OUR LETTER FROM FRANCE

New Zealand Tablet, 30 October 1913, Page 23

OUR LETTER FROM FRANCE

Paris, September 7. Unhappy Portugal. The Church in Portugal has been for these 150 years through a situation the most afflicting —more so than any national Church in Europe. About 160 years ago Dom Joseph, a weak king, let his royal power go over to the hands of his chief Minister, the able, unscrupulous, irreligious Marquis of Pombal. This man did all he could during his Ministry (1750-1777) to undermine the Christian religion and weaken the Church, whilst introducing and encouraging English Freemasonry and French Voltairianism. The foundations laid by Pombal in the middle of the 18th century have since been carefully built upon by his Masonic and infidel successors. In 1834, Dom Miguel, the Catholic king, was driven out of the country by the French and English and replaced by Dom Pedro, the Grand Master of the Freemasons of Brazil. Again the Church saw her schools closed, her revenues ■ confiscated, her religious Orders expelled, and her best champions exiled. For generations the Portuguese Church ' has been under the feet of the Freemason lodges. Imagine a state of things in which these infidel and naturalistic lodges had the chief influence in the appointment of the bishops and parish priests of the country! One naturally asks, how is it that, under such conditions, any Christianity can be left in Portugal. And yet some religion is left in bishops, priests, and people. Long genslaved, disheartened, voiceless, under pressure of the present Government, the most contemptible Government Portugal has yet seen, the Portuguese Church is showing that it has some life still left. Some are plucking up courage, and protesting against the present awful tyranny. The Portuguese bishops have just addressed a collective letter to the Government. They reprobate the contempt for ecclesiastical principles and laws shown by the Government, and the injustices and insults directed by it against the clergy. They declare they will have none of the associations civiles cultuelles —really schismatic > affairs —set up to run churches and parishes by the law of April 20, 1911. They protest against the "separation of Church and State, whilst the Government still regards the Church as a mere slave devoid of initiation and liberty, and subject to prying official interference. They protest against the secularising of the schools. In doing so, they use words frequently used before by the bishops of France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany: The school without God is a school against God neutral instruction is infidel and impious instruction; teaching without religion is the teaching of irreligion.' But when will the Catholics

of Portugal take courage to do something more thaa. issue protests, through the bishops, against a Government whose aim is to utterly destroy their religion by secularising both parish church arid parish school?

Lady Day Processions in France.

Magnificent processions used to be held on the Feast of the Assumption in the towns, villages, and country parishes of France. The municipalities have now authority to prevent these processions through the streets. Where the Masonic and infidel power prevails among the town . councillors religious processions are prohibited. But in places where a strong spirit of religion exists the processions go on with all their former magnificence. In others where the Catholic people are timorous, weak-kneed, afraid to call their souls their own, and where the Masonic lodges rule the show the processions are timidly omitted. The meek and patient Catholics attend Mass in the morning, make no noise in the forenoon, and go here and there in the afternoon on a quiet family picnic. These meek and mild Catholics, who will allow themselves to be boxed and kicked and insulted by an aggressive clique of agnostics or heretics, are a wonderful lot. At Parliamentary and municipal elections they keep quiet; they are afraid to give offence; one might lose a little billet for his 15-year-old son, and another might/offend an influential neighbor, another's wife might feel uncomfortable in the little upper circle into which she has crept. So the Masonic bloc gets power and uses it boldly in insulting this crowd of meek .and mild Catholics. On the Feast of the Assumption, the Abbe Jacquot, of Audmcourt, held a procession on the church grounds and around a paddock behind it. He and his leading parishioners were summoned before the local court. The parish priest, the organiser of the procession, was fined five francs, and those who attended one franc' each! The, magistrate gave as the ground for his decision, that public processions are forbidden by the municipal regulations, and this procession was public because it was held in a place which was visible from the public ways ! The Abbe Jacquot and his parishioners, refusing to pay the petty annoying fine, appealed to the high court. This Abbe and his parishioners are not altogether backboneless worms, willing to be trampled on by every intolerant little. socialist mayor.and Masonic juge de paix. Slanderous Journalists Get Their Deserts. We are very familiar with the gentlemen of the pen who seem careless as to truth and justice where the Catholic Church and priests and bishops and members of Catholic religious Orders are concerned. In fact, so deep is prejudice amongst so many writers of articles in the papers and magazines, and amongst the editors and conductors of these publications, that when charges are made against Catholic institutions the truth of them is taken for granted. Is the attack against the Catholic Church in any way ? Oh if so that's all right, put it in, circulate it; it will be a joy to the souls of many of our dear readers. Most of these writers keep sufficiently vague —sufficiently clear of person and place —to avoid the law of libel. Cowards will slander and injure, but so as not to be caught. The thing is utterly base and contemptible; but it serves a purpose. Anti-Catholic slander supplies a demand which is abroad 1 a queer, one might say, inhuman demand-the demand for nourishment by the ogres of bigotry and fanaticism. Sometimes, however, the slanderer forgets himself; he mentions names and places, and he is forthwith in trouble. This happened recently at Pisa. The editor of an infidel, anti-Catholic sheet, the. Gorriere Toscano, attacked the clergy- and pointed clearly to Cardinal Maffi, Archbishop of Pisa. The Cardinal brought the editor, the director, and the business manager of the paper before the courts. The editor was the writer of the slanderous article, but the director and manager were held with him, in solidum responsible for what appeared in the paper. The charge was proved. The editor was condemned to a year and three months imprisonment with a fine of 1890 francs. The director got the same imprisonment with a fine of 1820 francs. The business .manager was

held co-responsible, .and..was made amenable for the fines and the whole expenses of the law suit. The parties appealed to the higher court at Lucca; but the court of appeal, confirmed the sentence of the lower court. This punishment is exemplary, but it will' not stop the tribe of scribbling calumniators. The demand for their' stuff exists, and they will go on satisfying it. This sentence will make some of their more* cautious and more vague in their attacks; but not less malicious, virulent, and active. The business, nasty though it is, pays. The calumniator has his public. Extraordinary the density of the cloud of prejudice and bigotry inherited from the strifes and controversies of 200 and 300 years ago. Time and men of learning and fair "minds are doing something to enlighten those dark places; but how slowly. Father Ohrwalder. News has come to hand of the death of the famous African missionary, Pere Ohrwalder of the congregation of the Sacred Heart. Pere Ohrwalder was born in the Tyrol in 1856. In 1875 he entered the congregation of the Sacred Heart at Verona in Italy; when ordained in 1879 he was sent to Cairo in Egypt. He was soon taken prisoner by that fierce fanatic the Mahdi and conducted to Omdurman, the Mahdi's capital, where he was kept for ten years. During these years of captivity the young missionary was subjected to very rough treatment, but the worst of it was witnessing the atrocious tortures inflicted on the prisoners carried home of the Mahdi. , Repeated efforts were made by his superiors to release Pere Ohrwalder, the Emperor of Austria supplying money several times for the purpose, but all failed until October, 1891, when the prisoner succeeded in escaping disguised as an Arab merchant. Broken down in health he returned to Verona to recruit. He spent his leisure time writing his book, The Revolution and Empire of the Mahdi — the best and fullest account we have of the transactions of that Mahommedan fanatic. On the completion of his book Father Ohrwalder returned to Egypt, and spent his life in that very Omdurmannow under British protection—where he had spent so many years in captivity. He died recently at Khartoum. May his soul rest in peace. He was a hero, one of those glories of our poor fallen race; one of those who show that aided by heavenly grace, our sin-smitten humanity is still capable of mighty things; one of that wondrous class of men, the foreign missionaries of the Catholic Church, who literally leave father and mother, home and country, and all things to bring the light of the faith and the blessings of Christian civilisation even to barbarians lying in wait in their deserts and jungles to spring upon them, imprison them, torture them, and slay them. Sunday Attendance in Germany. There is a body of free-thinkers in Germany who call themselves ' Confessionslos.' They hold that the vast majority of the German people is like themselves free-thinking, ' agnostic, even atheistic, and that the country should declare itself such and cease keeping up a pretence of religion—a pure sham. With a view to show how few have any practical devotion to Churches and religion these people made a census of church attendance on Trinity Sunday in three large industrial German —Berlin, Nuremberg in Bavaria, and Chemnitz in Saxony. Of the 1,700,000 so-called Protestants in Berlin only 11,252 attended the mid-day or principal service on last Trinity Sunday. At one of the most beautiful of the Berlin Protestant churches the census-takers counted at the principal service six men and .'2B women ! The choir was more numerous than the congregation; but the choir was paid to attend. It was noticed that the members of the choir and the sacristans left the church during the sermon, and walked up and down outside until it was finished. Mayhap the preacher was a very poor one? It is a heavy trial on one's religious staying powers to listen to some preachers for even twenty or thirty minutes. The poverty of present-day preaching in both Protestant and Catholic churches is not taken sufficiently into account when people are calculating our modern

. church-emptying forces. No 'one cares to hear, a second time, ah ill-prepared, platitudinous preacher trying to get through his half-hour, trying to keep on through the appointed time saying something. Well, at Nuremberg there are about 300,000 Protestants, but only 7597 were counted in its fifteen Protestant churches. At Chemnitz, also a city of. 300,000 Protestant inhabitants, only 2248 attended church on Trinity Sunday. The debacle of German • Protestantism is symbolised by these figures. It is quite unnecessary to state the well-known fact that the Catholic churches of Germany are full on Sundays, and that in many places— Catholicity is strongmost of the people attend Mass on week daysin some places the whole congregation. But then our free-thinking census-takers do not take the Catholics into account; they do not belong to the great army of progress and advancing civilisation; they, poor people, have their heads still in the murky clouds of the Dark : Ages! Hopeless obscurantists, they can be left out of a census made to show that the German people have ceased to be Christians, and are really agnostics, Haeckelists, and atheists—hastening on to the age of communism, collectivism-, general comfort, universal sensuality, the higher civilisation, and the superman.' Another sign of the times in Germany comes from the little country town of Gera. The Monistische Jahrhundert reports that the Monists or Haeckelites and the Protestant modernists of the town have petitioned the city fathers to remove Christian dogmatic teaching from the public schools, and to replace it with non-dogmatic, scientific, moral teaching. They say it is not fair that the vast body of parents, who have already openly abandoned the official Lutheran Church, should be compelled to send their children to schools where the teaching of Lutheranism is obligatory. Just fancy this state of things ! Luther brought these people his ' gospel of liberty'; no necessity any more for prayers and penances and good works; salvation by sentiment or faith alone; all the glories of heaven with the least effort imaginable and all the blessings on earth by his glorious reformation ! And now they will not hear of him; they kick out his blessed 'gospel' and bring in something they call ' undogmatic, scientific, ethic'! Verily there is no such thing as gratitude left in the hearts of these creatures! No, even though they claim to be nearing the altruistic, all-in-common, every-man-for-his-neighbor stage of civilisation. There is Fichtian antinomy somewhere. La Consolation de l'Alcoolisme. One. of the candidates in the recent elections for Caen was M. Picard, ; a big wine and spirit merchant. He has had the support of the radical influence. I read in the radical newspaper La Guerre Sociale that M. Picard, in his election address, declared: ' We must not deny the workman and his children the consolation of alcoholism.' So in the intention of Picard and the radicals, like the public schools, alcoholism should be made laique et obligatoire. This is quite natural and logical. They have suppressed, as far as they can, for the poor workman and his children,, the consolations of religion. They must supply some substitute. The chief substitute they have got is M. Picard's— consolations of alcoholism. Excellent substitute! In order to keep the working man quiet, ancient Roman pagan society gave him partem et —victuals and sports. In order to keep him quiet, modern French paganised society would supply him with the licensed bagnio and the consolations of alcohol. We are making for the golden age of the higher civilisation. The Passing Away of Bebel. August Bebel, perhaps the most influential leader amongst German socialists, died at Zurich on August 13! last. The Berlin socialist organ Vorwaerts says of him: / None of the chiefs of social democracy has so possessed the hearts of the masses. This popular enthusiasm was always shown him at congresses and party meetings. The proletariat knew that every fibre of his heart belonged to them. Hence their confidence in him; hence the mighty influence he exercised amid the ranks of our social democrats—an influence greater

than that of Marx or Engels or Lasalle.' The Gei*mania, a Centrist paper, writes: Rebel was a selfeducated man; he had not received even a rudimentary school education, still':, he became chief of his party, exercising- a formidable authority at decisive crises. None had such power among socialists as he ; none will have ■. such. ■• His death is a grave loss for socialdemocracy. In the future there will be no chief- to take his place and exercise control when quarrels, so common and violent amongst socialists, will arise.' The socialists may lament the death of Rebel; but I fancy the decent general German public will shed few tears over the.passing away of the author of that abominable book, Woman. Bebel sighed for the happy time when marriage shall be abolished and free-love and promiscuity of the sexes shall take its place; when parental society and the Christian home shall disappear, for the State will take upon itself the rearing and education of all children: when there shall be no longer master and servant, employer and employee for all .things will be in common; when there shall be no recognised divine or human legislator for there is no free will, no responsibility, no conscience; when there will be no need for the State itself for ' the gratifications of the Ego, and the promotion of the common weal will harmonise and supplement each other/ Rebel looked for the advent of this happy lime at the close of the nineteenth century. It did not come. Hence he has been comparatively silent for some years. What dreams some men can dream and induce others to place hopes in ! Rut recall Luther, Rousseau, and Rebel. Human nature, in some of its aspects, is a mystery of absurdity. Even ' masses ' of men seem sometimes as devoid of intelligence and common sense as dumb, driven flocks of sheep blindly jumping wherever and whenever the bell-wether jumps.