THE OUTLOOK IN FRANCE

New Zealand Tablet, 15 April 1915, Page 11

THE OUTLOOK IN FRANCE

A NEW EPOCH IN ITS RELIGIOUS HISTORY. It is difficult for foreigners, and even for Frenchmen, to know all the divisions which are represented in the Chamber of Deputies, or to understand the exact difference between Republicans and Moderate Republicans, Liberals, Moderate and Advanced Radicals, Radical Socialists, Socialists, Anti-Militarists, and other groups. But behind these differences, some of which are merely superficial, there is hidden a profound cleavage (writes an ‘ Anglican Minister ’ in the Catholic Times). G. Hanotaux, ‘ Jlistoire de la France Contemporaine,* describing the state of things that prevailed in 1871, when Paris had fallen and a new Administration was painfully forming in Bordeaux, remarks that the real division in the country, which seemed bewildered by different factions, was on the question of religion. This is the problem, he says, which has always preoccupied the soul of France. On one hand there is the ancient faith, the submission of most families to the rites of the Catholic Church, the glories of past centuries, when France was ‘ the soldier of Christ,’ St. Louis, Jeanne d’Arc, St. Vincent de Paul; the lesson left by the great masters of thought and of language, Pascal, Bossuet, Chateaubriand; finally a kind of mystical impulse, which in dark hours of sorrow folds the hands of women and of children before the image of the Virgin Mother. On the other hand there is freethought, the laughter of Voltaire, the statements of Auguste Comte, the idea of man building up his morality and his ideals on the precepts of nature and progress. The Attitude of the Government. % When the Republic was finally established, members of the higher clergy were accused of Royalist or Bonapartist tendencies, and the charge of being lukewarm or even opposed to the Republic, which was brought against the clerical party, determined the action of the Government towards the Church. Gambetta’s ‘ Le CTericalisme Voila TEnnemi ’ marked the beginning of the estrangement, which became ever wider and which ended forty years later in the separation of Church and State. It is not necessary to follow the various steps which led to this final measure, or to state the case for both parties, but it is certain that the law which disestablished the Church and dissolved the ‘ Congregations ’ was hard on Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods. But the law promoted by the same Government party, which deprived clergymen of all privileges and subjected them to military service, had some very unexpected results. The Clergy and the War. Now at the outbreak of war the priests of military age joined the colors and appeared in uniform in the midst of their parishioners. The monks and all the members of the banished Congregations hastened to offer their services to their country, and to take their places like the secular clergy, with the ambulances or in the firing line. The twenty thousand priests, among them three bishops, who were mobilised, soon made their influence felt. It was found that the vicaire or cure who had dropped the cassock and donned the haversack and marched and fought like all the rest, became most popular among his comrades. Letters from the front bear daily testimony to his bravery, his cheery good humor, and his devotion to duty. The habit of obedience acquired at a seminary proved an excellent preparation for military service. Soldiers who had looked upon him as a being in a cassock, whose occupation it was to say Mass or sing Vespers before old women, and catechise young children, found out that he was .

„ 4 ?.. A Man Amongst Men. It would be of. interest to record the names of all the priests who appear in the roll of honor, who are mentioned in despatches for conspicuous bravery, have been decorated with the military medal, or have received promotion. The ministrations of the priest-soldiers, who celebrate Mass in the trenches, or, if they are further, from the enemy, on a portable altar'under the open sky, or amidst the ruins of a village church, have made a lasting impression. The nature of the French, especially among the lower classes, is opener, franker, and certainly more impulsive than the English. In the midst of danger and terror’ their soldiers have come forward more readily than perhaps our men would have done, to confess themselves and to receive absolution from their corporal, their lieutenant, or captain, who is in Orders. Not merely the men show the fruit, but those who have been left behind have been equally affected. Attending the services on weekdays and Sundays in hamlet, village, or town, we certainly could not say that the congregations, as in former days, consist of women and children. The men are there. The great Paris churches which on Sundays offer barely standing room, tell the same tale. ' It is a sight touching and pathetic, wherever there is a depot, to see the wounded and convalescent, with faces and heads bandaged, arms in slings, legs dangling between crutches, crowding aisles at early Mass. Nor will those forget, who witnessed the scene, when a young vicaire who had at the outbreak of war heard the confessions of the young fellows of the town, then had donned the haversack, and, fighting bravely, had been shot through the chest, barely healed of his wound, all bandaged" up, appeared in the pulpit to say a few words before he returned to the front. A Notable Change. France has travelled far since the days of General Andre, when men were certainly not encouraged to go to church, and when officers whose clerical sympathies had been denounced at headquarters, lost every chance of promotion. The country will continue to move along the same road. It is not likely that Jesuits or Benedictine Fathers, who in the hour of danger, forgetting the treatment they had received from Government and hastening to serve their country, have received promotion or the Cross of the Legion of Honor, will again be banished, when the war is over. It is not likely that a generation of men, who in the dread and danger of battle are experiencing the strength and stay of religious belief, will ever return to their former attitude. The French Peojfie and the Church. The war has approached the Church and the Army in a manner which appeals to the sense of chivalry in the nature of the French. The voice of the extreme Socialist and anti-militarist is no longer heard in the land. Misunderstandings have vanished; and it is no exaggeration to say that the attitude of the French people with regard to the Church is undergoing a complete change. Just as the war of 1870 and the fall of Napoleon marked the beginning of the estrangement, which ended with the disestablishment of the Church, so the present war will introduce a new epoch in the religious history of France. Government will be obliged to yield to the new tendencies, and will find other reasons to come to terms with the Church. There can be no doubt that Germany, if it had. been victorious, would have taken Christian interests in the East under its protection: to play the part of Lord Protector of the Holy Land and of Syria would have united the theatrical, romantic, and at the same time practical character of the Emperor William. The Protectorate in the East. The present state of things will make it an imperious duty for the French Government to resume the ancient protectorate over the convents, the schools, and the hospitals in the Levant and Syria. Turkey, moreover, by making war, by confiscating the French religious establishments and expelling the inmates, has raised a number of questions which can bo settled only by the intervention off the Head of the Catholic Church.

The action of the English Government in sending a representative v to the Vatican has been' widely commented on in the French press, and has given , rise to serious reflections. ‘We cannot close our eyes and leave matters to be settled by the Congregation of the Propaganda/ remarks ‘M. Hanotaux pertinently. Something more will have to be done. 7 There is no need to talk about the Government ‘ going to Canossa/ but the rulers of France will find, as Bismarck discovered during the Kulturkampf in his negotiations with Leo XIII., that measures must be found that will meet the renewed spirit of the people, and' remain in keeping with the old traditions of the country.