The Causes of Modern Anticlericalism in France

New Zealand Tablet, 26 July 1906, Page 11

The Causes of Modern Anticlericalism in France

(By His Grace the Archbishop of Wellington.)

French contemporary anticlericalism has & motley variety of causes. Some, of course, arc too unfit to be openly .acknowledged. To substantiate this, alas ! there is no need to di\e into the mysteries of the ' lodges ' and those ' workshops ' wherein are elaborated all the persecuting laws which a too .docile Parliament readily enacts. It is sufficient to read the daily parliamentary reports, to occasionally peiuse the newspapers, the pamphlets, or books of the Jacobin party. A low craving for power, an unbiidled desire thinly disguised to prey on the fat oilicial quarry of honors, sinecures, and post's , an unquenchable thirst for material enjoyments, a complete and absolute indifference for whatever has no bearing on the next re-election ; and the hope that by persistently flaunting the ' clerical spectre' one may be the everlasting great mail, the everlastingly elected member of his province — such are the noble sentiments ever seething in the hearts of the bulk of modern French terrorists, which dictate, their parliamentary votes and leak out of the phraseology of their speeches. No wonder that, apart from their wish to keep a good electoral spring-board— trempl in electoral— and from their determination to grasp in one way or another the ' milliard ' of the religious Orders, they deemed themselves honor-bound to proscribe the monks and nuns. No wonder they stand up as the personal enemies of the Church'; of _ her dogmas .and her morality. Their conception of life is the very opposite of what is suggested and commanded by Catholicism ; they don't want ' revealed morality ' ; for have they not ' independent morality '—independent especially of what they brand as vulgar prejudices' ? In many respects anticlericalism is an insurrection of all the muddiness and filthmess of human nature against whatever implies order, abnegation, idealism, unselfishness, the voluntary sacrifice and subordination of the individual to something above him. Yet anticlericalism has causes, or pretexts, of a somewhat more elevated order. It is wont to plead political and social reasons, some of which are rather specious.' It charges the Catholic "Church— it were fairer to say ' some Catholics '—with being the natural ally of what goes by the name of the ' parties of reaction. 1 It charges her with being the born foe of the regime which France for the last twenty-five years has freely assumed, and of the ' democratic ' reforms which she has striven to oarry out. It charges 3ier with irremediably identifying her cause with fallen' monarchies, and with the aristocratic interests which fallen regimes are hefd to represent. Now, such sweeping and absolute Charges are False, nay, .-calumnious. They are categorically contradicted, not only by the instructions, declarations, and encyclicals of Leo XIII., but also by the exact, impartial, and

complete history of French Catholicism since 1870. None the less, two things a re certain, which -by shallow and prejudiced minds^can -be, and are daily, worked up into capital against French U-atholics. It is undeniable, on the onie hand, that, as a whole, French Catholics did not the advent of the Third Republic with the favor they manifested to other governments— for instance, the Restoration and the Second Empire ; and that for too long— as though they had always fared well at the hands of past monarchies— they deemed" the cause of the ' throne ' and of the ' altar ' inseparable. And, on the other hand, the directions of Leo XIII., though they disarmed many hostilities:, encouraged many initiatives, and reassured many consciences, were not followed with th a t unanimity which was highly desirable. Thus were furnished to clever enemies all the pretexts they sought. They had only to recall to their electors (with great exaggeration of course) all -the imprudence, all the blunders, all the faults which Catholics committed in past times, when they were the masters ; and they upbraided these clerical adversaries of l modern society,' with the design of restoring the ancient regime. We must admit that, in this regard, all is not false in the charges brought by the anticlericals against French Catholics. Nor is all false in the charges of the intellectual and moral order alleged against Catholicism by its enemies. The great objection— the classic objection— which has filled no end of articles, books, and speeches— is " that Catholicism stands in irremediable and absolute contradict/ion with ' science ', and, as such",, it appears (they say) to any candid, unbiassed mind, a. form of human thought manifestly exploded. The obiection is weak, it cannot startle or stagger anyone who h a s pondered the celebrated theory of Pascal, on the three orders of realities and cognitions, or anyone who has followed the discussions brought about of late years not only by thinkers, but by contemporary scholars on the criticism of the sciences. In fact, it is not science, as science, that is adduced against religion ; it is scientific theories interpreted by a certain philoso *hy ; it is a certain philosophical conception of science— a conception which deepthinking scholars in our day are unanimous in rejecting. Yet this objection, which dates from the Encyclopaedists, a s Brunetiere clearly shows, has distorted jmore than one good and great mind ; and we cahv easily perceive that it still impresses minds not conversant with the march of ideas, CatholicsHn deSEplwßng^^he truth have too often used arguments out of d&tte; btrft of the grooves of contempo~ary mentality. Besides, orthodoxy has by some been conceived too narrowly, jtoo umbrageously> there was among the timorous excessive fear of free ideas, fear of laicism and laity, fear of bold ideas and initiative ; and thus only the negative aspects ha\e been viewed and developed by them in a doctrine eminently positive, a doctrine of life by excellence. This has "been a great pity. And we can readily understand that minds, sincere indeed but poorly informed, too interested and pronyt to make the Church answerable for the faults of some of the faithful ha\e concluded the existence of a deep and irremediable opposition between Catholics and modern thought. Such it seems are The Principal Causes of contemporary French anticlericalism, or, in other terms, persecution. It has created a party, not perhaps very numerous, but most energetic, admirably and long organised for an electoral campaign, and, at all events, just now well nigh all-powerful. It has the' power in hand^ and it wields it ungenerously, unscrupulously, and incessantly. Never, perhaps, s a ve during the. French Revolution, w a s the exploitation and oppression' of a great country by a minority exercised with equal impudence ; never were the true sentiments of a nation held in greater contempt. France, indeed, is not ' clerical ' in the strict sense of the word, but still less is she anticlerical. And the proof of this is that, upon a question which might have been able to rally 1 the votes of a certain number of unbelievers who were • simply liberals— the question of v the separation of Church aWT State— the ephemeral rulers 'of France dared not appeal, to the people, being certain that such an appeal would. ' have spelled defeat. They resorted to a veritable ' coup d etat, to effect that separation,' confident that ' the electors would not interfere with the accomplished fact For it must not be fo "gotten that the actual lower house of Parliament had not a quarter of its members elected on a separatist progr a mme ; and how much this proportion would have been lessened, had a referendum been put to the nation for a free expression of public opiniori ! The ' anticlerical reaction ' in France is an ! artificial ■thing contrary to the fundamental dispositions and the' secret desires of the country. But its authors had to give satisfaction to an all-powerful Freemasonry They were also too yielding and complacent to Aii -ex-cleric whom the hazard of political life and the will of a. clever lawyer (for Waldeck Rousseau was surely no statesman) set up for about three years as President of the

Council. The harm done to .the, country ia'that nerinri was incalculable, and its r dire .results are too app^SS The interests of the national defence were totally Se-lectedu-nay, gravely imperilled-^ -the very Vme whfch JUfSf^ff" 0 ?* 1^.? 1 aU the yy ff O rSs on the % O fi a civil war. Such, on the testimony 0 - 1 ;^. 1 - 116 material consequences of that anticlerical dictatorship ; and ojie mieht well ask Lw iTMt Sof^rT" a «»«inme™l g ?o Wot Prance 'SShi. y i? st her P r °t«torate in the East e™^ l^, "-,"» an<l so^^S nn nn e ever aS op1? tr these narrow fanatics anl violent upstarts who have su? meani t'rtfK ■ W !" she P^er UketL excelfcnt means to solve the clerical question ? (To be concluded next week.)