THE GREAT FRENCH PILLAGE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 15, 11 April 1907, Page 11

THE GREAT FRENCH PILLAGE

REMARKABLE PRONOUNCEMENT BY A NOTED PROTESTANT JUDGE ..On the night of February 12, a, remarkable pronouncement was made at Lincoln, 'U.S.A., on the great French plunder by the Hon. Peter P. Grosscup, presiding Judge of the United Stiates Circuit Court ior tliat; district, it was made during- the course^ of a lecture on Abraham Lincoln to the Knignts"" of ColwmJbus. The Philadelphia ' Catholic Standard ' ,o£ February 16, from which we take the report, - says : ' As the utterance of one of the leading jurists on the Federal Bench, who has been called upon to decide many questions of the very highest importance to the nation at large, and as a Protestant, Judge Grosscup's views must carry great weight. His subject was "Abraham Lincoln," and in his development of it he was led to a -discussion of common honesty, international relations, law, justice, and humanity. He took up the French' question and dealt with it as a judge rendering an opinion off the Bench.' Judge Grosscup spoke in part as follows :—: — Perhaps the greatest lasting thing that the Ctivil War did was to nationalise life, liberty, and property, Before the fourteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution life, liberty, and property, were within the power .of the dight and thirty States. By that amendment they were put within the protecting shield of the nation. Henceforth the right to We, the right to liberty, ami the right to property were National Interests. When we look across the Atlantic to what is transpiring in France to-day in relation to the Church .properties created by the Catholics of France, the value of this, our great national guaranty against absolutism and spoliation, stands out one of the mighty bulwarks of American institutions. For centuries the- Catholics of France had been building their churches and their -other institutions. Like the little Lutheran church- building in which I was confirmed— like the Protestant church -buildings to which the ma-jority of Americans are attached— these edifices became, humanly speaking, the property of^ their human creators. By every law of nature and of right they should have remained the" property of their creators. But in ,the frenzy of the revolution- of 1789 they were seized by the mob, and because the mob at that time was the Government of France, what ha-d been built by relation was connscated. to the btate. No historian of standing, no jurist of standing has ever attempted on any principle of honor or morals to defend this act. "It was an act of sheer - brute force— the taking by sheer force and without compensation of anings created, trom their creators and turning them over to the State. No Socialist of the most radical type has ever outstripped in speech what the mob of the Revolution accomplished in deed. For twelve years, the situation thus stood^-the forcible retention by the State of that which did' not

belong to the State. Then Napoleon, alive- to the fact that a religion in France was needed as well as - French armies, and • that ' the weakness of his government in the eye of the world was the spoliation^ on which" it was founded, set" about to undo the wrong.

The Concordat ci lboi was the result* The Concordat was a compromise.. It did not restore to the Catholics of France the property that belonged to them.. Rightful . as such restoration would have been^ it probably was beyond the power "cf Napoleon to accomplish. But what was accepted as an equivalent was agreed 1 upon— the- assumption by the State of a part of "the burdens of the church. And as a contract to that end' the Concordat has stood now for over v a hundred years. 'Nothing Less Than a Repudiation. It is from this settlement, .this contract between -the authorities .of the {State and the authorities ' ' of the Lhurch that has stood for a een-tury," that- the : State now withdraws ; 'withdraws, -too, -without a pretence of restoring to the other party the right of _ property that the - contract that ,is abrogated was Intended to replace. A withdrawal under' such circumstances is .-■nothing less than ' repudiation. True, as some of the apologists for the act of separation say, ~ the Concordat by ' its terms .was not perpetual ; but assunliing that that fact gives' to the State the" right of withdrawal, it does not excuse the duty, when the • supposed right of 'withdrawal is exercised; <of at least - " restoring that for/ which the -contract was intended as the equivalent.. Could the State the next tday -after the contract was signed, or a year thereafter, or ten .years thereafter, still keeping its grasp on the property taken., have withdrawn without guilt of repudiation. ? Why then in ten times ten years ? 'For it is not the lapse of time, however long, that gives the right to withdraw. The sole basis of -that right, whenever exercised, would he the restoration to the' other party of what had 'been originally taken — what we call,*in the law the restoration of the statu qiud. True, too, as the apologists say, the State nas had now the legal title to_ these properties for a century. • But by what cade of morals or justice does the possession of title for a period, however long, accompanied ...by a burden," settled upon it as a part of the oon&deration upon which the title was surrendered, entitle the party to throw off at will -the burden while holding fast to the title ? Be&des, there is no principle, either in morals or in public law, that makes that' right which originally was wrong. No plea of that character can stand for an instant in the" . court of public conscience. Contrary to the American Principle.. But- again it^ is said that the repeal of the Concordat is only putting into effect in France the principle of separation between Church and Stal>e- that prevails in America. But what is there in the American principle that deprives % the Church of the right- to - hold the property that the Church has from time to time created, or that justifies the taking by the'public of that property without full compensation for the thing taken ? Indeed, the American principle contemplates that the Churches shall hold -their" own property, to be used according to their own interpretations of their religious duties ; and it prohibits the State, by the solemnity- of constitutional I guarantees, from taking any property, either church or secular, except upon full coimpensation first made. As a final apology, it is said that the act of separation still preserves - to the people who resMe in the vicinity of the individual churches -taken the continued enjoyment of such churches, as houses * of worship ; that- all that these several communities have to do is to apply to the State for permission to use the church buildings, whereupon permission will be granted, as a matter of course, without charge. The people who offer this argument, the speaker pointed out', fail to see that the Separation Law is fatally defective in failing to preserve the orthodoxy of tibe proposed associations of .worship ; is, in fact, an encouragement .to schism. Continuing, Judge Grosscup said : ~ ' - ' ■ - ■ • Besides, what assurance "have the .Catholics of France that a public "that will sei7 4 e without ~ right what belongs to . another, and- withdrawing without right from the arrangement under that seizure for a century was condoned, will observe any later or less substantial promises that if will make ? W'hat'assurance have the .Catholics of France that step by step/ as it is now. going, on, this process of elimination will not result in iise end in the total elimination 'of the Catholic faith; from the properties that their ancestors have created ? *- Every Attempt at -Justification Fails. • Indeed, every attempt at justifying these""acts of the French Government dissolves the moment it is put under the lens of any honest -application of the axioms of law or morals— dissolves instantly one applies to it that

highest test of fair judgment, ' Have you done unto others what you would have them do unto you ? ' And it is then that the defender of the French Government falls back upon the assertion that after all the Concordat was not a .settlement, but was merely an arrangement for governmental voluntary contributions to the.Chuiich-r-contnibutions that the State may continue or discontinue "at will. But angument like that is as bad as its predecessors, lor it tries to make us believe that an untruth is the truth, ,'l'he seizure of the churches at the beginning cf the Revolution am. the Concordat at N the end are not separate items *n French history, unrelated to each other. On the other hand, they are two events closely related, standing to each other m the reiauon ot cause and ettect ; "fox without the unlawiul seizures vhe concordat would never have been brought into existence, and without the Concordat the Church • would eventually have found some other way to retrieve the wrong done. Napoleon was not making a contribution. He was righting the wrong. He needed the Church toj help govern France, and the Concordat was (his token that the Church was not to be despoiled. He needed to show the world that he -was not tor overturning the well-established institutions of mankind. Justice to the Church that had been robbed was the best evidence of his good faith. In every honest view of history it was a settlement that these parties entered upon in 1801, not a surrender— a settlement that bad the intended effect of forestalling the Church from appealing on that day or at some later day, to the conscience of France for the. justice that the conscience of France was bound some day to do. Speaks as a Protestant in the Interest of Protestants.

It is not as a Catholic, , therefore, or a irrotestant speaking to Catholics, that 1 chose to rafise my voice for whatever my voice is worth against this invasion cf the rights of the Church, nor., as a Protestant merely interested in seeing that the great sister Church is not despoiled. I speak as a Protestant and in the interests of Protestants ; because if such things could be done outside of France, the great Protestant Church to Which I belong, secure now in the enjoyment of the property it has created as the human instrument through which it is working out its faith, would be no longer secure. I speak, too, as an American, who, though irrevocably opposed to a Church-controlled State, is as irrevocably opposed to a State-controlled religion. I speak as a man to whom breach of faith is none the less odious because it may emerge from high altitudes. And I speak as a believer who sees in What is transpiring in France an organised movement against belief in God after any faith. Happily what is: transpiring there is not likely to transpire here. Republican America would 1 not tolerate it. Protestant America would put herself against it. Liberty-loving America would overwhelm it or perish] for what France is doing to the Catholics of France, if accepted by the world as a thing rightly done, would be looked back to some day as the first great step toward the extinction not merely of the faith of men in God, but of liberty as individual men.

It is not alone tine l'.ght of the Catholics of France to hold that which they have created that is on trial to-day. The whole cause of individual property is o n trial. Individual liberty of conscience is on trial. And on issues such as these the ' attitude of America ought not to be in doubt.