Church and State was no new notion in France;
it was a very old article in the republican programme. Away back in the
days of the Convention, in 1795, it had already been proclaimed and put
into force. Again in 1830 and in 1848 it was put forward by a faction of
the republican party. Under the Empire, especially during the
discussions as to the French occupation of the City of Rome, it was made
a part of the democratic platform. In a session of the Corps Legislatif
on December 3, 1867, Jules Simon made a very bitter speech in favor of
such separation. The following year Henri Brisson advocated much the
same object when denouncing the payment of salary to the clergy.
It was, however, during the period of the Third Republic that the
project began to receive attention in a practical sense, and formed the
ideal towards which policies of Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Paul Bert and
their like aspired. All efforts in this direction had proved abortive,
not that the project was at all displeasing to the anti-clerical
governments, but rather because the people were not "prepared;" and most
of all it was necessary first so to weaken the Church in her functional
life, that when the separation should come, it must mean her
annihilation.
It is pitiful to note the pretexts alleged by Reveillard in his work on
the "Separation," as the causes which called for the final rupture.
Speaking of Gambetta's acts of hostility in 1869 and later, he says: "It
was the time of the great clerical demonstrations, of pilgrimages less
religious than political, to Paray-le-Monial, to Lourdes, to Sainte-Anne
d'Aunay, to the chant of canticles with the refrain: 'Oh, save Rome and
France in the name of the Sacred Heart!'" He calls up also "the triumph
of Marie Alacoque and of Pere Lamerliere" and the "law approving as a
national public benefit the erection of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart
on the heights of Montmartre." These demonstrations of national Catholic
spirit were as so many thorns in the sides of rabid anti-clericalism,
and would suffice in themselves to evoke the sentence of extermination
against the Church that could call them forth. These same complaints are
uttered with no less bitterness by Paul Sabbatier in his work on the
"Disestablishment of the Church in France." In fact the unanimity with
which all anti-clerical writers harp upon these manifestations of
popular fervor make it plain that it was not a desire for political
betterment which inspired the foes of the Church in these oppressive
measures, but a desire carefully nurtured to strike at her very vitality
and life.
[Illustration: CLEMENCEAU.]
It would be useless here to rehearse all the various attempts which were
made in the Legislative Chambers up to 1902 to introduce the final
question in regard to the Separation. On each occasion the discussion
was voted down, always with the understanding that the time was not yet
ripe for the act. Affairs had at length, after the Law of 1901, arrived
at such a pass that the anti-clerical government could afford to set in
motion the wheels of its final policy. Various happenings at the time
served as pretexts for hurrying on its action. Some of these were of
special importance, and deserve to be recorded for the part they played
therein. In 1902 the Government assumed a hostile attitude on the
subject of the nomination of bishops, when it demanded the exclusion
from the Bull of canonical investiture of the term until then in use:
"Nobis nominavit." The Government demanded the suppression of the word
_Nobis_, thus changing the meaning of the phrase. It thus made it appear
that the nomination of a bishop depended upon the Government alone, and
that Rome had no other part in it than merely to register such
nomination as made by the civil power. This question of words thus
became a question of principle. The affair of the _Nobis nominavit_ was
finally arranged at the beginning of 1904. The _Osservatore Romano_, of
January 23, announced the solution officially, adding: "After a lengthy
exchange of ideas, the French government has accepted a solution which
the Holy See had proposed of its own initiative, and which, without in
any way wounding the privilege of nomination conceded to the Government
in virtue of the Concordat, conserves intact and assures for the future
the expression of the canonical and dogmatic doctrine."
This attempt of the Government to stir up a conflict with the Holy See
was further accentuated by the suppression of the salaries of eleven
bishops; and by the reduction, without any reasonable motive, of the
budget of worship in 1904.
Two other cases which, provoked by the Government, served as a pretext
for urgent separation were the affairs of the Bishops of Laval and
Dijon. I prefer to use in its relation the words of M. Faguet as found
in his work "_l'Anticlericalism_." "Two bishops, M. Gay, bishop of
Laval, and M. Le Nordez, bishop of Dijon, were agreeable to the French
Government and suspected, either for their private conduct, or for their
administration, by the Curia. M. Le Nordez was advised by Rome to resign
his functions. The Roman letter was turned over by the bishop to the
French Government, which protested to the Vatican, claiming that,
according to the Concordat, the nominations of French bishops ought to
be made by the French Government, and only the canonical institution of
them was reserved to the Holy See, that their revocations ought to
follow the same law as their nominations, and hence, that the Holy See
had not the right to depose a French bishop. Exactly the same procedure
was followed with regard to M. Gay, and exactly the same protests were
made by the French Government in his case. At the same time the French
Government commanded M. Gay and M. Le Nordez not to quit their posts.
The Roman Under-Secretary of State answered that the deposition of a
bishop was one thing, and the notice given to a bishop that he must
resign temporally his functions in order to go before the Roman Curia to
justify himself, was another; that such notifications belonged of right
to the Holy See to which the bishops by it canonically instituted were
responsible."
"The French Government was headstrong, rushed blindly into the affair,
recalled its ambassador, and gave his passports to the Nuncio. War was
declared."
"The two bishops, who were obliged to choose between their obedience to
the French Government and their loyalty to the Holy See, decided for the
latter. They set out furtively for Rome, submitted to the Curia, and
resigned their French Sees."
"M. Combes saw in all this motives sufficient, not only to break all
relations with the Holy See, but still more to denounce the Concordat
and to pronounce for the separation of Church and State, at the same
time formally casting--as he had done a score of times--all
responsibility for these grave measures upon the Pontifical Government."
The anti-clericals were determined to abuse the patience of the Holy See
until it should finally be driven into an action upon which the French
Government might seize as a final pretext for a rupture. Already Pope
Leo XIII. had pointed out such intentions during his lifetime. In a
Letter to the Clergy and Catholics of France, February 16, 1902, he thus
wrote: "For them, separation signifies the negation of the very
existence of the Church. They make, however, a reservation which might
be formulated thus: 'As soon as the Church, utilizing the resources
which the common law allows to even the least of Frenchmen, will be
able, by redoubling her native activities, to make her labors fruitful,
the State will and must intervene to put the French Catholics outside
the common law itself.' In a word, the ideal of these men is nothing
less than a return to paganism; the State will recognize the Church only
when it wishes to persecute her."
This great Pope had, by the end of his life, exhausted every means of
condescension and delicacy towards the French Government; but his
efforts were doomed to failure before the hatred and bad faith of his
enemies, and he began at length to feel that the time had come when he
should enter a firm and dignified protest.
Pope Pius X. upon his accession was called upon to behold the
accelerated progress of official persecution; he began to recognize the
utter uselessness of even the most legitimate claims, and he hastened to
express his sorrow and indignation for the continuous violation of human
rights. On March 19, 1904, on the occasion of his name-day, he addressed
the Sacred College upon the subject: "We are profoundly saddened," he
said, "by the measures already adopted, and by others on the way to
adoption in the legislative houses against the religious congregations
which form in this country, by their admirable works of Christian
charity and education, a glory not less for the Church than for the
fatherland. They intend to go farther still, when they prevent and
defend a project having for its end the interdiction of all teaching to
the members of religious institutes even authorized, the suppression of
approved institutes and the liquidation of their property. We deplore
and strongly censure such harshness so essentially contrary to liberty
as it is understood, so essentially opposed to the fundamental laws of
the land, to the inherent rights of the Catholic Church, and to the
rules of civilization itself, which forbid the persecution of peaceful
citizens. To this end we cannot dispense Ourselves from expressing Our
sorrow over the measures adopted of deferring to the Council of State,
as abusive, the respectful letters addressed to the first magistrate of
the Republic by many well deserving pastors, among whom are three
members of the Sacred College, the August Senate of the Apostolic See,
as if it could be a crime to address the chief of the State to call his
attention to subjects intimately connected with the most imperious
duties of conscience, and with the common weal."
The solicitude of the Holy Father, however, only served to increase the
venom of his foes. Toward the end of April, 1904, M. Loubet, President
of the French Republic, visited Rome, and contrary to the spirit of the
Concordat and the rules regulating the relations of the Holy See and the
French Government, went immediately to the Quirinal to pay his respects
to the Italian king. The Holy See considered this visit of M. Loubet "as
a very grave offense against its dignity and rights. At the same time,
while uttering in the face of the French Government an energetic and
formal protest against the offense thus suffered, it sent in analogous
terms by means of its foreign representatives, an account of its action
to the governments of all the other States with which the Holy See held
direct relations." The Pontifical note declared that "a head of a
Catholic nation inflicts a grave offense against the Sovereign Pontiff
in coming to give homage at Rome, not to the Pontifical See but to him
who contrary to all right usurps his civil sovereignty." The "note" goes
on to remark that the offense is all the greater coming from the "first
magistrate of the French Republic, presiding over a nation which is
bound by the most intimate traditional relations with the Roman
pontificate, enjoys in virtue of a bilateral contract with the Holy See
certain signal privileges and a large representation in the Sacred
College, and possesses by a singular favor the protectorate of Catholic
interests in the Orient." It goes on, moreover, to state that this visit
of M. Loubet was "sought intentionally by the Italian Government for the
purpose of enfeebling the rights of the Holy See," and it concludes by
declaring that "the Sovereign Pontiff makes these most formal and
explicit protests to the end that so afflicting an action, (as that of
M. Loubet) might not constitute a precedent."
On the receipt of this protest the French Government gave the Holy See
to understand that it rejected the note in its form and in its
substance. The anti-clerical journals went even farther than this,
publishing not only the Pope's answer to French Government, but also the
note which had been sent to the other Catholic Powers. The intention of
such publication being to stir up the rancor of all who were moved by
hostility to the Holy See.
In answer, moreover, to the Pontifical note, the French ministry
demanded that the Holy See give an explanation of its words, and that
within the space of twenty-four hours; then, rushing headlong upon a
solution, as if impatient to hurry on the imminent rupture, it recalled
the French ambassador to the Holy See (May 21, 1904). This action was
approved by the Chamber six days after; it refused, however, by a vote
of 366 to 144 to pronounce for the immediate denunciation of the
Concordat; but that event was now well on the way, and nothing was
needed but to devise the ways and means.
The year 1905 opened with many muttered evidences of the coming storm.
The prime minister, M. Combes, though not defeated in the January
elections, beheld his majority so far reduced because of his rabid
inconsistencies, that although re-elected to his former post he felt it
incumbent to resign immediately. He was succeeded by a creature pledged
to continue his oppressive policy, M. Maurice Rouvier. It may be said,
however, that the spirit of Combes has dominated the French Chambers
ever since. The new cabinet was destined to put the final touches to the
anti-clerical campaign of dissolution.
Various motions having from time to time been introduced before the
Chamber of Deputies tending towards the separation of Church and State,
the Government finally, decided to place all of them for examination
into the hands of a Commission of thirty-three, which was nominated on
June 11, 1903. Out of the deliberations of this body resulted the first
scheme, or project, of the proposed legislation in regard to Separation
of Church and State. The question was formally introduced to the Chamber
of Deputies in the session of March 21, 1905, and was discussed during
forty-eight sessions until July 3 of that year. Its reporter, or
sponsor, was M. Briand.
[Illustration: BRIAND.]
In the first session M. Georges Berry declared "that the question of
separation had not been submitted to the electoral colleges, and that,
moreover, every time that it had been put before legislative elections
the electoral body had answered very unmistakably that it did not desire
separation." In the same session the Abbe Gayraud, representing Catholic
interests, spoke: "The Chamber, considering that diplomatic loyalty, and
public honesty, no less than the interests of public order and of
religious peace, exact that the denunciation of the Concordat, and the
separation of Church and State be accomplished in a friendly manner,
decides to use care in each deliberation upon the project of the law
relative to that subject, and invites the Government to form an extra
parliamentary commission composed of ministers from the different
denominations in concert with the heads of the Churches interested to
prepare an agreement with those Churches as to the conditions of
separation." In his speech upon the above thesis the Abbe Gayraud was
led to speak of the Organic Articles which he characterized as the
"Servitudes of the Gallican Church." The argument which then arose in
the Chamber might well be recorded.
_M. Gayraud._--The doctrine of the _Syllabus_ is the doctrine
of the Catholic Church, as well of the Gallican as of the
Roman Church. And I know very well that no one can draw an
argument against the Concordat of 1801 from either the
_Syllabus_ or the dogma of Infallibility. The doctrines of
these two pontifical documents represent not only the
doctrine of the Church in 1864, but also that of the Roman
Church in 1801, and of the Gallican Church as far as the
_Syllabus_ is concerned. Moreover, another line of complaint
against the Holy See, upon which M. Briand leans, and to
which he has today alluded, is the Organic Articles. Very
good, but the Pope has never recognized the Organic Articles;
the Catholics of France, precisely because the Pope would not
recognize them, are unwilling to recognize them either. This
is one good reason, if you wish to avoid the
misunderstandings of the past, why it would be well to confer
with the Pope in regard to the separation which you are
planning. But, after all, does the fact of not recognizing
the Organic Articles constitute a violation of the Concordat?
I am convinced that the real violation consisted in the
making and promulgating of these famous articles.
_M. Briand._--And what of that?
_M. Jaures._--That only proves that the Concordat was still
born.
_M. Gayraud._--You know very well, M. Briand, that the
Organic Articles do not constitute those regulations of
police supervision provided for in the first article of the
Concordat.
_M. Feron._--You accept only what is favorable to you.
_M. Gayraud._--"I have already said in this house: I defy
any member of this Assembly to show me that in the Organic
Articles there is any regulation concerning the publicity of
worship, or to show me a single organic article that has
anything to do with it. Hence you cannot appeal to Article 1,
of the Concordat to legitimatize the Organic Articles. Some
have tried to do this, and why? Because the Holy See would
not recognize them, and it was necessary to find some means
of justifying them before the Pope."
It might seem as if the contention of M. Gayraud did not pertain
intimately to the subject in hand. Yet that it was eminently apposite is
evident from the whole course of the subsequent discussions. The
supporters of separation had continually accused the Church of causing
the rupture by her violations of the Concordat. Indeed, one can hardly
restrain his tears as he reads the sorrowful complaints of Combes,
Briand, Clemenceau and the others. The Church was so wicked in the face
of these immaculate champions of civic morality! The facts of the case
are very simple. The Church in France has always stood loyally to the
observance of the Concordat, in spite of its many hampering
restrictions. That she has often acted in disregard of the Organic
Articles cannot be denied, nor does she wish to deny it. The reason for
this is, that the Concordat was a real law; the Organic Articles was
neither a law of the State nor of the Church, nor of both together. If
these Articles had been put forth independently of the Concordat, we
might for the sake of argument, concede that they would have a value.
But they were promulgated as a part of a law enacted mutually by two
parties, when one of the parties was actually ignorant of their
existence until after publication. It is a falsehood thus to assert that
they form a part of the Concordat. And since they do not form a part of
that law, having their value only upon such an assumption, they were no
law at all. In disregarding them, therefore, the Church could not be
accused of violating either an independent law or a part of the
Concordat.
Moreover, the Church could not observe the Concordat without violating
the Organic Articles, and vice versa. To accuse the Church therefore of
precipitating the conflict because she acted within the limit permitted
her by the Concordat, is one of the species of false reasoning which the
anti-clerical party endeavored to force down the throats of all its
hearers. It was well, therefore, that this should be rightly understood
in the very beginning of the discussion.
Among the speeches delivered during the general discussion upon the
Bill, that of M. Ribot deserves to be reproduced in part. It is well,
however, to note in advance that this orator, though a foe to
anti-clericalism, is not, however, a Catholic either in name or
conviction.
_M. RIBOT'S SPEECH._
M. Ribot began thus: "Gentlemen, I have already on many occasions
indicated the position I hold with regard to the grave question under
discussion. My friend, M. Barthou, did well, the other day, to recall
some lines of a letter which I wrote a year ago, before the incidents
which led to the rupture with the Holy See and the presentation of this
projected law. I said then that the general movement of modern ideas
would lead sooner or later to a complete separation of Church and State;
I added that, if this separation were accomplished by men who had no
marked hostility to the Catholic Church, and who would be willing to
give it the character of a measure of pacification, of a measure truly
liberal, the Catholic Church herself would comprehend that the
separation could be for her a guarantee of dignity and independence. I
retract none of my words. If you ask me: 'Do you believe that France in
the relations of Church and State has arrived at definitive crisis?' I
must answer: 'I do not believe so.' I have already explained how such a
change, so grave in itself, was particularly difficult in a country like
France where liberty is not even yet solidly established in the laws and
customs, where civil society has always been particularly and jealously
careful not to allow the Church too great an independence, where a
struggle has been going on for a century between the Church and the
enemies of religion, whose desire is not to liberate the Church, but to
attack her from ambush, to weaken her forces, and--perhaps they expect
it, in their illusionment and blindness--to suppress her.
"I have said that the transition might be more or less lengthy, but that
it was indispensable; that we must lead mildly and peacefully that
Catholic clergy whom you have hitherto held under the tutelage of the
State and whom we are about to enfranchise, that we must lead them
mildly and peacefully to the practice of a regime altogether different,
of a regime of liberty and emancipation, and I have explained that, to
my mind, such a transition could not be effected without conferring with
the head of the Catholic Church, with the Holy See.
"One can conceive of a regime of transition during which the Catholic
Church would be allowed more liberty in the choice of bishops, and the
Church itself be organized pacifically in view of the gradual
suppression of the budget of worship. These are my ideas, and I have
given them much reflection. If you are willing to bring about the
separation under these conditions, I am with you; I will aid you to the
best of my power. In that I foresee for the Church more dignity and a
greater independence; in that I foresee for the French State neither a
diminution of security nor a menace to religious peace."
M. Ribot then declared that if the separation were to be effected as an
act of reprisal against the Holy See, "it would be the beginning of a
war more protracted, more bitter, and more violent than any we have seen
for a long time."
"Paul Bert," he said, "remarked to me, when we were together on the
Commission of 1882, and when we were examining just such questions as
these, that he came from a department in which nearly everyone demanded
the separation of Church and State, where a candidate could not be
elected unless he should put that in his platform; but if one should do
so, he was sure that the deputies who should vote for it could not be
re-elected."
_M. Villejean._--"Times have changed since then."
_M. Buisson._--"Twenty years after."
_M. Bienvenu-Martin._--"We have made headway since then."
_M. Ribot._--"Yes, I understand. Times have changed; we have
made headway. But are you sure that you have done enough in
all the regions of this country to prevent a terrible
misunderstanding following in the wake of the reforms you
have made imprudently? Are you sure that you will be
understood by those peasants who perhaps have voted for your
programme, but who tomorrow will be profoundly troubled in
their customs and in the customs of their families? Some
years ago Littre spoke of Catholicism with a view to
universal suffrage. He showed very clearly that there are
contradictions in the public spirit, that those very men who
are anti-religious in politics may be men of religious
habits, or the heads of families in which such religious
habits are constantly practised. Faith may be sleeping; but
it has its sudden awakenings; all habits are living; and, I
repeat it, habit holds a firmer place in the life of French
families than politics or electoral programmes ever will
hold."
Further on in his speech M. Ribot referred to the relations of M. Combes
with the Holy See on the question of the nomination of bishops, and that
of the suspension of the bishops, Monseigneurs Gay and Le Nordez,
declaring that "all these griefs which you call up were not sufficient
reasons for making such great changes without taking the indispensable
precautions."
"We are here to make politics," he said, "we are not here for mere
events and secondary incidents. When you set out to hunt up incidents,
when in place of following your own ideas and awaiting the hour fixed by
prudence, and by your knowledge of political affairs, you take up a
pretext for precipitating us into an adventure, you do not act as a
statesman; you act as a man of passion, as a man who is determined to
carry out his own conceptions, and who without asking if he may not
tomorrow be convicted of falsehood by his country, takes upon himself a
heavy responsibility. Is it statesmanship to strike directly at the
secular clergy and to put into their hands a means of agitation far more
dangerous than that which was in the hands of the congregationists?...
"And then, gentlemen, wishing to express myself with great discretion, I
ask: Is this the moment for aggravating the coolness between the
Catholic Church and the republican Government? I do not believe that we
are face to face with imminent perils; no one in Europe assuredly
desires war. But can we help noting that during the past year, while a
great nation, a friend and ally of ours, has met with great
difficulties, there has been something of a change in Europe? The
language we have been hearing for the past year is not altogether in
harmony with that which has reached our ears during the last few days.
Is this not the time when instead of deriding ourselves further, we
ought if possible to bring back union to our country?"
The orator then went on to answer the objection that "the Concordat was
by this time broken, and that the Government had no need to inform the
Holy See of its wish to suppress that contract." M. Ribot replied that
"it would be the greatest mistake we could at this moment commit, to
ignore the Holy See, as if it no longer existed for us."
The speaker then referred to the amicable relations sustained between
the Holy See and schismatical of Protestant nations.
"Do you not feel that the French activity will be very much
weakened, not only in Tunis, but in the Extreme Orient, if we
have no longer any relations with the Holy See? ... in such
case what will become of our protectorate over the Catholics
of the East? The Emperor of Germany has gone to Morocco
during the last few days; some time ago he was at Jerusalem
and at Constantinople. Are we going to permit Germany, Italy,
and other nations to divide the debris, the remnants of our
patrimony?"
_A voice._--"Never!"
_M. Ribot._--"Never? When the mistake is committed it will be
too late to repair it."
M. Ribot then continued his speech: "After breaking all relations with
Rome, after wounding the Holy See in its pontifical dignity, by refusing
even to confer with it in regard to the denunciation of the Concordat,
by omitting a formality which you would not neglect with anyone in the
world, you are going to give up, carelessly and without a tremor, the
complete direction of the French Church. He can tomorrow--if you invite
it--name the bishops, all the bishops, without leaving to us the right
of presenting to him any suggestion, or of obtaining from him, as
England obtains for Malta, as the United States obtains for the
Philippines, as we have obtained for Tunis, that the religious choice
made by him incline sometimes in the direction of political necessity.
We cannot do more than that, and you who complain of the disquieting
work of ultramontainism in this country, you do not even dream of
effecting a transition which permits us to obtain in that regard some
guarantees.
"I am sure that the Pope will not make any choice in a spirit reprisal,
but that he will consider purely religious interests only. What
consideration ought he to have for you, when you have had none for him?
He will make choices that can embarrass you, against whom you will
protest. Oh! I know you always have a resource at hand after you have
made a bad law; you can make another which will be a law of despotism
and perhaps of tyranny. That is always the poor resource of
short-sighted assemblies. I would prefer to provide for the danger
rather than be obliged to remedy it by such means. I am sure that a
mutual understanding is desirable, that it is necessary. I wish you
could see it, and that if you are determined to proceed resolutely
towards separation, you will do it with that prudence, that method which
I have indicated, and which is the only one that can save you from
danger."
M. Ribot proceeds to point out the danger of "repulsing the Holy See
with a violent, almost brutal gesture and of permitting political
associations to enslave the clergy after they have been emancipated from
the State."
"Gentlemen, you want to be logical, but you are the most
short-sighted of statesmen. You justify in advance all acts
of inquietude. My friend, M. Lanessan, who is a devoted
partisan of the separation of Church and State, published,
the day before yesterday, in the _Siecle_ a letter from a
member of the clergy, whom he calls a liberal and republican
priest, who does not care to see politics mixed with
religion; and that priest declared that the separation, such
as you wish to make it, without method, without transition,
and without an understanding with the Holy See, must have for
its result a considerable increase in the action of the
Papacy and the Roman congregations over the French clergy,
and that the French clergy will not submit, even in spite of
itself, to a domination which drags it between the militant
parties of political action."
Later in his speech, M. Ribot contrasts the Government's treatment of
the Catholics with its treatment of other religious denominations. "You
agree that you could not and ought not in making a loyal and liberal
separation, refuse to the Protestant Church its traditional
organization, because in their case the question of temporal
organization is bound by the most intimate ties with the defence of
religious ideas themselves, and with the existence of the dogmas upon
which religion reposes. You have thus given satisfaction to the
Protestants. To the Israelites you have said: 'You may keep your
assemblies of notables, your mode of election, and also the superior
council which establishes equally the unity of your faith.' Now you find
yourselves in the presence of the Catholics. Have they less reason than
the Protestants and Israelites of a visible organ of unity in France,
for the reason that their unity can always be made and is made at Rome?
However, you cannot refuse them the right of recurring to their ancient
practices, those customs followed by the clergy of this country, of
having assemblies of bishops, and also, if they wish it, a general
assembly. But you find yourselves face to face with an organization
altogether different from that of the Protestants or Israelites; and you
have not, I hope, the pretension, under the pretext that it would be an
amelioration, to oblige the Catholics to adopt the organization of the
Protestants or Israelites; you wish to leave them their own
organization.
"That organization is known to every one; it is founded upon the
principle of authority. The pastors are not elected, they are appointed
from above; and even for her temporal government, for the administration
of property, the Catholic Church has organized a system of limited
councils, councils de fabrique and others, which proceed from the
bishop; he it is who directs the conduct of all of them by his
authority. Whether this system is good or bad, or whether it is better
than a broader democratic system, are questions which I have no right to
raise, nor you either."
After many discussions and interruptions the orator finally arrived at
his peroration: "You see, M. Briand, the spirit in which we discuss this
law. It is not a spirit of obstruction, nor the attitude of one
influenced by foregone conclusions. I want to be associated with you; I
would do so willingly if you will do what is indispensable, if the
Government acts as it ought to act, as any government would act which
was not pledged beforehand, which was not bound up in some way by the
precautions which preceding ministers have taken to put us in a trap, if
the Government would hold with Rome such an understanding as the
conditions of lofty and perfect dignity require.
"You assert that Rome provoked all this; but you state in your report
that Rome at this very moment is giving the example of forgiveness, of
conciliation in the affair of Dijon, and in the affair of the nomination
of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, wherein the Holy See is proceeding
slowly in order not to make any choice which would injure our influence
in the East.
"You have read the recent allocution of the Pope. It gives you
sufficient guarantees of moderation to enable you to enter into this
conference with full dignity. There is no intention of humiliating
France, or of rehearsing the calamities we have suffered. No! all that
is asked for is that you should confer, negotiate, so that the country
may not experience the saddest and most cruel misfortunes. I hold no
brief for religion, which does not concern me: I am speaking for the
State, for which, in my small way, I am responsible. I am defending the
rights of the State and the cause of religious peace.
"We have had enough of divisions, enough of mortal hatred, enough causes
of enfeeblement! Look back a little. The preceding ministry could see
nothing but a struggle against the congregations. That question covered
the whole horizon. Let your view be larger and broader. Stand for the
interests of France, of religious peace, for the interest of those very
ideas which are so dear to you, the success of that separation upon
which you have entered, and which I would desire like yourselves, if you
would undertake it under conditions that are acceptable and less
dangerous.
"But the separation which you propose I cannot in conscience accept. I
cannot place my responsibility side by side with yours. We have not
approved by vote the policy of the last cabinet. This law, such as you
propose, imports a definitive rupture with the Holy See, and is thus the
consequence and sorrowful crowning of that policy. We cannot approve of
it, but we have a strong hope that the discussion of the various
articles will show you still more the difficulty of their application,
the dangers to which you are exposing yourselves. I desire most
earnestly that, leaving aside all questions of personal ambition which
have been the ruin of assemblies and led them into irreparable mistakes,
leaving aside all conventional phrases, and acting solely in the
interest of our country, you will come back to the true policy of France
and the Republic."
_LAW OF SEPARATION._
In the meantime, while the debate was in progress the great majority of
Catholics could hardly believe in the possibility of separation. Events,
however, refused to confirm their hopes. The Bill presented by the
Government, confided to a Commission, and modified to the point of
absolute stringency in the discussions, was finally adopted by the
Chamber of Deputies on July 3, 1905. Docile to orders received, the
Senatorial Commission, and afterwards the Senate itself, ratified the
decision of the Chamber. The haste in putting the new law to a decisive
vote was dictated by the fact that a new election was imminent. The law
was accordingly voted definitively on December 6, 1905, and at once
promulgated. The Council of State was allowed three months delay in
order to prepare the details of the rules which should regulate the
execution of the law. That delay would end in April, 1906, just a month
before the ensuing elections. The Separation would thus be an
accomplished fact before the entrance of a new Government.
According to the Law of Separation the State assumes the position of a
Government professing no religion, though it pretends to guarantee
liberty of conscience and the free exercise of religious worship. The
Budget of Worship and all public maintenance of any religious church or
society was suppressed. By this article the Catholic Church in France
was deprived of 37,441,800 francs, or $7,488,360 a year. In order to
make the odious item seem less heavy than it actually was, the law made
provision for certain pensions. Thus ministers of religion who were not
less than sixty years of age at the time the law was passed, and who had
passed thirty years in ecclesiastical service, were to receive a life
pension equivalent to three-fourths of their former salary. Such as were
not less than forty-five years of age at the time, and who had passed
twenty years in the religious service, were to receive a life pension of
one-half of their former salary. To others less than forty-five years of
age it granted pensions extending to from four to eight years, which
allowances are to decrease progressively until at the end of eight years
they shall be completely extinguished. A third article provides for an
inventory of ecclesiastical property by government officials.
The crucial point in the Law of Separation was the attempt of the
Government to place the administration of ecclesiastical property in the
hands of certain organizations termed Associations of Worship. These
associations were to consist of seven persons in a parish of one
thousand people, of fifteen where the population is over twenty
thousand, and of twenty-five where the number is greater. These
associations can consist of lay people at least in the majority. They
can build up a reserve fund, which, however, must be limited. Where the
revenue is 5,000 francs, they can accumulate a sum only equal to three
times their annual expense, and for others the reserve fund should not
be in excess of over six times the annual outlay. The association must,
moreover, accumulate a special fund, which is to be invested, for the
purchase, construction, repair or decoration of the ecclesiastical
property. By this article a large recognition is given to the hierarchy,
since only such religious bodies can be represented as are in communion
with the Church which formerly held the property. But by Article 8 the
State proceeds to place itself as a judge over the bishops in cases
where different religious bodies through their Associations of Worship
lay claim to the property.
The other numerous items in the Law of Separation were merely such as
might be expected in a law so hostile and so aggressive.
_PROTEST OF PIUS X._
Naturally the appearance of the new law caused excitement not in France
alone but throughout the whole Catholic world. The Holy Father, Pope
Pius X., expressed his grief in no uncertain terms. On February 11,
1906, he addressed to the hierarchy and people of France his encyclical
"_Vehementer Nos_." The Holy Father begins, in this letter, by
indicating, one by one, all the measures adopted by the French
Government against the Church, measures which naturally would lead to
that separation which the Holy See has always striven to avoid. He
declares that the doctrine of the separation of Church and State is
false because: 1, it offers violence to God; 2, it is an open negation
of the supernatural order; 3, it overturns the order which God has
wisely established in the world, an order which exacts a harmonious
concurrence between the two societies; 4, it inflicts heavy injuries
upon civil society itself. Moreover, the Popes have always protested
against such a separation.
France is less able than any other nation to enter upon such a
proceeding, for: 1, the bonds which consecrate the union of Church and
State ought to be more inviolable than the pledges of sworn treaties; 2,
it was a bilateral contract which the State abrogated by its own sole
authority; 3, this injury becomes all the greater when one considers
that the State has effected this abrogation of the Concordat without any
preliminary announcement or notification.
Still more, in this separation, the State has not given to the Church
her independence nor permitted her to enjoy, in the liberty which it
pretends to conceive, the peace guaranteed by common right. The evidence
of this is found in the numberless measures of exception which are
inserted in the law. These measures are contrary to the divine
constitution given by Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Church, which is a
body ruled by pastors and doctors. In contradiction to these principles,
the law confers the administration and care of public worship, not to
the hierarchy divinely constituted, but to an association of lay
persons. These Associations of Worship shall, moreover, be supervised by
the civil authority in such a manner that the ecclesiastical authority
can no longer have any power over them. They are absolutely opposed to
the liberty of the Church.
Finally, the law violates the property rights of the Church, whether by
usurpation of these Associations of Worship, as also by the suppression
of the budget of worship, which was in itself a partial indemnity.
The Pope continues: "For this reason We reprove and condemn the law,
voted in France for the separation of Church and State, as profoundly
injurious to God Whom it denies officially when it begins the law with a
declaration that the Republic recognizes no creed. We reprove and
condemn it as violating the natural law, the law of nations, the public
fidelity to treaties. We condemn it as contrary to the divine
constitution of the Church, and to its essential rights and liberties.
We condemn it as overturning justice and trampling under feet the
property rights which the Church has acquired on many titles and in
virtue of the Concordat itself. We reprove and condemn it as gravely
offensive to the dignity of the Apostolic See, to Our own person, to the
episcopate, the clergy and the people of France." The Pope then declares
that this law can never be cited against the imprescriptible rights of
the Church.
The Holy Father then addresses himself to the bishops, the clergy and
the faithful of France. He asks the bishops to bring a most perfect
union of heart and will to the projects which they shall form for the
defence of the Church, and he declares that he will address them at
opportune times practical instructions to guide their conduct in the
midst of their great difficulties. The clergy should have in their
hearts the sentiments of the Apostles and rejoice that they are esteemed
worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. The faithful should remember the
fate which follows those impious sects which permit themselves to be
bound by a yoke, for they have themselves with cynical audacity
proclaimed their motto: "Decatholicise France!" In their resistance they
must be strongly united and possess a large measure of courage and
generosity.
In the secret consistory, the Holy Father again referred to the
insulting measures of the separation law.
Meanwhile the country began to feel the excitement attendant upon the
various changes in government. On January 17, the French Parliament,
Senators and Deputies, in joint session at Versailles, elected a
President to succeed M. Emile Loubet, whose seven year term of office
was to expire on the 18th of the following month. Their choice fell upon
M. Clement Armand Fallieres, President of the Senate. The new President
represented the more radical wing of the republican party, and was a
strong anti-militarist. He had been President of the Senate since 1899,
and was then in his sixty-fifth year.
In March of the same year the ministry of M. Rouvier, which had been in
office for little more than a year, fell, and was succeeded by that of
M. Sarrien. The Combes ministry, it will be remembered, resigned on
January 15, 1905, because of a vote of want of confidence inspired by
the rupture between Church and State. The resignation of M. Rouvier was
also precipitated by the same question though from two opposite points
of view. The Catholic party reproached him for his drastic application
of the congregation law, and the inventories of Church property. The
Socialists, because he had not applied the law as oppressively as they
would wish. The new Cabinet included among its members certain notorious
anti-clericals, among whom were Clemenceau, as Minister of the Interior,
Briand, as Minister of Instruction and Worship, and Doumergue, as
Minister of Commerce.
Again, on Sunday, May 6, took place the election of Deputies. The
Catholics had, indeed, hoped for some recognition from the voters of the
country, but were sadly disappointed when the returns showed a victory
for the Government. The French Socialists were returned with important
majorities, and the Bloc found itself stronger than ever before.
In the meantime the question of the Cultuelle Associations was being
strongly discussed among the Catholics of the land. Many, indeed, either
through ignorance of their real import, or because they hoped through a
compromise to pave the way to greater gains, were in favor of accepting
the conditions offered by the Government in regard to these
associations. The bishops, however, assembled early in the year to
discuss the question. They displayed a resolution and courage worthy of
the best traditions of the Church. They condemned almost unanimously the
Cultuelle Associations as contrary to the constitution of the Church.
Their decision was brought to Rome and submitted to the final judgment
of the Holy See.
The Holy Father replied in the encyclical, "_Gravissimo officii_," of
August 10, 1906, addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of France, and
containing the instructions promised by the former encyclical,
"_Vehementer Nos_." The Sovereign Pontiff again condemned the law of
separation, and confirmed the almost unanimous decision of the assembly
of the Bishops. He condemned the Cultuelle Associations as imposed by
the law. He added, moreover: "We declare it is not permissible to try
some other sort of Associations at once legal and canonical, and thus to
preserve the Catholics of France from the grave complications that
menace them, so long as it is not established in a sure and legal manner
that, under the divine constitution of the Church, the immutable rights
of the Roman Pontiff, and of the Bishops, their authority over necessary
property of the Church, particularly over the sacred edifices, shall be
irrevocably set in full security above the said Associations. To desire
the contrary is impossible for us. It would be to betray the sanctity of
our office without bringing peace to the Church of France."
The resolute attitude of the Holy Father came as a surprise to the
French Ministry. They had imagined that the Pope would not dare to utter
words of defiance against the fiat of an irreligious Bloc. They began to
fear that any further aggressions must only sting the Catholics to
organized opposition. The Bishops met again in September and issued to
the Catholic people of France a Joint Pastoral letter signed by every
Bishop, announcing their hearty agreement with the instructions of the
Holy Father, and forbidding the establishment of of Cultuelle
Associations. The Catholic body entered into the spirit of the
hierarchy, and only a few unimportant individuals sought to contravene
their authority.
The Government, fearing no doubt the effects of further drastic
measures, began to modify the tenor of the law. The provision which
required that the clergy might not hold religious service in a church
without previously notifying the authorities in each case, was so
changed that one general notice would suffice for the whole year. At the
same time, however, the seminaries were to be closed and become the
property of the Commune, while Bishops and priests might buy back or
rent their own residences. The Holy Father, however, forbade the Bishops
and clergy to furnish the notification about public worship: they were
to continue to minister in their churches after the term of the
notification had expired as if nothing had occurred.
The stand taken by the Holy See was looked upon by the French Government
as a declaration of war, and it accordingly began to exercise newer
methods of retaliation. On December 12, 1906, the Papal Nuncio, Mgr.
Montagnini, who was then in Paris guarding the archives of the Holy See,
was expelled from France, the Nunciature was surrounded, and the papers
found therein were seized. It was in vain that the Vatican protested:
the Government pursued its oppressive policy with all the more vigor. On
December 15, Cardinal Richard was expelled from his archiepiscopal
residence, and later the seminarians were driven from the seminaries.
The position of the Catholics in France was thus rendered humiliating
and desperate. They still continued, as they do at present, to hold
divine service in the churches, but always with the eyes of a hostile
Government fixed upon them, scrutinizing their actions, and criticizing
their words. The clergy, deprived of their usual stipend, are forced to
seek in various kinds of employment the necessary sustentation of life
except when the generosity of the faithful enables them to observe the
discipline of the Church which ordinarily forbids the clergy to seek
their support elsewhere than from the altar.
One of the effects of the separation law was that the Holy Father was
liberated from the vexatious interference of the French Government in
the appointment of Bishops. Accordingly on February 25. 1906, the Holy
Father himself not only appointed fifteen new Bishops but even
consecrated them with his own hands in St. Peter's in Rome. It was the
first time that a Pope consecrated so large a number of prelates at one
time.
The fall of the year 1906 was marked by the creation of a new cabinet of
which M. Georges Clemenceau was Premier. The new cabinet included among
its members anti-clericals of the most aggressive kind, such as Briand,
Doumergue, Picquart, and Viviani. It was this Viviani who, a few years
previously had uttered the notorious boast: "We have at last
extinguished the lights of Heaven."
Georges Clemenceau has been a rabid foe to Religion and to the Church
from the very beginning of his political career. In 1880 he founded for
this purpose a journal, "_La Justice_," and was a powerful advocate of
aggression during the Dreyfus trial. From 1883 to 1893 he was looked
upon as the master of the political situation in France. In 1901 he
founded a weekly paper, "_Le Bloc_." It was this paper which gave the
name to the infamous party which engineered the present anti-Catholic
war in France. He has been identified with all the oppressive measures
by which the French Government has, of late, striven to vex the French
Church. It was only in accordance with his deserts that he himself was
driven in disgrace from his leadership in the fall of 1909, when he was
succeeded by the no less aggressive but more hypocritical M. Briand.
One of the most shameful features in the French Government's war on the
Church was the affair of liquidation. When the Congregations had been
dispersed and their property confiscated, the Government appointed
certain officials, called liquidators, whose office it was to
superintend the sale of Religious property. The first estimates of the
sum which might be realized by the sale of this property placed the
total amount at 1,000,000,000 francs, the sum which, during the last few
years has dwindled down to ridiculously small figures. The recent affair
of M. Duez has brought out the whole official corruption of the scheme.
M. Duez, one of the three original liquidators attached to the Seine
Tribunal, began life as a clerk in a large department store. Afterwards,
as solicitor's clerk, he embezzled 500,000 francs. In spite of this he
was appointed one of the liquidators for the sale of Church property. In
this capacity he handled millions of francs. For a time things went on
well enough until the failures of some of the liquidators to produce
anything but continual expenses began to arouse the suspicions of the
Government. In 1906 the Government was forced to require from the
liquidators an annual report of their proceedings. The report, issued
toward the end of 1907, was a curious document. Finding that their
embezzlements were being exposed, the liquidators began to claim that
their work had been seriously hampered by threats of excommunications
against the buyers of the property, and by the opposition of the
Congregations and others who professed to have claims upon the property.
Moreover, it was said that M. Waldeck-Rousseau's estimate of a milliard
was excessive, for the net result of the liquidation of one hundred and
fifteen Congregations was not more than 189,932 francs. Of these one
hundred and fifteen liquidations, sixty-nine produced absolutely
nothing, yet the liquidators brought in bills amounting to 62,000 francs
besides the 24,000 francs, which were the fees of the lawyers.
Accordingly in the beginning of 1908, M. Combes forced the reluctant
Government to assimilate the position of the liquidators to that of
other functionaries accountable for monies. M. Combes, who had been
appointed Chairman of the Commission, saw in the affair only a way of
injuring his political opponents. In February, 1908, M. Briand, then
Minister of Justice, brought in a measure containing regulations for the
sale of the property, and for the simplifying of the judicial procedures
attendant. While M. Combes would cast the blame on the liquidators, M.
Briand fixed it on the method of liquidation. The Bill of M. Briand had
at least the effect of rendering the supervision more strict than
heretofore. As a consequence suspicions began to be aroused, of late, in
regard to M. Duez, who was the liquidator of several important
Congregations. He was forced to submit his accounts to an official
auditor, and his irregularities were quickly discovered. At first there
was a call for his dismissal, but the Seine Tribunal merely decreed the
acceptance of his resignation, "for reasons of health." He was given
three months to produce a full account of his transactions while in
office. These, however, were not forthcoming. Again and again he was
called upon for a detailed account of his work. So the matter dragged on
till the middle of March, 1910, when the successor of M. Duez became so
"insistent" that the matter could not be kept longer in suspense. M.
Duez was arrested and found upon his own confession to have embezzled
more than a million dollars. The scandal through the Government created
a state of consternation, especially in view of the fact that the
elections were already imminent. But the versatile Briand with a
sympathetic "Bloc" has already thrown dust into eyes of the French
people. One thing at least the liquidation scandal has effected--it has
exposed the frightful corruption of that Government which has
hypocritically insisted, time and again, that its war on the Church was
conducted solely in the interests of humanity, has been actuated by the
principle of what we Americans call by the expressive name of colossal
graft. The French people have permitted themselves to be hoodwinked in
the most outrageous manner. It only remains to be seen how long they
will permit themselves to remain the victims of such official slavery.
_SCHOOL TROUBLES._
It will be remembered that, following on the passage of the Associations
law of 1901, came the actual attack upon the Congregations of France and
the Catholic schools. The Congregations were dispersed generally, their
property confiscated and their schools to the number of 25,000 closed.
It was the day of triumph for M. Combes and the anti-clerical horde that
followed him. It is remarkable that in 1904 when the rigor of the law
was most acutely felt, the chief henchman of Combes was the Minister of
Public Instruction, the notorious Aristide Briand, erstwhile editor of
the infamous Lanterne. The Catholic schools of the Congregations thus
closed, a new regime was inaugurated. Thenceforth there were to be
public schools supported by the State, whilst private, or free schools,
might be tolerated but at private expense In this difficulty Catholic
private schools were established here and there, but as may easily be
imagined, their number could only be insignificant and their pupils few,
since the Catholic people now found themselves obliged to pay for the
support of churches and pastors for whom the State refused any further
maintenance. Thus the great majority of Catholics all over France found
themselves obliged to send their children to the State schools.
This necessity was oppressive and humiliating enough, even though the
law of 1882 had defined that the State schools should be neutral in the
matter of religious teaching. In this assurance of the Government the
parents found some little comfort, and for a time it appeared as if the
law might be observed. But a Government that had frankly declared itself
atheistic, and opposed to all religion, was careful to place in its
schools only such teachers as should reflect the sentiments of their
employers. The French schools became thus the home of teachers not only
without faith, but absolutely seething with open and implacable hatred
of religion. Growing bold under the favor of an anti-clerical
Government, they caused to be introduced into the schools text-books so
worded as to impregnate the pupils' minds with anti-religious
principles. At first the name of God was allowed in the school, though
kept in the background. Soon it was admitted in inverted commas, and
finally it was banished altogether. In January, 1907, eleven parents at
Apremont complained to the Inspector, but no notice was taken. On June
24, 1908, the Bishop of Belley wrote to that official asking him to
withdraw an offensive manual from the schools. Finally the matter was
brought before M. Briand, who under the pretence of satisfying the
Bishop made a few unimportant changes but left the book as atheistic as
ever.
Meanwhile the teachers in the State schools increased in boldness and
aggressiveness. All discretion was at length thrown to the winds and
doctrines irreligious and impious began to be taught openly and without
reserve. The doctrines and practices of the Church were made the subject
of ridicule, the name of God was omitted or referred to as a relic of
superstition, morality was decried and patriotism denounced as an abuse
of the Middle Ages. In 1908, when the Government saw that the parents
were in earnest in demanding the observance of the school neutrality, it
caused a certain Radical, M. Doumergue, Minister of Public Instruction,
to introduce two bills. The first of these sought to inflict penalties
upon those parents who shall prevent their children from attending
classes in which books are used which are known to contain teachings
abusive of religion. By the second bill the responsibility of the State
is substituted for that of the teacher, who is thus removed from the
jurisdiction of the ordinary courts and placed under the university
tribunals. As soon as these bills were proposed the Bishops, in a Joint
Pastoral, protested, declaring that the Bills meant nothing less than
the expropriation of the family and the confiscation of its children by
the State.
Meanwhile the Government continued its usual aggressive policy until the
parents uniting together began to demand strongly the observance of
neutrality. Thereupon the Bishops, in September of last year, issued
another Joint Pastoral, in which the rights of parents were set forth
according to the doctrine of the Church, and in which the use of a
number of class-books which dealt abusively with the teaching, practice
and history of the Church, was forbidden to Catholic children. At first
M. Briand sought to discountenance its importance, but when he saw from
the pastorals of individual Bishops that the episcopate were in dead
earnest, and from the action of pastors, parents and children, that the
Bishops' instructions were likely to be carried out, he joined with the
sectaries of the Bloc in denouncing what he hypocritically termed "an
attack on the Republican schools." Meanwhile the teachers and the
writers of the condemned books came together with prosecutions for libel
against some individual Bishops who had signed and published the Joint
Pastoral, and had enforced it by pronouncements of their own.
In the beginning of last year the matter, which had been carried on
without any positive Governmental influence, was now carried into the
Chamber of Deputies. There it was debated hotly on both sides. While
Briand, Doumergue, Besnard, Dessoye and others attacked the Church, the
Vatican and the Bishops, the champions of religious liberty counted such
orators as the Abbe Gayraud, M. Piou, M. Aynard, M. Grousseau, M.
Maurice Barres and several other men of eloquence and information.
Nothing, however, was effected save to fan the flame of anti-clerical
hatred, although M. Briand, when off his guard, pointedly admitted that
the Bishops acted within their right in issuing the Joint Pastoral, that
the parents had a right to associate for the care of their children's
instruction, and that a State monopoly of education would only be a
weapon of conflict and an instrument of tyranny. All of which admissions
the versatile Briand proceeded to falsify almost in the same speech.
The next move was to proceed formally against individual Bishops.
Accordingly, on January 20 Cardinal Lucon, Archbishop of Rheims, was
cited to court by the "Teachers' Friendly Society." His Eminence
appeared in person, and at the sitting of the second day spoke in his
own defence. As he left the court he was loudly cheered. The verdict of
the court imposed upon the Cardinal a fine of 500 francs and costs.
Still later, in March, Mgr. Turinaz, Bishop of Nancy, was haled into
court, but, strange to say, though the evidence was the same as in the
case of Cardinal Lucon, Mgr. Turinaz was acquitted.
The audacious effrontery of the Radical gang now seeks to proceed even
farther. Not content with forcing its impious books into the public
schools, it proposes to lay hands upon private schools as well, and to
so trouble them with surveillance so as to compel their dispersion.
Meanwhile, the affair of M. Duez has arisen like a horrible spectre in
the eyes of the Bloc robbers; the country is aroused at the rottenness
and corruption that is being laid bare; the Bloc is seeking to cover
over the sore spots. There are other matters in hand besides the school
question.
[Decoration]