French government in 1905, completely dissociated the state from the
appointment of bishops and parish priests, but, lest this might seem
to be an unalloyed blessing, it must be added that it also suppressed
the annual revenue of the Church, amounting to 42 million francs. The
departments and communes were forbidden to vote appropriations for
public worship. Life pensions equivalent to three quarters of the
former salary were granted to priests who were not less than sixty
years of age at the passing of the law, and life pensions equivalent
to half of the former salary to those under forty-five. As a matter
of fact, the state became the richer by eight million francs. The use
of Catholic buildings was to be regulated by the _Associations
Cultuelles_. Without any reference to the Holy See it was decided by
the government that these associations for religious worship should
be formed in each diocese and parish to administer church property.
Several articles in the law regarding the constitution of these
_Associations Cultuelles_ left to the Council of State--a purely lay
authority--the settlement of any dispute that might arise. In other
words it lay with the Council of State to pronounce on the orthodoxy
of any association and its conformity with the rules of public
worship.
There was a good deal of discussion in ecclesiastical circles as to
whether the "Associations" could be formed. Pius in his encyclical
"Gravissimo," August 1906, decided the question. He had examined the
law, he declared, to see if it were at all possible to carry on under
its provisions the work of religion in France while safeguarding the
sacred principles on which the Church was constituted. After
consultation with the episcopate he had sorrowfully to declare that
no such arrangement was possible. The question at issue was whether
the associations for worship could be tolerated. His answer was that
"with reference to these associations as the law establishes them, we
decree that it is absolutely impossible for them to be formed without
a violation of the sacred rights pertaining to the very life of the
Church." As to any other "legal and canonical" associations which
might preserve the Catholics of France from the difficulties by which
they were threatened, there was no hope of them while the law
remained as it was. "We declare that it is not permissible to try any
other kind of association as long as it is not established in a sure
and legal manner that the divine constitution of the Church, the
immutable rights of the Roman Pontiff and of the bishops, as well as
their authority over the necessary property of the Church, and
particularly over sacred edifices, shall be irrevocably placed in the
said associations in full security."
"God's law alone is of importance," said Pius at a private interview.
"We are no diplomatist, but our mission is to defend it. One truth is
at stake: was the Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ or not?
Since it was, nothing can induce us to give up its constitutions, its
rights or its liberty." "Let it be clearly understood," said he on
another occasion, "we do not ask the members of your government to go
to Mass--although we regret that they do not. All we ask, since they
pride themselves on recognizing nothing but facts, is that they
should not ignore one very considerable fact--the existence of the
Catholic Church, its constitution, and its head, which we at present
happen to be."
There were not wanting critics who spoke regretfully of the
wholesale sacrifice of church property. "They speak too much of the
goods of the Church and too little of her good," said the pope.
"Tell them that history repeats itself. Ages ago on a high mountain
two powers stood face to face. 'All this will I give thee,' said the
one, offering the kingdoms of the earth and their riches, 'if thou
wilt fall down and worship me.' The other refused--and is refusing
still . . . ."
The reply of the French government was the appropriation of all that
was left of the property of the Church in France. The law of January
1907 permitted religious worship in the churches purely on sufferance
and without any legal title. This looked like a concession, but it
had its uses. The simple citizen still saw the priest in the church;
Mass was still said there. "All of which proves," said the government
to the unthinking public, "that the Church is in nowise persecuted;
if she is not as prosperous as of old, she has only the pope to
blame."
The separation of church and state was the signal for open war on the
Church. Law after law was passed, making it more and more difficult
for the priest to minister to the people. He was forbidden to enter a
hospital unless his presence had been formally asked for by a
patient. He was forced to serve his time in the army in the hope that
his vocation might be ruined. He was forced to pay a rent for his
presbytery, although he was often poorer than the poorest of his
parishioners. Many of the beautiful old churches of France fell
gradually into ruin, or were used for other purposes than worship--
the more degrading the purpose the better.
The principle which underlay the attitude of Rome in the matter was
clear and consistent. The state having proclaimed its indifference,
not to say hostility, to religion, having ignored the constitution of
the Church and suppressed all means of negotiating with the pope,
claimed the right to legislate for Catholics, to control their
organization, to limit their material resources, and to decide their
differences. The men who made the law had openly declared that their
purpose was to decatholicize France. "In making his decision, has not
the pope appealed from the French parliament to the French people?"
was a thoughtful question asked at the time.
"The apparent apathy of most French Catholics, the energy and cunning
of their adversaries," said the same writer, "deceived the world into
believing that a little faction had the strength of a whole people
behind it . . . ."
The pope's refusal to accept the bishops proposed by the French
government had left many sees vacant. In February 1906, immediately
after the break with the government, Pius X himself consecrated
fourteen French bishops in St. Peter's. It was the act of a great and
apostolic statesman. "I have not called you to joy," said the pope,
"but to the Cross," and bearing the cross on their breasts they went
forth, without stipend, without government protection, intervention
or recognition. They went as simply apostolic men--to gain souls to
God--and the result of their labours is manifest.
"Destroy the Church in France, and dechristianization will follow,"
cried her enemies. "A short period of separation," said an orator at
the general assembly of the Grand Orient in September 1904, "will
complete the ruin of dogma, and the ruin of Church." What really
happened?
"Our bishops, priests, and people," wrote George Fonsegrive in 1913,
"are absolutely devoted to Rome and obedient to the pope. After the
passing of the Separation Law all the orders of the pope were
immediately executed. At one word from him our bishops and priests
gave up their palaces and their presbyteries and abandoned all their
goods. Nowhere else has there been such docility and such unanimity.
Our Church is truly and absolutely Roman; therefore every attack on
its members attaches them more strongly to the source and centre of
their life. Religious life is everywhere increasing in depth and in
intensity . . . . The human mind has found the limits of science, and
has felt that they are narrow and hard; all men of culture recognize
to-day that our whole life is, as it were, wrapped in mystery. Faith
is no longer looked upon as a suspect but as a friend. Those who have
it not are seeking it, and those who have found it treasure it. Even
those who despair of finding it respect it. And all, or nearly all,
recognize that truth can only be where she declares herself, where
she is supplied with all she needs to make her accessible to man,
that is to say, in Catholicism, and finally in Rome."
VIII
THE POPE OF THE EUCHARIST
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the last remnants of
Jansenism were still influencing Catholic teaching in many countries
of Europe. This most insidious of heresies, preached by men of
austere life and veiled by the plea of reverence for holy things, was
a danger to the lax and to the scrupulous alike. It laid down as
conditions for approaching the sacraments dispositions of soul which
for the greater part of mankind were wholly unattainable; it
presented God as the Jehovah of the Old Testament, terrible and
awe-inspiring, rather than as the Christ of the New, tender and
compassionate to sinners. "I tell you," said St. Vincent de Paul to
one of his priests, "that this new error of Jansenism is one of the
most dangerous that has ever troubled the Church."
Perhaps the most fatal effect of Jansenist teaching was that it drove
the sinner from the sources of grace and the weak from the sources of
spiritual strength. Frequent communion, which had been the custom in
apostolic times and which had been always upheld in the teaching of
the Church, was to the Jansenist a tempting of Providence. In vain
did Catholic teachers explain to the people that the Council of Trent
"exhorts, asks and beseeches the faithful to believe and venerate
these sacred mysteries . . . with such constancy and firmness of
faith . . . that they may be able frequently to receive the
supersubstantial bread." Nothing, it was answered, had been laid down
as to the necessary dispositions for receiving communion; and how
were they to know that they had them? Theologians were divided on the
subject, some teaching that very perfect dispositions were required,
whilst others maintained that a state of grace and a right intention
were sufficient. Another controversy had arisen as to the meaning of
the term "frequent communion," some holding that weekly communion
came under this heading, others that it did not. Appeals were made
from time to time to Rome to decide the question, that the minds of
the faithful might be at rest.
In the first encyclical of Pius X where he sets forth as the purpose
of his pontificate the restoring of all things in Christ, the
frequent use of the sacraments is mentioned as one of the four great
means to this end. We have already seen how, when visiting his
diocese as bishop, he bade the people make no preparations for his
coming save attending Mass and receiving holy communion, declaring
that this would be the best welcome they could give him. On the 20th
of December, 1906, the Decree concerning Frequent and Daily Communion
put an end to all further controversy.
"The primary purpose of the holy Eucharist is not that the honour and
reverence due to our Lord may be safeguarded," says the decree, "not
that the sacrament may serve as a reward of virtue, but that the
faithful, being united to God by holy communion, may thence derive
strength to resist sinful desires, to cleanse themselves from daily
faults, and to avoid those serious sins to which human frailty is
liable." "Frequent and daily communion, as a thing most earnestly
desired by Christ our Lord and by the Catholic Church," runs the
first clause of the decree, "should be open to all the faithful of
whatever rank and condition of life, so that no one who is in the
state of grace, and who approaches the holy table with a right and
devout intention, can be hindered therefrom."
Having defined a right intention as a purpose of pleasing God, of
being more closely united with Him by charity, and of seeking this
divine remedy for one's weaknesses and defects, the decree goes on to
affirm that, although freedom from venial sin is to be desired, it is
sufficient that the communicant be free from mortal sin, provided he
has a firm purpose of avoiding sin for the future. Preparation and
thanksgiving are to be according to the strength, circumstances and
duties of the individual. All priests and confessors are to exhort
the faithful frequently and zealously to "this devout and saving
action."
There was no mistaking this. "The Divine Redeemer of mankind," wrote
a priest of the London Oratory, "is to be just as accessible to the
struggling beginner whose feet have been ensnared in the meshes of
sin, and who is struggling bravely against temptation, as He is to
the man or woman who has been purified by many years of painful
effort, but who is ever liable to fall. He is needed by the austere
religious living in solitude in her cell . . . . He is needed by the
poor dweller in the crowded slums who has so much to contend
against--squalor, misery, drink, vice in various forms, and the
depressing influences of grinding poverty. Children have need of Him
that they may be formed to habits of virtue; youths have need of Him
that they may obtain mastery over their passions; maidens have need
of Him that they may preserve their innocence untarnished; grown-up
men and women have need of Him that they may advance in virtue and
carry out faithfully the duties of their state of life; there are
none who can afford to neglect the great source of spiritual
strength, none who can do without Him."
Rome had spoken, but to many people the news seemed almost too good
to be true, and to others so surprising and "new" as to be unwelcome.
The old idea that frequent communion was only for holy people was
hard to eradicate. Jansenist bugbears about the preparation required
and the responsibility incurred frightened the timid. Much insistence
was necessary before the objection "I am not good enough" was found
to be worthless, but when it was finally done away with the fruits
were at once apparent.
"What a wonderful change there would be," Monsignor de Ségur had
written some forty years earlier, "if frequent communion could be
established in our colleges and schools! Experience shows the
influence of communion on a young man's daily life. There is no vice
that the regular use of the sacraments will not uproot, no moral
resurrection beyond its power to effect." That dream was now on its
way to realization. "Confessions," said a Jesuit who was giving a
retreat to the students of a large public school, "are child's play
now to what they used to be. In the old days they took two or three
days--now nearly all the boys are daily communicants, and the
confessions of the whole college take little more time than an hour."
"Yes," said a young working-girl to a Sacred Heart nun, "I go every
day. I cannot stay till the end of Mass, because I have to get to my
work. But there are several of us who are all daily communicants, who
take the same train to business, and we get into the same carriage
and make our thanksgiving on the way. And we love to think that in
that train, full of people who seldom think of God, there is one
carriage where He is being adored and worshipped. And we find it such
a help in the day's work."
And not girls only. The author will never forget a very early morning
Mass in a big London church. The church was full of working men in
their working clothes. The procession to the altar seemed never
ending, communion was still being given after the Mass was finished.
They had come for help and comfort in their daily toil to One who on
this earth had been a working man like themselves, One who is "rich
unto all that call on Him," and they had learnt the strength of that
union.
Was it not the "man in the street" for whom our Saviour came? Were
not the crowds who followed Him mostly composed of "men in the
street"? And did He not choose from their ranks the Apostles who were
to carry His message throughout the world? "In these days," says the
decree, "when religion and the Catholic faith are attacked on all
sides, and true love of God and genuine piety are lacking in so many
places, it is doubly necessary that the faithful should be
strengthened, and the love of God kindled in their hearts by this
saving practice of daily communion."
"Holy communion is the shortest and surest way to Heaven," said Pius
X to the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. "There are others,
innocence, for instance, but that is for little children; penance,
but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of the trials of life,
but when they come we weep and ask to be spared. Once for all,
beloved children, the surest, easiest, shortest way is by the
Eucharist. It is so easy to approach the holy table, and there we
taste the joys of Paradise."
A second decree was published in answer to questions regarding the
frequent communion of children who had only recently made their first
communion, and of the infirm who were suffering from some chronic
illness. The answer given was that frequent or daily communion was
for young children as well as for their elders, since it was highly
desirable that their innocence and goodness should be shielded by so
powerful a protection. As for the sick, every facility was to be
granted them to receive communion as often as possible. This was
followed four years later by a decree which fixed the age of first
communion at about the seventh year, the time at which the child
begins to use its reason. In some cases it might be earlier; in some
it would have to be later; this would depend on the intelligence of
the individual child. The pope went straight to the root of the
matter.
"The pages of the Gospel witness to the very great affection shown by
Christ to little children when He was on earth," he begins. "It was
His delight to be in their company; He was wont to lay His hands upon
them, to embrace them, to bless them. And He was indignant at their
being turned away by His disciples, whom He rebuked in these grave
words: 'Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them
not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven'." After having pointed out
that in the earliest days of the Church holy communion was given even
to babies, and that if later for good cause the age of reason or of
discretion was fixed as the time for first communion, this did not
presuppose that a fuller knowledge was required for the reception of
the holy Eucharist than for the sacrament of penance. The decree went
on to deplore the postponement of first communion until twelve,
thirteen or fourteen years of age, according to local customs. "Even
if this ensures a fuller understanding of the sacred mysteries, a
careful sacramental confession and a longer and more diligent
preparation," it continues, "the gain in no wise balances the loss.
The innocence of childhood, deprived of this most powerful
protection, is soon lost; bad habits have time to grow and become
strong. The little ones, being in the happy condition of their first
candour and innocence, stand in great need of that mystical food, on
account of the many snares and dangers of the present time." "As soon
as children begin to have a certain use of reason, so as to be able
to conceive devotion to this Sacrament," says St. Thomas Aquinas,
"then may it be given to them."
In order that the above-mentioned abuses should be entirely removed
and that "children from their tenderest years should cling to Jesus
Christ, live His life, and find protection from the dangers of
corruption", regulations concerning their first communion were laid
down and ordered to be observed in every part of the world.
The decree caused a certain commotion in some Catholic countries.
Once more the remnants of Jansenist teaching arose to frighten the
faithful. Would a child of seven understand the reverence due to the
Sacrament? was the question anxiously asked--children of that age are
so thoughtless. The objection had already been answered by Monsignor
de Ségur: "To communicate well, it suffices to receive the Saviour
with a good will. This is found just as much in children as in
adults. The child loves Jesus Christ; it wishes to have Him; why,
then, not give Him to the child? Thoughtlessness is no obstacle to
holy communion, unless it is wilful. Children are thoughtless--yes,
but they are good and affectionate; and because of their need of
love, we must give their love its true food."
Another objection, and one that seemed more plausible, was that
sometimes a late first communion tended to preserve children from
much that was evil; for this reason it was often delayed as long as
possible, an apparent safeguard which the new decree threatened to do
away with altogether. Experience has long since proved that here
again the good obtained far outbalances the bad.
As for the argument that such little children cannot understand what
they are doing, those who have the task of preparing them for their
first communion have a different tale to tell. "I have found it much
easier," writes one who has had much experience, "to prepare little
children than those who are older--the preparation is so much more
objective than subjective. It is more a realization of how lovable,
how desirable, how loving our Lord is, than a preoccupation of how
they can make themselves worthy--or less unworthy--to receive
Him. . . . The actual first communion appears to the little ones as
the very loving embrace of a much-loved Father; to the older ones it
is more a welcome to a loved and honoured guest, with--if I may so
put it--the preoccupations of a hostess."
The pope delighted in the letters he received from many little first
communicants thanking him for their joy at being admitted to the holy
table; he loved children dearly and they returned his affection,
crowding round him, speaking to him without the slightest fear or
shyness, and giving him their confidence at once. He loved to give
them communion with his own hands; there was an affinity between the
white-souled pontiff and the white-souled children who knelt at his
feet--the innocence that had fought and conquered and the innocence
that was as yet untried. All the little first communicants of Rome,
gentle or simple, were invited to the Vatican. He would give them a
short instruction suited to their understanding, ending with the hope
that their last communion would be as fervent and loving as the
first. Then he would talk to them, and they to him, simply and
without any ceremony. Unconventional sometimes were the appellations
by which they called him. "Yes, Pope," would be the answer to a
question. But the very little ones, seeing the gracious white figure
bending over them and looking up into the gentle holy face of him
that spoke, would sometimes answer softly, "Yes, Jesus."
An Englishwoman who had a private audience with the pope brought her
little boy of four to receive his blessing. While she was talking the
child stood at a little distance looking on; but presently he crept
up to the pope, put his hands on his knees and looked up into his
face. "How old is he?" asked Pius, stroking the little head.
"He is four," answered the mother, "and in two or three years I hope
he will make his first communion."
The pope looked earnestly into the child's clear eyes. "Whom do you
receive in holy communion?" he asked.
"Jesus Christ," was the prompt answer.
"And who is Jesus Christ?"
"Jesus Christ is God," replied the boy, no less quickly.
"Bring him to me to-morrow," said Pius, turning to the mother, "and I
will give him holy communion myself."
François Laval describes the impression made on the children of a
pilgrimage of 400 first communicants who went from France to thank
Pius X in 1912. "As soon as they had returned from Rome," he says, "I
went to see some little friends of mine to question them. There was
no need, they talked without stopping of all they had seen.
Everything had been wonderful, but most wonderful of all--wonderful
enough almost to blot out the memory of everything else--had been the
pope. They had not been a bit shy with him, they explained--it was
impossible, he was so kind. 'The tears were in his eyes--but lots of
us were crying too,' nearly all who could get near enough to speak to
him were begging him for graces. 'Cure my sister, Holy Father;
convert my father; I want to be a priest . . . and I a missionary!'
It must have been rather like that when the people came to Jesus in
Galilee."
"It seems to me," added the writer, "that in these days, when so many
people are trying to enforce obedience, and failing signally in the
attempt, that there is only one man in the world who is really master
of the minds and hearts of others--an old man clothed in white
garments . . . ."
IX
PIUS X AND MODERNISM
In July 1907 the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued the
decree "Lamentabili," which condemned sixty-five distinctive
Modernist doctrines. Two months later appeared the encyclical
"Pascendi," denouncing under the name of "Modernism" a group of
errors which struck at the very roots of the Christian faith.