The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-10-07
REBIRTH Of RELIGION
GOING ON IN FRANCE
SPIRITUALITY has BEEN Guilt.
WAITED IN SOLDIERS LIFE OF
ROUTINE IN THE PRESENCE OF
DEATH-ExAMPLE OF PRIESTS
IN TRENCHES A GREAT lNCEN-
TIVE TO REMEMBER DUTIES OF
GOD.

Is there a renaissance of religion
going on in France? The Union
Sacree has been a good reason for
not speaking about it. Jesuits and
Christian Brothers by the hundred,
cures and other. priests by the thou
sands and tens of thousands, fight and
are wounded and killed beside the
''lay" school teacher and the Protes-
tant minister and the Jew, with a
Freemason corporal mayllap leading
them.
Before the wars the intellectual and
the moral, and even the physical, life
of the French people was cruelty mis-
understood in foreign countries, as
French behavior in war has more
than proved, but it was commonly un-
derestimated. Latterly, it was mixed
up with magnifying legends of anti
Catholic political activity in France.
Such activity. cannot from ex-
istence, but it is largely suspended
by the enduring explosion of war and
danger common to the lives of all.
This is, at most, a very negative re-
vival of religion.
Stoddard Dewey, in the New York
Nation" declares that any positive re-
vival which has been brought about
by war must be sought in the armies
of France, which hold her able-bodied
citizens, or in the civil population
where women and the ailing are at
work with aged men and boys, all re
volving only the doom" Of their peo-
pie. To all, war keeps ever present
the one foundation of religion in prac-
tice. Forget death, and there would
be little or no religion" is the con-
clusion of the English writer who
thought most resolutely of these
things; but he took pains to add
what religion is in its broadcast
definition-it is life cultivated under
God, and in the presence of death"
No one can doubt the presence of
death among the French people. Has
it perchance been c~ultivating life
under Color whatever other form
of words expresses any proper
renaissance of religion?
Growth of Religion.
If the question is taken to mean
| growth of Roman Catholic religious
organization in France, or increase in
political power of the Roman Catho-
lie Church, or conversion of protested
non-Catholics to Catholicism, then it
had best be relegated to some later
time of peace. For then we shall have
time to study the effect of this war
on the souls of Frenchmen aud
Frenchwomen. The legend that,
among French people nominally Cath
olicS, only women practiced their re-
ligion and men gave religion a thought
only when they felt themselves dying
and cried desperately for a priest, was
worn out before this war began.
If there has been an increase in the
manifestation of religious sentiment
which, If ever, must be sincere now
lit has to be reckoned under the
head of religious revival. Only that
revives which still lives, but in which
life was failing and even was no
longer perceptible.
The immense majority of French
men, even Socialist workmen, have al
ways had their children baptized and
make their First Communion, just as
was done for themselves by their own
parents. When they think of God at
all, he is still the Roman Catholic
bon dieu," good Cod For them
the Christian religion is what it has
been in tho ~formularies Of their acc
: for fifteen hundred years. Catholic.