Nonsense About Joan of Arc.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 27, 2 July 1903, Page 2

Nonsense About Joan of Arc.

Of the making of idle and foolish fables about the Catholic Church there is no end. The Rome and Paris offices of two prominent London dailies are steam-facto-ries of anti-Papal fiction Some day, perhaps, the curious investigator of sectarian eccentricities will open a museum of anti-Catholic slipslops ; and in a glass case therein he will probably expose to the contempt of mankind the flaring specimen of literary venom and folly about the canonisation of Joan of Arc, which was published — apparently as a perfectly bona-fide piece oi> valuable information— in a recent issue of one of our large New Zealand dailies. The substance of the absurd tale is this : (1) The idea of canonising the holy and heroic maid of Orleans (who, in the fifteenth century, rescued France from its English conquerors) was ' first started during the closing years of the reign of Napoleon 111 ,' and ' had he remained on the throne and continued to keep his troops in the Eternal City for the protection of the Papacy,' the warrior-girl would ' ere thi.s ' be in the calendar of the saints. (3) Pius IX. set the machinery of investigation for her canonisation going, but, beinir piqued by France's abandonment of the Papal States in the day of their need, he lost all interest in her cause, and left it to moth and rust upon the shelf. (4) When Leo XTIf. came to the throne (in 18T8) he ' at once ' re-opened the case and set it humming along, in order to placate the French. (5) As a preliminary to business, however, he inquired of the late Qjlieen Victoria ' whether she had any objections to offer to the canonisation of the Maid of Oi lcans.' (<\) This inquiry was prompted by the desire of the Vatican ' to establish friendly relations ' with England and not 'to do anything that might be construed at the Couit of St. James's as unfriendly,' for— as the reader knows—' the Maid of Orleans was put to death by the English ' (7) Queen Victoria replied in the negative. (8) Thereupon, ' Joan of Arc was proclaimed " blessed," which is (9) the first step towards canonisation.' (I<>) Hut, alaxk ' the, Congregation of Kites 'about thiee months ago' ' an-

nounced their resolution ' & deny canonisation to the heroic Maid who delivered France because (11) they discovered ' that she was neither a heroin© nor k

A blind man firing a, shot-gun at random round about a city will, some time or other, hit a mark-will wing a sparrow or lame a thrush or pick a neighbor's aye out. But the fibster who spun the ' painful yarn • summarised above failed to hit the target even once. His eleven statements are eleven falsehoods. Now mark how plain a tale shall put him down. (1) The idea of the canonisation of Joan of Arc was not 'first started 'in the reign of Napoleon 111. It was first started ' just after her execution by fire in 1431. Pictures of the Maid were found in the churches of France very soon after her murder, and in some of them (as at Montargis) her head is encircled by a halo, a symbol which was adopted only in the case of a saint. Moreover, the idea of her formal canonisation was broached from time to time long before the third Napoleon was heard of. (2) As to the possibilities of Napoleon's influence in placing the aureole on 'the shapey head of Joan of Arc ' : neither he nor any other ruler had any more power in that direction than the most ragged guttersnipe in a London slum. The whole question is determined quite apart from political ' pull * or local and personal bias, and solely by the result of long, tedious, minute judicial processes or inquiries— over twenty all told, and of an extraordinarily stringent nature— into the miracles and the heroic character of the virtues of the servant of God whom it is sought to honor in our public liturgy.

Again : (3) The cause (or pontifical process) of the canonisation of Joan of Arc was not set on foot by or during the reign of, Pius IX. (4) The present Pope'did not re-open the cause. It was introduced for the first time during his pontificate, in 1894. (5) The story about the Pope, or anybody for him, inquiring of the late Queen Victoria ' whether she had any objections to offer to the canonisation of the Maid of Orleans,' is a fiction of the whole cloth. (6) It is, therefore,' untrue that the alleged inquiry was dictated by a desire not ' to do anything that might be construed at the Court of St. James's as unfriendly.' Such considerations never enter into the question of canonisation. No such inquiries, for instance, were made in the case of the beatification, in 1886, of fifty-four post-Reformation Catholic martyrs who were ' put to death by the English' at a much more recent period of British history. (7) Queen Victoria did not reply, either in the negative or in the affirmative, to the question referred to above since it was never put to her. (8) Joan of Arc has not been • proclaimed " blessed "' by tthe Pope. Her cause is still under investigation by the Congregation of Rites. (9) Beatification (or proclaiming a person blessed) is not 'the first step towards canonisation.' The Church recognises three degrees of sanctity in this connection—(a) that of Venerable, (b) that of Blessed, and (c) that of Saint, (a) There are no fewer than' six separate stages or processes of investigation (by bishops, Roman officials, etc.) into the virtues and miracles of the person whose beatification is sought previous to what is called ' the introduction of the apovstolic process '—that is, before the Holy See takes the case into its own hands and commissions the Congregation of Rites, by ' remissonal letters,' to try it And this is not done until after a strict, minute, and most hostile investigation into every point of evidence adduced, both in support of and in opposition to the proposal, a Roman official (known as the ' promotor fidei,' or in popular language, 'the devil's ad\ocate') has reported in favor of the ' beatificandus ' (or person whom it is sought to beatify or declare ' blessed ') The case for beatification is then said to be ' introduced ' And then, and not till then, the ' beatificandus ' is called ' venerable.' This is only the seventh of the fourteen difficult stages of beatification. And note this well worshipful good masters : Ten years must elapse between the third stage of the inquiiy (sending the acts or minutes of the first two inquiries to the Secretary of tho Congregation of Rites) and ' the introduction of the apostolic procciss.' Many ne\er get beyond this stage. A recent report from Rome states that the caus« of Joan of Arc's beatification is making ' gratifying progress.' But it has still a long, slow road to travel

(b) For beatification, miracles as well as heroic virtfees must be proven. Beatification is generally, but not always, a stage on the roa-d to canonisation (or declaring \ a person a saint), (c) For canonisation at least two miracles must be rigorously proved to have been wrought through the prayers of the ' blessed ' after his or her beatification. (In the case of martyrs for the faith, somewhat different conditions, which need not be specified here, are required for beatification and canonisation.) The honor allowed by the Church to the beatified is local, limited, and partial. Saints, on the other hand, are commended to the invocation of the faithful throughout the whole world.

(10) The Congregation of Rites did not ' announce their resolution ' to deny canonisation to Joan of Arc. In the first place, such a proceeding would be quite irregular — their business is to examine the case and report to the Holy Father, and not to ' announce resolutions ' as to what they will an<d will not ' deny ' in such matters. In the second place, the reporting stage has not yet been reached, and may not be for many years to come. Such investigations sometimes run into generations ; occasionally into centuries. For Rome is not merely of to-day and for to-day, but till the consummation of the world. It can, therefore, afford to take its time. Moreover, when a ' resolution ' on the subject is arrived at by the proper authority, it will be published immediately to the world through the customary channels, and Ca#iolics will not have to wait for some fat-witted penny-a-liner to ' discover ' it when it is ' about three months ' old. (11) Lastly : the Congregation of Rites cannot have declared that Joan of Arc was not a maid. In the first place, the whole question of her beatification is still, and will probably for many years remain, sub jndice (or on trial). In the second place, the Congregation do not issue interim or partial reports, much less ' announce resolutions,' in the matter. In the third place, such a declaration would give the lie direct to the whole body of trustworthy evidence regarding her. The calumny as to a lapse on her part from virginity found diabolical expression in Voltaire's infamous ' Pucelle ' — a disgusting work that had its origin, very appropriately, at a midnight orgy in 1730. Some author has well said that Pans and Berlin welcomed it, but that Sodom would have rejected it. . We notice this senseless tale at some length, because it is an attempt, that many may have read, to asperse the fair fame of a great Catholic heroine, and to degrade the principle and method of the solemn ceremonies of beatificatioo and canonisation to the level of a mere political expedient. Booby B<.»ttesworth knew ' nor text nor margent ' of law. And the mischievous wight of diluted intellect and little knowledge who concocted the story about the Maid of Orleans was equally ignorant of the judicial processes upon which he built up his scurvy fiction. And thus another Sampson-weapon against ' Rome ' goes to the bone-mill.