ILLEGAL ASSOCIATIONS IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7, 15 February 1900, Page 28

ILLEGAL ASSOCIATIONS IN FRANCE.

FATHER AUBRY EXPLAINS THE POSITION.

A representative of the Sydney Catliolx- Pn g.\ had an interview recently witk the Rev. Father Aubry, Superior of the Marist Fathers, with reference to the conviction of the Apsuinptioniht Fathers in France, and the decision that the Order was an ' illegal association.' Father Aubry said •

In France since the Revolution and the suppression of religious Orders, monastic communities have been decreed ' illegal ' by law, and those only which obtain a kind of charter, making them wards of the Government, tied hand and foot with red tape and barely a voice in their own affairs, have been exempt from the destroying hand of justice. But after the bitterness of the first religious persecution had died away, although this Act was not repealed, it became practically inoperative, and the monastic communities which had been scattered in its first w r rath gradually grew up in France again, without opposition, if not with the approval, of the Government. Thus the Order of the Marist Fathers, although it flourishes in France, is technically

AS MUCH AN ILLEGAL ASSOCIATION as the Order of the Assumptionibt Fathers. In our own Constitution we have similar laws, that have been created in some moment of excitement, served their turn, and then become forgotten, swept from the public mind, presrrved only in the Statute Book b'pcau<-e no one thinks it necessary to repeal them. But why tho twelve French A«Bumptionist Fathers, including Father Bailly, have been brought into court is precisely because they controlled La ('no r. an active Catholic journal that took a very prominent part in the Dreyfus case. Now La Cnur is a halfpenny paper with an enormous circulation throughout France— in fact the largest circulation of any paper in the world— and not only does it bring out a general edition, but once a week a puppleinent accompanies tho ordinary edition to each province fontaininy all the local news of that particular pro\ince, written jnd collected by a <-pocial local representative, either priest or layman, it will bo understood the vast influence such a paper must have. Well, La Cro/x threw itself heart and soul into the Dreyfus ca°e— and it was against I)r< yfu-. Time has cleared that unhappy man's name and the French public have become conscious of an yi justice, so that the Government in power in France to-day dees not regard La Cvoi r with favour. Hence it is that the old Act has been put in operation again for the benefit of La Crow, and, contrary to law, the Assumption Fathers have been found to be members of an association (a religious Order) that is ' illegal ' : and as that association is their community it has been dissolved. Practically, the cases went together.

THE FULL MEANING Ol' THh. COURT'b DECIbION is that that the Assumptionist Fathers can no longer live in community in France — they must abandon their monastery, for the time at any rate, until the storm blows over. So the crime of the Fathers is not conspiracy, but becaube they were connected with a paper not favourably regarded by the Government, and as this in itself was scarcely a crime, the old act was resurrected for their Bpecial benelit. There are many ' illegal ' Orders in France— indeed all the successful Orders practically can be so termed — of which, as we said before, the Marist Order is one, but they are not likely' to be disturbed in the slightest. They have not, like their brethren identified with La Croi.r, t iken a public and a»-gresM\e part in French politicp, which, though Father Aubry did not Hay so, burn so many people's fingers. These political enemies of the Church in France are very powerful just now, and lose noopportunity of giving her a stab. But it is pleasant to reflect that the great mass of the French people remains faithful to the traditions of Holy Church, a striking evidence of which is their answer to the secular schools established by the State throughout France. Side by side with the schools of the State, purely Catholic schools arose, and supportgd by the peoplestand as grand barriers against the tide of indifference and heresy that vainly beats against them. The Government can erect schools, but they cannot drive the children there, and just as the Catholics of Australia are bearing a double burden to-day, so, too, the Catholics of France, similarly oppressed, have not failed in their duty. The persecution of the priests connected with La Cnrix is probably almost purely a matter of personal politics, but if it is, as some would have it, the first of a series of attacks against the Church in France, there need be no fears for the result, for, as the Catholics of Australia emerged triumphant from their early persecutions, so will the French Catholics grow strong in their trouble, and drawn into closer union by the assaults of their enemies, emerge consolidated and victorious.