THE SITUATION IN FRANCE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 32, 11 August 1904, Page 4

THE SITUATION IN FRANCE

FROM A NON-CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW

In "\ir\v of the tciiMon which exists between the Holy Sec and Fiance, a summau ol the events and acts that ha\e led up to it, contnbuted to the ' Boston (ilobc ' b\ All Malt In w ILile, an \iuci van linn Catholic , be ot interest at the present time Perhaps (says Ihe ' Pilot ) ore ol t lie < auscs ol vie dcplh ui'd intensity ol Vlw leelnig between 1 hesc forces may be round m that c hai ac lei islic ut Fienihmen which leads them to follow a principle to its logical coiuhiMon at whatc\ei cost

The teachings of Cln ist lanity, that this world matters little, and that eternity is the only thing woith consideiation, has been followed by Catholic Frenchmen in myriads They na\c formed religious Orders for the relief of about all forms* of human miser y, they have sent out in the past century three-fifths of all the missionaries of the Chinch, th'ev ha\e gathered four-fifths of the funds which support Ihose missions, ihe\ ha\e educated nearly 2, (100,000 children free of all 'cost to the State, and while doing all this their intellectual position has been in the \ery forelront of human endeavor .

The- Intensity of Opposition

to the Church is easily to be by a glance a l th> legislation ol the paM tluce years, and at the resolute execution ot those laws

Mr. Hale details the snppiession of lel'gious teachins; in the State schools, the expulsion of the charitable Orders from many public institutions — though they promptly set up otheis of their own for ihe lehef of suffering humanity— and the lemowng of the chaplains norn the atmv and navy Then "

By this tune the Chwdi schools had been built, <jprncd, started, and carried to a remaiKable success Had there been a tailnie them would ba\e been no need of attack So the attack bocran indirectly on the Ci iiltcgation 1-'1 -' About this time the Dieyfus case came up and was used or all it could do

Then ti.c Assumpt lornsts w.crc represented as wickcdlv and treasonahlv conspiring n gainst .1i!io State Their wickedness ((insisted m publishing a new- naoer, 1 heir conspiracy in m.ikine; it siiccc-siul, and their treason in ci it lcisuie; the odnimisiiatinn of the (loveinment

'\ ho coiKlcii n.il ion 01 the Vssumpl lomsl s was used ps ;iii c\tii'-( 1 f')i mow dt.i-ti' .uimn aii'l ihr \s--oua-1 ions law a\ as passed By ll p l l unauthnrisod Ordcis wi'ic onloiod In lii 1 fMioMcd fimn Fi.inro Sc\crnl thousand i clic,io\!s liniiM i asl od foi auiliOT nation, and when thnso w lift (In) th)l ,i|ipl'.' h,id l)(-on dm en out those whuli nnphod \umc ufii'-od .mtlionsa* ion and ordered to be evpolled

\ lew eve enl ions vere made, whuh exceptions were withdrawn by il'O liicsi |c" r I,il mn and nou .ill icli<rinns Orders nmsi lea\e and a 1 ! religious leachint. 1 ni'M cease in France within ten \ ears

The Concordat

The tie which holds the State and the Church together has been called a v union ' by some, and by churchmen it has been "termed ' chains ' and ' fetters,' and its inception was due to the areat Coisican and Pope Pius VII.

When Napoleon, \\hn<-p statesmanship told him the "value of a nioial teacher for his now State, beccan his negotiations for an agreement with the Pontiff, he <Y>und that an obstacle was the property which had been ta'-en from the Church, confiscated and sold to many who were innocent purchasers

It was the ace umiilai ion of wore than 1 "»00 \car-., abbeys, convents, monasteries, refuges, schools, colleges, churches, chanels, asvlunis, leligious buildmes of all description^, endow merits and floating capital, e\en the sacerdotal \psf merits hnri disappeared Tt was as if the Covernment of the 1 nited States, after many Years should confiscate the properly of all the Churches and private charitable institui ions and colleges of the 'and, without as nun h as a' hv your leave ' To lestore it was imnossih'o, vci as Ihe Pope insisted thai it had been stolen, resiitut'on in <-om^ foi m was as necessary for a Stale as for on individual A compromise was reached by Hie Statr* aeveeinc to nay a yearly sum for the unl Pt-p of the Chui'h, pnd as \apoleon was a rnrd bargainer he con^ntci to a sin-n which m our day amounts to fo 00<) nnn francs annually, or 1 H, 0(10, 000 dollars, a sum which has been psiiwated to he barely 1 per cent. on Hie mine of ihe nronertv 1 aken \n aereement was rca<"hpd on that basis, and with the priviWe of nominating bishops and °ome other thinirs of minor importance il'o "* " o powers began a companionship which has lasted till to-day Despite oppo-

sit ion, the Church has prospered, and by prospering has in that much undone

The Work of the Revolution

The Cat holics in Fiance are \H pet cent of the population, but the Catholic people, instead of uniting along leligious/ lines m politics, ha\e separated into legitimists, oi royalists, 'Bonapartists, and moderate Republicans Since the break with the monarchists of Pope Leo and the coming m of the ' Rallies,' or Catholic Republican-., le, Calhohis who loyally accept the R'*puhli<vn T»" r M'|i- ;iii(i propose In defend Hieir religions lights within the bosom oi the Republic, theie has" been another p...: [y

The radical Republican-., through a series of years, .'lncc t he time of Gambetla, ha-ve been increasing' their liold on the governmental machinery while their adversaries quarreled, until to-day, in agreement with the socialists, who aie as bitteilv anti-religious as the sternest radical could wish, the combination controls the whole of France. In Parliament the \otesof these two factions are thrown ' en bloc ' upon the side of the ministerial decrees, whatever they may be, and by their unity and discipline M. Combes lias retained the Preinieislnp I'm Iwo years, a period almost unexampled in the history of the Third Republic. There aie those who believe the hold of the ' bloc ' cannot be shaken, for they ha\e full and entire control M the law-making power, the executive, the elective, .-nd (lie luduiai It is as it t,hc administration at Washington appointed all the (iovernors of States, the legist raj s of \oters, Uie boaids of police, the judges of election, the couits, holiest and lowest, the officers of the army .nd of the na\y, the piofessors of the colleges, the teachers in the schools, Ihe r ail road employes, and the dealers in tobacco, which last is in France a State monopoly That this control is used with

Tt on Determination and co\ers cases ttie most minute may be seen by a relererue to some happenings within the } ear A few clays a. j .o (W-meral Jeannerod was remo\ed from the command of the Ist army corps because he had praised the worl. ol the Sisters of ChariU. A naval lieutenant at Toulon was dismissed because he was seem to genuflect in a chinch m that city. An army captain who applied lor lcai o of absence 'to \isit the floly Land ' was summoned from L\ons to Paris to explain lie explained tha 1 hp wanted to vo as a lounst, not as a pilgrim, and was given lca\e to ' lia\cl in Turkey ' A tobacco dealer !o,i his license because he had said the rosary with his lanuh, though le piolested that it was with the dcois .in'] wrndovs dosed Three limb prelates of Fian;p la', c lo t their salaries because they wrote a piote.t au,ainM the law Mippressmg the Congregations to Pi esuie'it I oiibct

\s to t ln* outcome, perhaps it could not be better indicated than m the words of Cardinal Richaid 'Troublous tunes aie in stoic lot the Church in Frame. Her enemies I, a I neithei intellectual foice, parliamentary c i alt -■ 111 1 iMigt h of purpose, intensity of comution, nor mateiial powc We \mII resist them to the limit of out taxabilities and altp; tliat rely upon the promise, " I-'ni licbotd, I am with \on all days, e\ en into the end (/l 1 'ie woi hi ' '