THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT IN FRANCE.
The conflict between the French government and the “unauthorized religious confraternities” is progressing. A late paper states that the government is privately imparting instructions to provincial prefects regarding their expulsion. These orders contemplate a strict compliance with the law, but permit no unnecessary harshness. “It is proposed,” says the Paris correspondent of the Methodist, “to force the Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and other church officials, to obey the regulations of the ‘Concordat,’ drawn up by and between Napoleon I. and Pope Pius VII., in 1801, which agreement, or ‘Concordat,’ they have been accustomed to observe as far as it pleased them to do so, and otherwise not. The “confraternities,” indorsed by the bishops, are preparing to test the validity of the act. The Methodist’s Paris correspondent gives the following details upon this subject:— “As far as the Jesuits are concerned, the decree orders the dissolution of their corporation throughout all France and Algeria, according to the terms of the ‘decree of Messidor, Year XII.,’ within three months from to-day. The first decree reads in part, thus: ‘A delay of three months is accorded to the aggregation or association, not authorized, called “of Jesus,” in order to dissolve itself in execution of the laws above cited, and to evacuate the establishments which it occupies upon the surface of the territory of the Republic. This delay will be prolonged until August 31, 1880, for the establishments in which literary or scientific education is given, by the care of this association, to youth. The Ministers of the Interior and Public Worship, and the Keeper of the Seals, and Minister of Justice, are charged with the execution of the present decree,’ etc. The second decree invites the other non-authorized congregations to see to it that they submit to the existing laws, and become authorized. That is the sense of the decree. No attempt will be made by the government (so it is announced) to expel Jesuits of foreign birth. The small number of them—only about 100—and other considerations, have caused the authorities to let them remain. “According to the official census of 1878, prepared under the direction of the Ministers of Public Worship and the Interior and of Justice, there are in France 7,444 males (religieux) and 14,003 females (religieuses) belonging to these unauthorized associations. There are, of these 7,444 religieux and 1,480 Jesuits, living in 56 establishments situated in 41 departments. At Paris there are 123 Jesuits, the largest number in any one city.” “Only a short time since, one of the highest officers of the French episcopacy said at a public ceremonial: ‘Quand on touche aux Jesuites, on touche à l’Eglise toute entière: nous sommes tous Jesuites!’ (When one touches the Jesuits, he strikes at the whole church: we are all Jesuits!) That is very true, indeed; and any people who wish to preserve their liberties, and any government which wishes its power respected, must see to it that the priesthood does not acquire political power among that people, nor have within its control the education of those who are to administer that government. “It may interest you to read a portion of the report of M. Jules Cazot, the Ministre de Justice, and M. Charles Lepère Ministre de l’Intérieur et des Cultes, presented to the president on this subject: ‘Monsieur le Président, it is a principle of our public right (common law) that no religious congregation, either of men or of women, may establish itself in France without a previous authorization. In opposition to these regulations, so clearly stated, a large number of congregations, both male and female, have been formed in France, especially under the second empire, and since the events of 1870. A census taken in 1877 proved the existence of 500 congregations not authorized, comprising nearly 22,000 religieux of both sexes.’ After alluding to the fact that, in 1845, M. Thiers addressed this celebrated ‘interpellation’ to the Guizot Cabinet, which ended in the Chamber of Deputies, almost unanimously, asking the government to apply the existing laws to the congregations not authorized, the report goes on to say that ‘among these congregations non-authorized there is one, much the most important of all, of which it is impossible to misconstrue the individual situation. We speak of the Society of Jesus, which has been interdicted at various epochs, and against which the national sentiment has always been pronounced,’ etc.” The following is from the Interior of May 20, 1880:— “The conflict in France between the government and the organized political conspiracy which calls itself the church, brings out the purpose and animus of the parties. The church has amassed great wealth since the backset which it received from the revolution of ’98 and the first empire; and this it is employing with great shrewdness in its conspiracy for the overthrow of republican institutions. The lines of action are two: 1. To push its creatures into places of responsibility and trust in the government, who are expected to use the civil power thus acquired in the directions both of weakening the government, and of increasing the prerogatives of the clergy; 2. To secure the control of education, and indoctrinate the rising generation with their ecclesiastico-political heresies. They lay especial stress in France on the doctrine that popular government is both impious and absurd; impious, because God has committed his power as governor of the world to the pope; and absurd, because all wisdom, political and religious, comes from above, not from the people. The converse of these doctrines—that is, the principle of private judgment and popular rights—is ‘rebellion’ against God and the rejection of the only true church, and will therefore be punished with eternal torment. “It was abundantly demonstrated years ago that this system was not in any true sense a religious organization—much less Christian—but a political power, having chiefly political and mercenary ends in view. Where it is in close alliance with a despotic government, over a superstitious and ignorant people, it monopolizes nearly all the civil authority. Where it is found among a free people, it is always in conspiracy against their liberties. Religion is to them only a means to an end, a cloak to cover their machinery and purposes. Their success in securing recognition as a true Christian church, from those whose modest claims to be disciples of Christ they scornfully contemn, and whose religious and civil liberties they seek to subvert, is only another line in the strong portrait of the anti-Christ, drawn by Christ himself.”