FRENCH CATHOLIC LOYALTY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2971, 8 January 1917, Page 8

FRENCH CATHOLIC LOYALTY

"A JUSTNWAR." I A number of French Catholic ecclesiastics visited Ireland in November. The Bishop of Orleans, who was one of the party, in the course of an interview, made a very interesting. statement on the war and the way in which French Roman Catholics regard it. The Bishop said:— "An insinuation has been made in certain circles of society, the source of which we have been unable to ascertain, that there' was some difference of thought' between the clergy and the other elements of the French nation as regajds either the necessity or the conduct of the war. We have thought that it was well to protest in the presence of our Irish colleagues against such an erroneous allegation. There' is not one of us who does not feel and resent all the cruelties of the war. nor is there one who does not believe that the war France is waging has all the elements of a just war, such as are laid down in Catholic theology; for instance, in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and of his great commentator, Siiarez. It is not wo, it is not the successive French Ministers, to whatever party they belonged, who . have wished, for the war. We defend oiirselvp.s. Our country has been violated. It has been violated by a raid through a jieutral country—a country recognised as neutral by international contracts and by European international right. We have opposed our armies to thn invader. How would it lie possible that bishops, that priests, could hesitate to applaud' and bless such a resistance? On this point our unanimity is absolute.' Will you nllow me to add, to the imperishable honour of our religion, that even those who had been harshly expelled froiii their country came rushing bade at the first call of the trumpet telling them that France was in danger? Tlioy have rushed back from all parts of the world to take their nlaces in the ranks beside, our dear soldiers."