The Irish standard., 1908-01-11
THE CHURCH IN FRANCE.

THE CHURCH IN FRANCE.
1T was foretold at the beginning of
the Separation movement in France
says the Literary Digest, that the
acts Of Messrs. BRAND and Clemen-
ceau would do more to establish in
France the power of the Papacy and
tho institutions for which it stood
than even Clovis and ST. Louis had
ever done. According to the London
Saturday Review, a political weekly.
without any particular religious pre-
elections, the state has been beaten
in it's conflict with the Church. Ultra
montanism has become necessity OF
Catholic life and Ultramontanism has
triumphed. The boldness of the Pope
in refusing to come to terms with the
ministry has been amply justified. and
the French Church after all is not
lost by the confiscation of the build
ings on which the state laid such vio-
lent hands. The doctrine of "omnip-
otent state" has been absolutely con-
futed and exploded in France. The
thing which has suffered most in the
fight has been the conception of the
omntpotent state. When it cssayed
it's last attempt to rob the Church of
her divine constitution, it had behind
1t the prestige Of centuries of tri-
umphs, the support of democratic
legislature. and the forces of a great
bureaucracy, and Il great army. More
over, it knew that French Catholics
are the most law-abiding of French
citizens and it counted, not altogether
without reason, alike on thtir loyalty
and their fears.
$50 Messrs. Clemenceau and Bril-
and blew their trumpets and pro-
claimed their ultimatum. Let the
Church refuse to commit the act of
apostasy, which tho acceptance Of the
associations cultuelles would have in
volved, and she should, they vowed,
be driven from those cathedrals and
churches which for many centuries
had been her heritage. And many
Christians and friends in Rurope. who
remembered what things the French
state had done in its former wars with
religion, and recalled the brutalities
of Anagni when Boniface VIII was
done to death. and the infamous orgies
Of later age when the Goddess OF
Reason was enthroned at Notre Dame
shuddercd when the tidings came that
the Pope had refused to compromise
with the new law of sacrilege For
Plus X. with no physical force or dip
lomatic influence behind him to take
up the gauntlet that French Jacobin-
ism had thrown down, seemed to the
ordinary man the height Of folly. 1t
was an act Of the highest heroism
Plus vi, when he flung the civil con-
stitution of the clergy in the face OF
the National Assembly; Plus VII
when he defled Napoleon, did no brav-
or thing. 1t brought home to French
Catholics, clergy and laity alike, that
French Christianity was at stake, and
French Catholicism made a noble re-
Spouse. For the first time in the his
| tory of France. the French Church
stood solid for the Pope against the
rulers of the state. In a moment i
was apparent that French chauvinism
had been beaten. The very projects
warned MIR. Clemenceau that France
would not allow her shrines to be des-
ccrated. The Jacobin ministry conse-
quently collapsed like pricked blad-
der. and with bad grace abandoned
the churches to their rightful owners
And then the true heart Of France
spoke in the voice Of the local COM
munes. offering to give to the priests
of the Church tho free use of the pres
byteries, from which they had gone
forth for the sake of the fa:e1, and in
tho generous gifts that in every do
ccse. from Normandy to the Pyrenees
flowed freely into the treasury Of tho
prosecuted Church, to the amazement
even Of the most faithful. Today the
cathedrals and churches of France
hold larger and more earnest congre-
cations than they ever did in the days
Of tho Second Empire"