FRANCE AND THE VATICAN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1906, Page 6

FRANCE AND THE VATICAN.

The French Government continues to prosecute its campaign against the Vatican with vigour, and with every indication of strong popular support, and the tranquillity of the country in the faca of bo radical a revolution is the moro surprising when one remembers that the strong resistance offered a few months ago to a much milder phase of the law caused a sufficiently serious difterence of opinion to necessitate, the resignation of the Ministry of the day— M. Rouvier's Ministry. Ineteftd of oxciting any popular demonstration, the ! .coming into operation of the Sepaira- 1 tion Law had the immediate effect of reducing the attendance at the, Masscfi in the Churches in Paris and elsowhenj to very small proportions, and even the first Sunday under tho »«w order passed off with a minimum of trouble. In Pari^ according to our gabled reports, there", was none at all. "There were large congregation? at the various [ churches. A few^nanifestafcions occurred in tho provinces in connection with the evacuation of seminaries upd episcopal palaces, but what resistance there was was almost formal, receiving little active popular support." It », of course, resistance not to the creed oi tho church, but to its political claims, that is sustaining th,e Government in^ the very drastic oourse which it has adopted. yurther evidence of the fata) weakness of the policy of tho Vatican is supplied tin one of the paped seized at tho Nunciature, in Paris at the time of the expulsion of the' Papal representative. This is the letter of Cardinal Merry dol Val convoying thi Pope's instructions to the French chrgy regarding their attitude to the! law of 1881 — tho Association law — and containing the following paßsago: — 'kbstain from all formalities for the preset. The, Vatican declares tho French clelgy arc ordered to refrain from the declaration prescribed by the law of 1881, rot owing to the declaration itself, bit to other docjarfttiona embodied in M. Briand's circular." How can the faithful go. with any heart into a fight khere their genera) to}la them that hiq veoJ quarroj js not with the law width. Ue invjtes them to resist, but with ca-tain declarations of a conspicuous \ntictavical champion which nave no Wai effeqt whatever? So far as pOriJar opinion is ablo to find expression within tho church itself, it is very niich more favourable to peaco than tho paioy of the Vatican. In & number of c&es laymen havo forwarded the notification regarding assemblies for public \vWBhip which is necessary under tho kw to prevent forfeiture ; and the Ar<hbishop of Paris commends their action as designed "to provont troubjo, a«d without enoroaching on the pastoru authority." "In thus acting," ho sayl, "they were not guilty of diaobodieuq to the Pope, whose prohibition was ad dressed to tho clergy alone." 1 Nevertheless the cruel work of exprol priation and "eviction proceeds apaco.| •'Fifteen nchiepisconal nud epi.*coptil palaces and eighteen large seminaries were vacated on Friday," wo ore informed; and M. Briand, who is nothing if not thorough, has introduced a Bill "giving tho communes, department, and SUdo immediate ownorship of tho chnrolies, vicarages, and eominaries, arranging for tho organisation of services, <wl suppressing tho stipends of priests officiating without conforming to the law." Immediately after this wo arc told that "the Figaro gathers from olericql ' circles that the Pope is expected to accept the new Jaw." Which law? That which, came into force last week, or that whioh is now in course of manufacture? It looks as though the Vatican will have^to accept both or lose France to the Church altogethor. Here is a chance indeed for King Edward or tho Kaiser pr Mr. Eoosovelt to compose as painful a quarr»l as there well could be without the shedding of blood t •