The Civil and Ecclesiastical Contest in Belgium

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 19, 1880.

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 8

The Civil and Ecclesiastical Contest in Belgium.

THE old contest—the contest of centuries—as to whether government or the priesthood shall be supreme, is being waged in Belgium. By the existing Constitution full religious liberty is granted, and ministers of all denominations may draw part of their stipends from the national treasury. The sums thus granted by a recent budget were 4,500,000 francs to the Roman Catholics, who comprise over 99 per cent of the population; 69,366 francs to Protestants, who number 13,000; and 11,220 francs to Jews, who number about 1,500. The Romish clergy have sullenly acquiesced in this toleration of the comparatively few heretics, and revenged themselves by securing almost the entire monopoly of education. Yet elementary education is by no means general or efficient. As usual, the priests have been chiefly solicitous to consolidate and extend their own power. The Minister of Justice recently stated in the Belgian Chamber that the clergy are too numerous, and pass their time in political agitation. Other speakers demanded the suppression of all the illegal privileges hitherto granted to the clergy, such as the corporate rights of certain religious communities, the payment of subsidies to the great seminaries, foundations for the saying of masses, and the exemption of seminaries from military service.

The immediate occasion of this debate was the high-handed procedure of the Belgian bishops with regard to the recent education law, which curtails the clerical power. They threatened with excommunication all teachers who accepted the new enactment; and no fewer than 2,472 teachers have already resigned their posts, and the number is daily increasing. The government has not been slow to accept the gage of battle thrown down by the priests, and has declared that this is only part of a much larger question that has to be fought out, involving the entire relations of Belgium with the Vatican. It declares that for eight years, under a Catholic cabinet, and encouraged by Pius IX., the clergy had been engaged in a movement hostile to Belgian national institutions. The priests and the bishops furnished up and used, as far as they dared, the old weapons of persecution, until the government were constrained, in the speech from the throne, at the opening of the session of 1877, to express a determination to uphold the Constitution and to defend the popular liberties. The legation was withdrawn from the Vatican; and with a view of raising an internal barrier against attacks upon civil rights, a Ministry of Public Instruction was created, This precipitated a crisis. The clerical party found it convenient to proclaim that the appointment was intended as a declaration of war against Catholics; because it was seen that the priests would no longer have the supreme control of education. Some of the Belgian bishops rendered themselves conspicuous by their fierce denunciations of the new educational law, and by their attitude of antagonism to the government. But their superiors at Rome discerned danger in this defiant attitude. The Vatican has usually been astute enough to be politic and crafty, when such a course was more likely to secure its ends. The Papal Secretary of State told the Belgian representative so long ago as July, 1878, that he deplored and disapproved of the attacks on the national liberties made by certain Catholic journalists. Later on, Cardinal Nina, the new Secretary of State, said that the present pope had instructed him to give the most absolute assurance that such attacks would receive no encouragement or support at Rome. But here the characteristic subtlety of Romanism appeared. A diplomatic document was sent to the Belgian cabinet stating that while the Vatican recognized that the bishops were correct as to doctrine, they had drawn inopportune deductions from principles which were in themselves just, and had pushed those conclusions too far. In other words, the Ultramontane claim to be supreme over civil affairs was just and valid; only this was not the time or the occasion to enforce it.

All this was publicly stated by the Belgian Premier in his place in Parliament. The zealots among the clerical factions are furious, but for the most part they have taken the cue from Rome, and now protest their admiration of and their fidelity to the Constitution, which, until a few weeks ago, they declared to be the direct work of Satan. On the other hand, the advanced Liberals of the country hold that the pope has really made no concessions, but has only temporized before a threatening storm. One thing, however, is certain. The events of the last year or two, and especially the debates in the Chamber, will encourage and reinforce the ranks of those who have long been demanding a complete separation between the State and the subsidized churches. The absolute and irreconcilable incompatibility between a dominant priesthood and freedom is also brought out in bold relief, for the warning of modern statesmen. The battle for supremacy is deferred, not ended; and the sooner it is fought out the better will it be, not only for Belgium but for humanity and the cause of true progress. Romanism in that country is strong by reason of its numbers and wealth; but it is not so strong as to triumph over public rights and liberties, if only the nation is true to itself. Certain it is, that these events cannot fail to hasten on the dawn of full religious equality.—Christian at Work.