THE GREAT DIVORCE IM FRANCE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12631, 19 October 1905, Page 5

THE GREAT DIVORCE IM FRANCE.

Mr Richard Heath contributes to the " Ocntemporary. Review " some highly acceptable details with respect to the separation ,of, Church and State in France, which are riot so widely known as they deserve Ache; for they serve to show that the Legislature has given to the Ohurch it 'has disestablished. " all, and more -than all, it could justly claim." In fact, as compared with the treatment which a similar institution in England received at the hands of Henry VIII. arod bis nobles, the national church in France has been generously dealt with. To quote the words of the Minister of Public Worship, in the Ghamber of Deputies, the Chu-ch will possess wealth to the amount of 300,000,000 francs, or £12,000,000 sterling* together -with the us© of all the buildings in which it now carries on worship for an indefinite period, gratuitously, and the edifices in which the bishops and parochial clergy are lodged at a low rental on short leases. Under the new law the authorities bind themselves to afford all the protection necessary, for the full and free exercise of worship of every kind carried on in buildings strictly appropriated to worship ; and a liberal provision has been made .for pensions to be allowed to the clergy of the disestablished churches. Tims, writes Mr Heath, " the Roman Catholic Church in France will not only have all its property and all its -churches at its disposal, will not only find its parochial clergy comfortably domiciled, with the best of all proprietors for a landlord; will not only have its ©Idea- clergy provided.for during the remainder of their lives, and the younger ones all receiving help for four years, while some in small or sparsely populated parishes will receive it for eight years, but the Church as a whole obtains a far greater freedom of action than it has had for more than a hundred years, greater perhaps than it has had since the Reformation."