'HUMAN STUPIDITY AND FOLLY '

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 12, 22 March 1906, Page 3

'HUMAN STUPIDITY AND FOLLY '

Perhaps no more brilliant example of human stupidity and folly, masquerading under the title of statesmanship, will ever be seen (says the Boston ' Pilot ') than the present exhibition of France. Posing as leaders of a people they deliberately began a crusade, unnecessary and harmfu^, as a policy, however desirable from the standpoint of free thought propaganda, whose only gain so far has been hatred and ill will. The scenes in the churches, enacted at the beginning of taking the inventories last week were what might have been expected, which were, no doubt, desired by the atheistic hierophants, and which they will use as excuses for fresh attacks. But they serve at leant as proofs that the worm will turn, though the Catholics of France have been, long-suffering and patient. First the schools were laicised. That was unnecessary, because the children were all Catholics, and because the people were satisfied. Then the Church built schools of its own, which rapidly became more j>opular than the State schools. While the school question was simmering the hospitals, prisons, refuges, and asylums were laicised. That again was unnecessary. No one was complaining except the atheistic wolf who shrieked th.it the Cathdic sheep was biting him. Soon the chaplains were removed from the am y and navy. Neither the soldiers nor the s.iilors jvsked for that' 'but the free-thinking feelings were hurt at hearing of any one else practising his religion, and of couise Free-thinking Intolerance has always managed to awaken a great deal of sympathy . Then the way was open to crush the CLu.-lL vrt-iis The people were enjoying them, so the .-..sso'U i .ions law was passed, the schools closed, the property confiscated, and the teachers exiled. All this tune the Catholics had neen vii.it'i fully patient. As the Government drew up the vu'ing lists, counted the \otes a.nd handed in the returns, it was difficult to beat it. Then; came the ' Separation ' law, which should be entitled a ' law to control the Church without expense tr the State,' for your French atheist is a thnf.ty person, except when it comes to spending other people's money or taking other people's property. The sc-ealled separation law was never advocated before the people as a policy, the Government never dared to refer it to the people. It was through ' in the closing days of a Parliament. The avowed object was to free the State, the actual one wa^ to wipe out Christianity. The first touch of the new law is the taking cf inventories) of Church plate, sacred vessels and vestments. Just what a inon-reli'gious State wants of the vessels and vestments of the churches is not explained. One can imagine the joy of a typical French functionary, a rampant unbeliever, enabled to wound and Insult the Feelings of pic us Catholics to his heart's content, from behind the secure shield of the law. Of course the G-overnment Would not acknowledge that it intended to persecute people, so in reply to an interpellation in the Ohanvfrei of Deputies Roiiviteii fihdignantly declared that they would use all tact and moderation possible. In truth tact and moderation were the things least desired. The work has been done so far with the aid of troops. Much bad feeling has been aroused ; men who should be good friends have become estranged, and the worst uivision which can exist for a people that along religiopolitical lines has been made. Instead of a unitedj.peoplq the French are separating into two hostile camps. The Catholics are being obliged to submit to bitter humiliation, and yet more is in store for them. The end no man con foresee, because submission on the part of the Catholics is taken as satisfaction, and fresh exactions are made. Resistance through the ballot box is as possible for them as political preferment is possible for the blacks 'of the South. Resistance through the only way left will be crushed out by police and troops. So the only hope for religious freedom in France seems to be in revolution, and this forcing of a large, stubborn, persistent section of the French people into the ranks of revolt is what some people choose to call statesmanship.