THE LEGAL POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC

CHURCH IN FRANCE.

THE

HE gravest problem in the home policy of the various nations of the Continent at the present day, is the adjustment of the conflicting claims of the modern State and the Catholic Church. The difficulty has been much increased by the growth of Ultramontanism of late years. In some places the conflict between the civil and religious power is already declared; in others it is yet latent, but in all it is inevitable.

The reason is obvious. While the State, since the close of the last century, has been shaking off in all Catholic countries the priestly yoke, and becoming an essentially lay and civil power, the Church of Rome has been pushing the theocratic principle to its furthest issues, and preparing, at least in theory, the apotheosis of its Pontiff-King. At the very time when the "most Christian king, the champion of the Church," was disappearing from the politics of Europe, the infallible Pope was claiming unprecedented authority and power over civil society. In the last century a majority of the French clergy recognized, to a certain extent, the independence of the temporal in relation to the spiritual power, though at that time the secular Government was largely under the influence of the Catholic confessional. In our day, when the secularization of the civil authority is complete, Catholicism is challenging in principle the very autonomy which was recognized under the old régime, and is endeavouring to get back the legislative power into its own hands. There is therefore an everwidening divergence between the pretensions and principles of the two powers. If we inquire into the causes of this divergence, they are not far to seek. The State is no longer enfeoffed, as of old, to the Catholic Church; that Church, therefore, no longer finding itself supported at home, seeks help beyond the mountains-from the

See of Rome. It thus becomes the more Ultramontane the more the ties which formerly bound it to the civil power are loosened, which is equivalent to saying that just in proportion as the State is modernized does the Church return to the ecclesiastical theories of the middle ages.

The great Revolution of 1789 seems to have communicated its zeal and passion no less to its adversaries than to its friends. The defenders of the past have carried into their retrograde movements as much determination as the champions of the new institutions into their claims. The prudence and deliberation which seem in harmony with that which is old in theory and in practice have been cast away by modern Catholics. The Papacy in the nineteenth century has ceased to be the cunning, cautious power, advancing imperceptibly towards its ends; it has forgotten the true saying of Cardinal Gonsalvi, one of the latest exponents of its ancient policy, "There are many ends that cannot be reached by the Corso, but must be gained by by-ways." The Papacy has taken of late no other track but the Corso that is, the quick, straight way-to its ends. It is dangerous to try steam power with old stage-coaches, or, to drop the figure, it is dangerous to adopt the methods of the Revolution in order to attempt its overthrow. Such an experiment is like that made by the Austrian generals, who tried to borrow the rapid tactics of General Bonaparte without knowing how to use them, and thus only hastened their own defeat.

The fact remains, however, that the opposition between the modern State and the Ultramontane Church has been becoming daily more pronounced, and that since the Council of 1870 it has assumed an active character, fraught with danger to the community, since no wars are so perilous as those which are waged in the cause of religion. There are two reasons for this: first, to the honour of human nature it must be said, no other subject touches it so deeply; and, second, any mistaken measures of repression on the part of the State call forth the strongest and most determined resistance. The dividing line between the restrictions which the civil power may legitimately impose, and persecution, open or disguised, is a line extremely difficult to define.

It is not my purpose to point out what may seem to me the mistakes, more or less serious, made on this point by various Continental Powers. I shall confine my attention to France. If the contest between the civil power and the Ultramontane Church has not yet advanced so far in this as in some other countries, the ultimate issue is none the less certain. No one can deny that an attitude of open hostility has already been assumed on both sides. It must be admitted that the opponents of our modern institutions, and not their partisans, have been the aggressors. Taking advantage of the fact that the National Assembly, convened in the midst of a terrible war, represented rather

the excited feelings of an agonized country, than the calm, deliberate will of the nation, the Catholic party, which had succeeded in obtaining the majority, because its voice had been loudest in favour of peace, made use of its opportunity to secure for itself privileges such as would not have been granted by any previous Government. What these privileges were we shall show presently, when we come to speak of the legal status of the Catholic Church in the country. Not content with what the law had secured to it, it took yet further advantage of the support of a majority in Parliament; and, since the death of M. Thiers, it has been making use of the power it had itself created to agitate men's minds by every possible device, and to unfurl to the sun the banner of Ultramontanism, the hated standard of the Syllabus. Profoundly hostile to the foundation and consolidation of the existing institutions of France, the Catholic party has never ceased to oppose them-first, before they had received constitutional sanction in the National Assembly, and since then on every possible occasion. In the elections of February 8th, 1876, a bishop and his political agent took a prominent part in organizing the opposition to the Republic. But the gravest aspect of this political campaign is not its action at home, but its attempts to impress on the foreign policy of France the character of a crusade for the restoration of the temporal power of the Pope. In the very early days of the National Assembly, a movement was set on foot by the bishops petitioning for an intervention, purely moral, as they represented it, but an intervention which would infallibly have led to war, if M. Thiers, then at the head of the executive power, had not ruled that these dangerous petitions should be deposited, with all reverence, in the portfolios of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs-an incarceration no less honourable than safe.

In the spring of 1877, on urgent solicitation from Rome, the Ultramontane episcopate again took up zealously the Roman question, and issued charges which were veritable firebrands of foreign war. These repeated provocations were not to be borne in a country which, having just suffered fearful calamities through the imprudence, or rather the madness of its rulers, had now an urgent need of peace, and was fully resolved to maintain it. Hence the famous remonstrance of the Left, in May of last year. Those who witnessed that great crisis in our Parliamentary history will not soon forget it; and it has left deep and lasting traces on the internal policy of France.

Never was there a more crowded House; all the devout duchesses and marchionesses of the Faubourg St. Germain,-those fanatic old dowagers who are called the mothers of the Church,-appeared in the front seats of the galleries accompanied by numerous priests. The two Frances, the France of the past and the France of the future, were brought face to face. If on the first day the discussion was timid and hesitating, on the second it became sharp and strong. On the one side was Ultramontanism, represented by the Comte de Mun,

the founder of the Catholic Clubs, the most ardent advocate, under its elegant and aristocratic form, of that extreme Ultramontanism which bases its demands on claims anterior and superior to all others, which it calls the claims of God. On the other hand was the powerful democracy of the day, eager to have done with all that recalled the paramount power of the Church, and violently irritated by its assumptions and provocations, without being always able to distinguish clearly between religion itself and clericalism; this party had at its command the tongue, skilful even in its most impetuous utterances, of its greatest orator and statesman. M. Gambetta produced an immense impression upon the Chamber, by giving expression, in language at once impassioned and logical, to his indignation and his fears. Every word of this famous oration deserves careful attention, for it unfolds, as we shall see, the whole plan of the campaign of the Republican Left, which has now the ascendancy over the Ultramontane party. The orator, after exposing all the flagrant illegalities of that party, declared emphatically that the Chamber would only support a Government firmly resolved to apply to it the legislation-not yet abrogated-which old France had bequeathed to the author of the Concordat of 1802, for the maintenance of the rights of the State. He closed with these words, received with a tempest of applause, and containing the sum and substance of his whole address: "Never forget that the enemy is Clericalism!"

The order of the day, voted by an immense majority in the Chamber, entirely supported him. The same evening that Chamber was condemned in the palace of the President. No one can doubt that it was this vote against Ultramontanism which led to the rash act of the 16th of May, 1877. On the day when the appeal was made, there might have been seen in Marshal MacMahon's gallery the principal personages of the Senatorial Right, the very men who were about to seize the power, and endeavour to wrest France from herself and from her true representatives.

We know now that it was a bishop who urged on the President of the Republic to this perilous venture, while the journal which is the organ of another bishop heralded it in the tone of a prophet who was so much the more sure of his oracles because he was himself preparing their fulfilment. It is needless to revert to the conduct of the Ultramontane clergy during the terrible crisis through which the country passed last year. France will not forget those imprudent addresses of bishops to the head of the State, when they received him on the threshold of their cathedrals, urging him to carry on his enterprise to the end; that is to say, to the crime of a deed of violence from which his own honesty recoiled. She will not forget those charges at the time of the elections, which were nothing less than challenges to a Roman crusade; those public prayers appointed to be offered for the good cause, and sanctioned by a Papal brief; and, finally, the

audacious resort to all the sacred weapons of the Church, from the pulpit to the confessional. The Ultramontane clergy made the destruction of the Republic its great concern, its principal object. This was certainly not the best means to avoid the formidable conflict which it tried to cut short by urging the dissolution of a hostile Chamber. What has been gained by these tactics since the same Chamber has returned to power, certainly not less bitter against Ultramontanism, after having encountered everywhere its determined opposition, calumny, and intrigue?

Even since the crushing defeat of the month of October last, the Ultramontane party has not laid down its arms. In the last discussion of the Budget it still appeared, claiming as rights flagrant illegalities in favour of religious bodies not authorized by law. Its policy has not been less aggressive, nor its hatred less open and avowed to the Republic itself and to all the institutions which it has produced. Of this we have just had a striking proof. The Comte de Mun recently delivered the closing address at the general annual gathering of the clubs of Catholic workmen. These clubs are meant to include all of the working classes who may be induced (by motives not always wholly disinterested) to join the Ultramontane party. The Comte de Mun sketched again on this occasion the programme of this special effort a programme equally applicable to all the other undertakings of Ultramontanism. His address was nothing but one long protest against the new liberties acquired by the nation since 1789, followed by arguments in favour of the hierarchies, and of the inequalities of the ancien régime, and an ardent challenge to a crusade against the very principle of our institutions. War, formally declared between Ultramontanism and the French Republic, is therefore imminent and inevitable. It is of the utmost importance to ascertain definitely what will be the legal conditions under which it will be carried on-what, in fact, is that legislative arsenal to which M. Gambetta alluded in his speech of May 5th, which of the weapons it contains may be fit for use, and which are altogether past service. It will be easy for us to show that there is flagrant contradiction on several essential points between this legislation and the state of things created by the Revolution of 1789. This fact renders an appeal to the Constitution of 1789 often difficult, or even dangerous. It is on this point that the greatest political difficulties of the future will arise.

I.

When the Budget of 1878 was presented, the Commission of the Chamber of Deputies asked the chairman to prepare a complete abstract of the state of the law in reference to public worship in France. The honourable chairman, M. Guichard, Deputy of the Department of Yonne, conscientiously acquitted himself of this task.