The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-12-17
THE FRENCH CRISIS.

declared that if the Catholle church wanted war she would get it, and get | it at once, he formally pledged his gov ernment to a conflict of which no man can foresee the end, He accepted a l challenge delivered by the Vatican against the judgment of the most emil nent prelates of the Catholic hierarchy In France. He accepted it with the knowledge that the immediate conse- quences of acceptance would be em- ployed to the utmost against his minis | try, not only by the Clerical party, which sustains the church, but by number of minor political organizations which are represented both in and out 1 of the Chamber of Deputies, and which will unite with the Clericals on this is- sue, not that they love Clericalism more, but that they like republieanism l less.
 And so the war is in full swing The official representative of the Pope in ] Paris has been sent out of France un- der the escort of police officer, His residence has been invaded, his papers seized. A messengr dispatchd b him from the Vatican, and, presumably bearing documents of importance, has been forbidden to enter French territo- ry. Steps have been takn to evict pre- l lates and priests from the official resi- ! dences which the state holds to be it's property, to convert Catholic schools and other semi-religious institutions to purely secular uses, to abolish the pen sions that are now paid to priests and to invest the government with the power of summary expulsion over all clerics whom it considers dangerous to the peace of the republic Further more the conduct of public worship under the conditions specially 9ecreed l by the Pope in his recent encyclical is ! declared illegal, and Is thereby inter- dicted in more than forty thousand | parishes
 Tn his encyclical of August last the Pope directed the faithful to employ all means which the law recognizes as within the rights of all citizens to or ganize public worship" It was in ac- cordance with this command that Car dinal Leoot, Archbishop Germaln, Carr dinal Richard and other dignitaries of the church advised compromise with the government, on the basis offered by the latter, That basis provided obedi- ence to q law passed in 1881, compelling a formal declaration of intention from those who propose to conduct public | assemblages. For instance, priest in tending to say mass must appear be- fore a state official and record his pur- pose to perform that function. The statute of 1881 was not designed to be applied to the conduct of religious ser 1 vices, but the governments right so to apply 1t is undeniably In law, and Is evidently sustained by public sentiment in Paris and the provinces, as ex- pressed in the newspapers
 As a matter of fact, the government invoked the law as, apparently, the easiest method of establishing secular 1 control over the church, and to relieve itself of the more difficult task of en- forcing that control by the execution ot later anf more drastic enactments, M l Clemenceau and his colleague, Al. Bri- and the minister Of public instruction had good reason to assume, first from the Pope's August encycical and later, from the action of the Catholic prelate9, that compliance with the law of 1881 would not be withheld by the clergy. The swift overturn of these calculations b ythe last direct order from Rome Is the eliminating, as it is the most spectacular. incident of the ! kAf ahA cNa under the mlniestry of M Waldeck' Rousseau, continued with more vindic. tiveness under his successor Dr Combes, and now brought to its most critical stage by M Clemenceau.
 The separation of church and state k as absolute as it can be made, The venerable Concordat Is abrogated. Tht church, under it's present organization may not hold property If public worship Is to be conducted in any par ish 1t must be in deliberate defiance o1 the Papal mandate. Sympathy witt the attitude assumed by the Pope may be general here among Catholics, but i should be remembered that the French government is supported by a strong majority in the Chamber of Deputies that 1t has absolute control of the po' lice and the military, and that 1t has the moral support of the French press and of the neighborlng governments oi Catholic Spain and Catholic Italy. I should be remembered, too, that tht leaders of the church in France who advised compliance with the statutory law are men of age, experience, judg' ment and discretion. They are better able than the Vatican to estimate accu. rately the consequences to organized Catholicism of direct challenge to the popular sentiment behind the govern ment The case of the latter has now been resolved into the elementary is sue: Shall any foreign power have th' right to direct Frenchmen to disobey the law of the land?
 The course of the church, unless the Pope retracts, must now be one of pas sive resistance. The course of the gov ernment must be shaped on the ont hand by a proper regard for it's posi-
 tion as the aggressor in a fight ap. proved by the majority of the French people, and, on the other, by knowl
 edge that the policy of coercion mus not be carried to violent extremes "The government" said a member O. 1t yesterday, lis not to be trapped into the closing of the churches" Ina means that the edihces will remain open in the sense that the doors wil not be locked, Obedience to the Pope'' order makes 1t unlikely that services will beheld. But the forcible suspen-