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The French Tyranny

The following brief cable-message appeared in the New Zealand secular papers a few days ago : ' The ChamJber of Deputies passed by 311 to 223 the Bill for separating; tine State from the Church.' This marks a fresh and distinct advance in a course of legislation which comprises the wholesale plunder of the property of the Church and the proscription and banishment of tens of thousands of persons the head and front of whose offending consisted in their efforts for the cause of Christian education and their devotion to the sick and suffering poor. The object of the dissolution of the unequal partnership between State and Church is to enable the State to more effectually gag, criipple, and strangle the Church. The recent of the Chamber of Deputies is merely the latest step in the long-drawn campaign to destroy the last traces of the Church's rights and liberties which even the great Revolution spared.

From the fifteenth century till the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 the Catholic Church was the religion established by law in France. All this was brought to an end when the great upheaval swept like a tidal wave over the country, On August 2G, 1789, the Revolution Assembly voted the declaration which severed the olden bond between Church and State. The possessions of the Church were swallowed up. Many of the bishops' and clergy were banished, or had their heads shorn off by the fall of the griillotine, and a ' Goddess of Reason '—of shady reputation— was set u,p and worshipped In the ( athedral of Notre Dame. By the time that Napoleon became Firs.t Consul, on December 15, 1799, the s a ne bulk of the ination were sick with horror and loathing of the bloodthirsty and irreligious excesses that had been brought into play by the Revolution. Napoleon himself realised (says a historian of the pqriod) 'That it is impossible to rule o\er a people destitute of religion, and that, to restore oi'der and peace to the State, it was absolutely necessary to re-establish, the Church ' in France At -his request, negotiations were opened between him and Pope Pius VII. They resulted in the'historic Concordat or agreement of July 15, 1801, which the Chamber of Deputies has now set aside.

Pope Pius VII. accepted the Concordat under moral compulsion, as the lesser of two great evils— open persecution (including the absolute confiscation of Churoh property), and a threatened scnism. The Concordat consisted of seventeen articles. The Pope, on his part, allowed the rulers of France certain privileges in connection with the nomination of bishops and pastors, the determiinine; of the boundaries of new parishes, etc. He furthermore guaranteed that neither he nor his successors wouljd in any way disturb those who'were in possession of the ecclesiastical property seized and sold during the Re\olution. Napoleon, on His sidle, guaranteed, in the •very first article of the Concordat, the ' free exercise ' of the Catholic religion in France. He also, in the name of his Government, pledged himself to miake adequate pro\isi'on for the due and proper maintenance of the bishops and priests, and to sanction any new foundations thait pious persons might make in the interests of the Catholic religion i»n France*

The letter and the spirit of the obligations assumed towards the Church by t|be State have been grossly violated ever since Gtfevy, by a stroke of the pen, decreed on March 30, 1880, the dissolution of the various Jesuit communities throughout France. The laws adverse to religious Orders are opposed not merely to the provisions of the Concordat, buf>— as sixteen hundred lawyers have declared— to the ' droit public 'as well, which gives to religious congregations the same right to exist as associations of any otiiei kind, without special authorisation, bo long as they show due obedience to tihe laws of the land. The new legislation, when in force, will confiscate all the cathedrals, churches, episcopal residences, presbyteries, seminaries, etc.,, that were erected by the generous piety of the faithful in France. All will become the absolute property of the State— to be hired, under such galling and impossible restrictions, for the purposes of religion, that priests and people will, in all probability, frequently prefer to worship under the blue dome of heaven. It is also proposed by a Freemason Ministry to force upon the Church in France a new constitution and organisation— in a word, 'to work her utter destruction. Brisson, one of the leading Freemason and anticlerical politicians, set forth the Radical-Socialist programme with brutal frankness in a recent speech in the Chamber of Deputies. 'We have,' said he, 'turned God out of the schools, the barracks, the navy, the hospitals, asylums, and other public institutions, and it is now our duty to consummate our great work by turning Him out of the State.' Commenting on this declaration of policy, the London ■♦ Saturday Review ' s?id in a recent issue : 'It is remarkable that, in a country which so ostentatiously boasts of its Christianity as England, the press should treat the efiacement not only of Catholicism, but even of "the bare idea of God, from a 'neighboring and just now favorite nation, with indifference or approval.' With one or two honorable exceptions, the same remark applies to the secular newspapers of New Zealand. It applies without any exception to the non-Catholic religious press.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT19050713.2.2.5

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
892

The French Tyranny New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 2

The French Tyranny New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 2

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