CHURCH AND STATE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1835, 16 August 1906, Page 2

CHURCH AND STATE.

THE POPE’S PROTEST. feS=S3 ALL LAWFUL RESISTANCE

ADVISED.

PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT Received 9.17 p.m., August 15. Rome, August 15. The Pope, receiving the Prussian Minister at the VatieaD, incidentally expressed regret if the action of the French Government rendered it impossible for the Church to avoid a conflict with the oivil j. authorities.

Paris, August 15.

The Pope’s enoyclioal toFrenoh Bishops has been published in Paris. He deplores the coming trials, and vigorously denounoes a law whioh was not separation, hot oppression and oivio discord. He rejeots public worehip associations, whiob ho declares impossible. He advises canonical laws instead, until the latter is legally and irrevocably made to embody the divine and illimitable rights of the PontiS and Bishops as constituting their authority over church property and edifices. The Pope urges Bishops and French Catholics to employ all means the law recognises within the rights of a'l oitizens to organise worship and struggle vigorously for the defence of religion, without recourse to sedition or violence. He predicts a reaction which wilt result in rescinding the laws. Le Temps says: “ The encyclical will g'ieve all friends of religious peace. The Vatican’s intolerance will bear its fruits. This is a oountry of oommon sense, desiring above all calm.” Le Temps will not admit the present decision as the result of a truly Christian, reasonable inspiration. The paradox is that the temples offered by the State are refused by the religious authority.