The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-02-23
The u1ERMoUMTAN AND CATHOLIC: FEBRUARY

As final apology it is said that the act of sep
aratlon still preserves to the people who reside in
the vicinity of the individual churches taken the
continued enjoyment of such churches as houses OF
worshlp-that all that these several communities
nave to do Is TO apply to the state for permission
TO use the church buildings, whereupon permission
VIII be granted, matter of course without
charge But do the people who offer this argument
realize that under the French law as it now stands,
three ve, score of associations may be formed in
Inc SPECIFIC community surrounding the church edi
nee asked for-Catholic. Hebrew. Methodist Mo-
mammalian whereupon each will be entitled to the
use OF the edltice; Transforming it thus from
place consecrated to some concrete faith into a
sort OF town hall, where every character of faith
will be housed. What would the Methodists or the
Lutherans. or the Jews each perfectly tolerant of
the Catholic church as an organ of religion think
OF 1t II our government to compel them to
stretch that liberation to the extent of dividing
with that church the rights in the church edifces
erected with their own hands, and dedicated to their
own faith! Besides what assurance have the Cath
ollcs OF France that public that will seize with
out right, what belongs to another. and Withdrawing
without right from the arrangement under that
selsure Tor century was condoncd. will observe
any later or less substantial promises that it will
make What assurance have the Catholics of
France that step by step, it is going on.
this process of elimination will result. in the
end. in the total elimination of the Catholic faith
from the properties that their ancestors have
created
Indeed every attempt at iustifying these acts
OF the French government dissolves the moment it
Is put under the Tense of any honest application of
the axloms of law morals-dissoves Instant"
one applies ii to that highest of fair Judgment.
Have you done unto Others what you would have
them do unto you! And it is then that the de
fender of the French government falls back upon
the assertion, that after ALL the concordat was not
a settlement, but was merely as arrangement for
oil
contributions that the state may continue or dis
continue at will But argument like that is as bad
Its predecessors. for it tries to make us believe
that untruth is the truth. The seizure of the
churches at the beginning of the revolution and
the concordat at the end, are not separate items in
French history, unrelated to each other On the
other hand they two events closely related
standing to each other in the relation of cause and
effect; for without the unlawful seizures the con
Cordat would never have been brought into exist
ence, and without the concoTdat the church would
eventually have found some other way to retrieve
The wrong done. Napoleon was not making a CON
tributiOn. He rghtng the wrong He needed
the church to help govern France. and the CON
cordat his token that the church was not to be
despoiled. He needed to show the world that he
was not for overturning the well established ilsti
tutons of mankind; justice to the church that had
been robbed, the best evidence of his good faith
In every honest view of history it was a settlement
that these parties entered upon in 1901. not a sur
render-a settlement that had 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
1T is not as Catholic, therefore or a Protes-
tant speaking to Catholics, that l chose TO raise
my voice. for whatever my voice is worth against
this invasion of the rights of the church, nor as
Protestant merely interested in seeing that the
great sister church is not despoiled. | speak as a
Protestant and III the interest of Protestants be-
cause if such things could be done outside of
France the great Protestant church to which be-
long. 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 long
er secure speak too, as an American, who
though rrevocably opposed to church controlled
state is rrevocably opposed to state controlled
religion. / speak to whom breach of
faith is none the less odous because it may emerge
from high attitudes. And / speak as a believer
who sees in what is transporting in France an or
ganized movement against belief in God after any
faith. Happily what is transporting there is not
likely to transprt here Republican America would
not tolerate it. Protestant America would put her
self against it. Liberty loving America would over
whelm it. perish: for what France is doing to
the Catholics of France, if accepted by the world
as thing rightly done, would be looked back TO
some day as the first great step toward the extinc-
ton. not merely of the faith of men in God but of
liberty as individual men.
at is not alone the right of the Catholics of
France to hold that which they have created that
is on trial today. The whole cause of individual
property is on trial. Individual liberty of con-
science is ON trial. And on issues such as these
the attitude of America ought not to be in doubt"