The Persecution in France

New Zealand Tablet, 31 March 1910, Page 504

The Persecution in France

When Protestants almost unanimously flocked to the side of the French atheists at the inauguration of their war against the Church, they were told that the day would come when they would realise that the enemy was aiming at them, too, and that they would, for their own protection, be compelled ,to join with the Catholics in defence of religion. The prophecy has been realised. The Paris correspondent of the Birmingham Daily Fust writes as follows to his paper: ‘ French families of good old Huguenot stock are as grieved at what is going on. as Catholics themselves. At their consistories, at their meetings, in their temples, in their homes the note is one of lamentation; and if I venture on a statement that may appear paradoxical, it seems to me, from facts that have come under my personal notice, that French Protestants and French Catholics have been brought into sympathetic contact with each other by the anti-Christian wave. It is the first instinct of common action against a common danger, and will certainly grow. ■ ‘ This very week I have been appealed to by a distinguished Protestant family, well known in French society ■arid in consistorial circles, to do my utmost in the press to call attention to a grievance that affected the sanctity of the Christian home. It was this : At the lycecs the teachers gave the boys on Sunday afternoon so many lessons to prepare for Monday' morning that the Sundays were taken up in studies, and as a consequence divine worship, the catechism class, association with parents were interfered with. Altogether it was an indirect method of secularising the whole week, instead of six days. My friends are not alone; a number of their co-religionists share in the same discontentment, and it helps what I have been saying when I add that in the movement of protest that is being formed the Protestant pastors are seeking the active support of the Catholic priests. • The present situation is, to my mind, very clear. On the one hand, we see in France a weakened voluntary system of primary education, struggling hopelessly in an uneven battle, and on the other a huge network of secular schools, imposed by the State, supported by the State and supplying a particular kind of instruction determined by the State. The State selects the teachers and selects the class-books. Anything that refers to the past glories of France is passed over, erased or caricatured every time it redounds to the , honor of- the Church or of religion. The word of God is never pronounced in a French State school. It is neutrality carried to excess. In fairness, the facts should be related and the comments withheld— is an Englishman’s idea of neutrality. But this might be borne by French parents if the State schoolmaster and schoolmistress contented themselves with going no further. Instead of which there is a deliberate campaign, noticed more or less all over France, to instil into the children’s minds an aversion and disgust for “Christian superstitions and observances.” The most sacred things are ridiculed, a favorite method with the State teacher, because he knows how susceptible the childish mind is to ridicule and mockery. The doctrines of the divinity of Christ, the Incarnation, the % Redemption are among the “ superstitions ”; going to church, Baptism, Communion, prayer are among the observances.” What chance have the children to pass successfully through the ordeal?.’