The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 28, 2 July 1924, Page 41

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day

A lie has more lives than a cat, and of all lies perhaps the most vital is the traditional story of the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day. Yet from any point of view it is difficult to see why, this particular massacreutterly atrocious as it wasshould have been able to hold the centre of the stage for so long, and hold it so completely. The world has forgotten the long civil war between the two great political parties of Catholic and Protestant, and regards the events of St. Bartholomew’s Day as a characteristic attack by bigoted Catholics on people whose only desire was to worship God in their own way. The truth is very different and even so bitter a controversialist as Dr. Littledale, author., of Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Home, wrote: “Everybody knows there was a horrible massacre of the French Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572; but few' know that the atrocities which the Protestants had committed ' at Bcaugency, Montauban, Nimes, Montpellier, Grenoble, and Lyons equalled, if they did not exceed, this terrible crime.”

It is necessary to remember these things: though in themselves they would be no excuse ‘for the Church if she could be proved guilty. But can she? >•'

Certainly the attempt to fix the blame on one or both of the two Popes, Pius V. or Gregory XIII., has failed. For Pius V. was dead four months before the massacre; and although in his lifetime he urged that the war then raging should be vigorously prosecuted, he'wrote not . a single line suggestive of treachery or massacre. Dr. Pastor in his latest volume again establishes the fact that there never has been any evidence against Pope Gregory, save for the commemorative medal struck by him, out of which so much capital is made. The explanation of this is very simple: the King of France sent to all the courts of Europe a story of a great Huguenot plot against his life from which he had been delivered —and the story was at first believed, with the result that Gregory had .a medal struck, and Queen Elizabeth spoke in approbation. One wonders .why the Pope’s medal is always quoted avid everyone is silent about Elizabeth standing sponsor to the French king’s daughter a few months later. -

The Popes, then, must, be acquitted. What of the Catholic hierarchy? As far as they had any part at all, it was to protect the Huguenots. At both Lisieux and Toulouse, the residence of the Bishop was a place of refuge; at Toulouse the convents and monasteries served the same purpose; the clergy at Nantes and Montpellier and NLinos (which had earlier been the scene of two frightful massacres by the Protestants) stayed the slaughter completely. But if Popes and clergy are not to be blamed, how can the Church be guilty ?

There is only one answer— King,. Charles IX.. end his mother, Catherine de Medici, the two people ma.in’y responsible, were Catholics. Yet is it not difficult to believe that resonable people should hold the Church guilty of every crime committed by a Catholic? It is as though Henry VIII. were cited as a proof that the Church of England taught polygamy, or the - Margrave of Brandenburg in support of a similar accusation against Lutheranism. ' In this particular case it is difficult to pretend, oven for argument’s sake t that religion played any part. Beligious motives were not in the least likely to sway/Catherine and her son — had, when political interests were pressing, made treaty with the Protestants, bothrothed Ids sister Margaret to the Protestant King of Navarre, and secretly given help to the Ptotestants in the Low ( ■non tries. The. massacre was but a move in the game of-no! tics ns played by the King’s party.—The Fortnightly Review (St. Louis). ■ T ■