A FRENCH CATHOLIC PARTY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 37, 8 January 1886, Page 9

A FRENCH CATHOLIC PARTY.

Thb Comte de Mun, warmly seconded by the Univert, cherishes an idea of forming an Extreme Right. He issued a manifesto, in the shape of a letter to the Vicomte de Belizal, a Royalist lellowDeputy, in which he says :—: — The result of the elections creates great obligPtions for us Whether our opponents seek a rallying point in a redoubling of the religious persecution, or whether they try by an apparent moderation to pacify for a time the revolt of souls, we must be ready to resist them. And if the awakening of the country were to be the forerunner of a thorough change in polit.cal institutions, our duty would be none the less great, for we should not merely have to repel the attempts of the present Cabinet to prepare the work of the morrow Hence, our programme should be a programme of Government. The time for protestations is over, that of demands begin Pope Leo XIII. has himself sketched a vast subject in the ?Eo, n t K?°y chc * 1 Bumanum Gcnvs, issued on the 20th of April l» a « L ?f P° inted out the enemy— namely, Freemasonry. He has defined its aim and means of action— namely, " To reduce to nothing id civil society the supremacy and authority of the Churchto exclude the salutary influence of religion from the laws and public administration, and to place the State entirely outside the institutions and precepts of the Church." Here is the battle-field It is the supreme encounter of the Church and Rationalism. And the Pope, wishing to indicate the remedy, after exposing the evil, expresses himself further in these terms:-" Our best and most substantial hope of cure is in the virtue of that Divine religion, which the Freemasons hate in proportion as they fear it. It behoves enem°' ° CeQtral P ° int ° f reßißt < tnce to the common And he adds a little further on, « Let honest men, then, in their turn, unite and form an immense coalition of prayer and effort " The programme and organisation of the Catholic party are all contained m these words of the Sovereign Pontiff. Docile to his vmce, we ask for the Church the entire freedom of its ministry and the public protection of Catholic worship, which is its guarantee and consequently the exemption of priests from military service' the organisation of religious succour in camp, barracks, and hospitals the right of religious associations to form and develop freely! and the k>yal and sincere application henceforth in letter and spirit of the Concordat granted by the Holy See to France. As regards the family, we demand complete liberty of education of all grades, and as a minimum* return to the laws of 1850 and 1875; religious instruction in public schools; and, as soon as possible, the repeal of the law of the 28th of March, 1881 ; respect for the sacrament of marriage, which declares the indissolubility of i»t ii f. ncl V^ sooaaß . we can obtain it, the repeal of the divorce LrHni i/vL f, rOt f Ct A OE i of dlomeaticd l omeatic lif e by the revision of the pro^rty by will a C ° de "^ *"* figbt ° f di8 P oßin S <* As regards the people, we demand a limitation of the hours of ii a f^ Ur hrl\T° gnitlOUof th , e law of Sunday rest, the prohibition of night-work for women, and the gradual suppression of factory work for mothers of families and the children of both sexeaTand protective legislation against accidents, disease, involuntary idleness and unfitne 9 s for work resulting from old age. To render this legislation practical and efficacious, we require! corporate organiction, destined, in the terms of the Encyclical Humanum Qenut « to protect, under the influence of religion, the interests of labour and the morals of the labourers." In order to uphold this programme it is necessary to form in the nation a compact and powerful party, with its authorised representatives in Parliament, dependent all over the country on the aid of Christian people; and it must support its claims by active and incessant ; propaganda. Th.s party, which might take the nanS of the Catholic Onion, will have in every department, arrondissement canton, and commune, representatives authorised to circulate its programme and to enlist adherents, to secure the distributioli of pamphlets and newspapers and to keep up a constant movement, Sections PrSPare le S lßlative ' departmental and communal w> h T^f %% aTa 'TT U \\ bb ° weve . r - the Due de Broglie's organ, in common with all the Koyahst and Catholic newspapers except the Univert strongly condemns il. de Mun's scheme of a CatholiS party Si the