The New Zealand TABLET THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1906 THE GREAT PILLAGE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 6, 8 February 1906, Page 17

The New Zealand TABLET

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1906 THE GREAT PILLAGE

To promote the cause of Religion and Justice by the ways of Truth and Peace. Leo. ttttt, to the N.Z. Tablet

ILENCE is sometimes golden. But there (v^g^f ate also times when it is not even silvern. mpijjS^ It is, for instance, difficult to commend the Vjgggpgy sewn-up lips with which, as regards editorial comment, the great body of the secular f§} «5* press in Great Britain and the Australasian ffltS^ colonies have received the remarkable developments that have taken place in the relations between State and Church in France. From the legal standpoint, nothing more revolutionary has

taken place in modern times except, perhaps, the Great Pillage of Henry VIII. and the- red riot of the French Revolution. The London ' Morning Post ' characterised the whole movement for what it is— not alone antiCatholic, but anti-Christian. So did the ' Saturday Review ' and two jof the leading Anglican Church papery. A few of the rag- tag-aml-bob tail of British and Australian ' religious ' journalism openly rejoiced over the seeming triumph of atheism. M. Y\es Guyot has been on visits to England— the official agent (so it is said) of the Grand Orient Freemasonry— to arouse public opinion in favor of the measures taktn in the French Legislature against the Church. Ue is the editor of the aggressively atheistic Paris daily, ' Le Siccle.' But that circumstance has not prevented his being taken to their hearts by prominent Nonconformists like the Rev. Dr. 01 iff oid and Mr. Perks. His mission seems to have had at leas, l a measure of negative success. The British press, as| la "whole, has tied up its editorial lips in regard to the great drama that is being played beyond the Straits of Dover. It is, perhaps, one of the cases in which (as Faiquhar puts it) the man talks most who says nothing. * There were sundry matters of public notoriety in France on which enterprising secular newspapers in othei countries might have been reasonably expected to enlighten their readers. They might, for instance, ha-\o mentioned Ithat the long-drawn campaign that culminated in the Separation Act was part and parcel of the openly avowed purpose of French Freemasonry to crush religion in that lodgoriddcn land. The rest has been merely a means to an end. Four years ago an Act was passed which drove the religious Orders of men and women out of France and stole their land and houses and auctioned their books and clothes and pots and pans. The revocation of the Concordat between the French Government and the Holy Sec is merely^ another step in the crusade— one that, as its P'reemason authors frankly avow, is intended to cripple and disorganise the Church in France. The slender stipends of the clergy are stopped by the new Act. The payment of these salaries was no mcie act of grace on the\ part of the French Government. They were a small but covenanted percentage paid upon the property plundered lrom the Church during the Great Revolution. That property was not readily saleable, partly because of defective title, partly because Catholics \v<?ie naturally unwilling to expose themselves to the censures of the Church by purchasing or retaining stolen lands and buildings and chattels that had been devoted to sacred uses. The Holy See did for France in 1801 what it had done for England in Mho days of Queen Mary. It gaw a clear title to this pioperty. But there was a condition attached — the payment of State stipends to the French bishops and clergy. This agreement was ratified between the French Government and the Holy See, and was embodied in the provisions of the Concordat in 1801. The Church gave vastly more than it received. There is not one code of morality for the individual and another for the State. The contract was a bilateral one. It bound the national conscience. And, in all its circumstances, its abrogation by one of the parties to it— without compensation, without reference to, and in despite of, the other— constitutes an act of national repudiation. ' It will be remembered,' says the New York ' Freeman, 1 writing upon this subject, ' that 'our own Government, when the country was in the throes of a civil war, issued bonds, many of which were bought with greenbacks when the greenback was worth fifty cents, measured by the gold standard. When these bonds were issued the Government pledged its faith that it would redeem them at their face value. If the United States G-overnment, in the days of its prosperity, had- refused to recognise that the holders of these bonds had jany, claim upon it, it would 1 have placed it-

self in the position the French Government now occupies in refusing to pay the salaries which in 1801- it pledged itself to pay in return for great financial advantages it received from the Holy See consenting to remove the cloud that rested upon very valuable property.' But that is not all. All church property of every kind in France (presbyteries, seminaries, episcopal residences^ churches, public oratories, institutes of, charity and education, etc.) have been confiscated, with the sole exception of what came into ecclesiastical possession since 1801. Moreover, public worship is now placed in the hands of associations. ' What,' asks a French Senator, Admiral de Courbeville, ' will be the character of the associations ? No one can tell.' But (as the New York ' Freeman ' points out) it is safe to predict that an attempt will be made to utilise them in such a way as to disorganise and impede the Church in her work in France. • The Law for the Separation of Church and State,' says our New York contemporary, ' has been so framed that the Government can bring great pressure to bear upon these associations, which henceforth will have the control o\ er Church property that formerly was vested in the hierarchy.' Any doubt as to the intention and temper of the Freemason and Radical ' Bloc ' that are the real rulers of France may be deemed to be set aside by the recent editorial declaration of one of its organs, the ' Lanternc ' : 'It is foolish to hope for a rapprochement, or e\en for a simple truce. Whether the Clericals accept the Law or revolt against it, we shall none the less continue to combat them without mercy.' ♦ The secular press in the Lnited States \iews the situation in France with more cditoiial sympathy than that of Great Britain and the Australasian colonies. In Australia and New Zealand, silence has become, on this theme, practically ' a mother-tongue ' (to use Goldsmith^ bold expression). In the ' Reformed Church Messenger' (American), Professor Yollmer, a nonCatholic, recently summed up the situation in the following words :— ' Let no American reader suppose that the separation of Church and State in Fiance is of the self-same nature as in our own country. Far from it. The motive in France is deep-seated hatred of all religion and the Bill in its final shape will work more hardship to the I rotestants, for whom it was not intended, than to tho Catjhohcs. As in the so-called ' Culturkampf ' in Germany in 1873, the Catholics are meant in the passage of several provisions, but while they will find means of escape, the Protestants will .suffer the most But even in its imperfect form, the Bill will prove a blessing in disguise to all religious bodies. They will become more independent, and being so, will be able to exert a more powerful, distinctly religious influence upon the people, although they may lose some political influence. So may it be. But the object of the enemies of all religion in France .iv tin* extinction, not th<y -revival of religion. We lind a star of hope in the demonstrations now being made in France against the sacrilegious hands of the Government menials who ha\c been sent to grope and burrow and fossick and make inventories even of the contents of the Holy of Holies. .Such lesistance was not expected. It has upset some of the calculations of the Ministry and compelled them to threaten and explain. The lessons of the early eighties have not been forgotten. And Brittany and the Auvergne are yet to come. Catholicism in France, like Catholicism in Geimany, may, alter all, march to victory and peace through defence of her sacred fanes and the xude but chastening experience of blow and bruise and prison-cell.