The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-21

While such was the unavoidable result
of the Pope's refusal to renounce essen
tial principles, he showed himself 80 con-
ciliatory toward Italian statesmen with
regard to minor matters, and he evinced
80 much sympathy for the reasonable
desires Of workingmen, that for time
there seemed reason to believe that not
a few of the disciples Of MAzzINI would
be glad to substitute for the present
regime federative republic under the
headship Of the Papacy. That will
seem tremendous achievement to those
who recall the position taken twenty
five years ago by Italian reformers tow
ard the Church Of Rome.
No less remarkable is the change that
has taken place in the relations Of Church
and State in France during LEO KILLS
pontifcate. The definite triumph Of re-
publicanism at the general election in
October, 1877, had been brought about
largely by GAMBETTA, who babe his
countrymen behold in clericalism their
enemy. For upward Of a dozen years
thereafter relentless war was carried
on by the civil power against the Catholic
religion. The utmost pains were taken
to deprive the Church OF any influence
on the national education. and purely
secular teaching and text books were
prescribed in the State schools. All the
legislative and administrative machinery
was directed to the purpose Of lowering
the priesthood in the eyes of the COM
munity, and of rendering Catholicism
odious to the rising generation. The
theory on which the implacable attitude
assumed by French republicans was based
was the support traditionally Afforded by
the Papacy to political reactionists. 1t
could no longer be put forward after LEO
KILL, departing from the course pursued
by his predecessor and recognizing the
democratic tendencies of modern society,
directed the French episcopate and
priesthood not only to acknowledge, but
to uphold loyalty and zealously the re-
publican regime.
As this order was generally obeyed,
and resulted In the conversion OF the
majority of the monarchists into the So
called rallies Republicans, it became
thenoeforth impossible to continue the
anti-clerical campaign consistently. 1t is
true that most of the laws aimed against
Catholic ecclesiastics remained upon the
statute book, but the rigor Of their execu-
ton was for time sensibly relaxed. It
would be hard to overestimate the ser
vice which LEO XIII rendered to Ca
tholcism in France, when he took it out
Of the power of agitators to justify an
endeavor to excite popular apprehensions
by depicting the Church as the ally Of
political reaction.
Nevertheless, LEO XIII. was to witness
during the closing years Of his pontifi-
cate resolute revival of the ant-clerical
campaign in France The Jacobins and
Socialists, who in religious smatters
shaped the policy of the Waldeck- Rous-
seau Cabinet, determined to deprive the
Jesuits and certain other religious So
cieties of the educational functions which
they had long exercised with remarkable
success, on the theory that they were
imbuing the rising generation with senti-
ments hostile to the republican regime.
A law was passed by which the civil
power was clothed with authority to sup
press religious associations, and this law
has been vigorously executed during the
last twelvemonth by Premier CoMBEs,
the successor Of NJ. WALDEcK- ROUSSEAU.
Even this provocation failed to cause
LEO XIII. to depart from the position
previously assumed by him, the position,
namely, that IL was the duty Of French
Catholics to accept republican form Of
government. There is now no doubt
that, had he pursued vindiotive but
short-sighted course, the Radical major
tiles in the Chamber of Deputies and tie
Senate would have abolished the Con-
cordat, and would have forced the French
Catholic clergy to depend thereafter for
their support on voluntary contributions.
BY the prudence and forbearance Of the
Pontiff complete and. perhaps, irrep-
arabic divorce of the Church from the
State in France was averted.
At the time when LEO XIII. assembled
the Papal throne, all the power and in
fluence welded by BISMARCK, as Prime
Minister Of Prussia and as Chancellor Of
the German Empire, were applied to the
reduction OF the Catholic Church within
the dominions Of the House OF Hohen-
zollern and in the imperial Province OF
Alsace-Lorraine to the position of SER
want of the State The anti-clercal
statutes, variously known as the Falk
laws and the May laws, according az
they were associated with the name OF
their deviser or with the month in which
they were promulgated, we're in full
swing, and it seemed improbable that
Catholicism could long withstand them.
1t is conceivable that BISMARCK, had he
been able to exercise the same absolute
authority, might have extirpated Ca
tholicism from northern Germany al
most as thoroughly as Professionalism
was rooted out of France by LOUIS XIV
In the popular branch Of the Prussian
Legislature, which Is based upon the
system OF class representation, the Ca
tholics, however desperate they might
have been rendered by persecution
would have been unable even as it was to
give the Chancellor much trouble. I'm
D