The War Upon Religion Part 22

Another element in the deceptive policy of Waldeck-Rousseau was the endeavor to bolster his proscriptive laws upon the a.s.sertion that they were intended to protect the secular clergy from the encroachments of the regulars. Hence the phrase: "The Church against the chapel." He ignored the fact that the secular clergy had no need of such protection inasmuch as the harmony between them and the religious orders was never called into question except by these anti-clericals who hated both religious and seculars.

Still further the same Waldeck-Rousseau took pains to falsify himself on more than one public occasion. Thus he a.s.sured M. Cochin and Mgr.

Gayraud that the law of July, 1901, would permit members of religious congregations to teach in establishments belonging to persons not members of the congregation, although he knew at the time that decrees were being formulated to prevent such practice.

When the iniquitous law was yet before the Chamber the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., in a letter to the superior generals of the orders and religious inst.i.tutes, complained bitterly of its purpose:

We have endeavored by every means to ward off from you a persecution so unworthy, and at the same time to save your country from evils as great as they are unmerited. That is why on many occasions we have pleaded your cause with all our power in the name of religion, of justice, of civilization.

But we have hoped in vain that our remonstrances would be heard. Behold, indeed, in these days, in a nation singularly fecund in religious vocations, and which we have always surrounded with our most particular care, the public powers have approved and promulgated laws of exception, apropos of which we have, a few months ago, raised our voice in the hope of preventing them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORPHANS DISPERSED IN PERSECUTION.]

The Livre Jaune, published in 1903, and containing diplomatic doc.u.ments, prints the words of Cardinal Rampolla in the name of the Holy Father:

The Holy Father, obedient to the duties imposed on him by his sacred ministry, has ordered the subscribed Secretary of State to protest, as he does protest in his august name, against the above law, as being an unjust law of reprisals and of exception, which excludes honest and worthy citizens from the benefits of the common right, which equally wounds the rights of the Church, which is in opposition to natural right, and which is at the same time replete with deplorable consequences. It would be superfluous to point out how such a law, on the one side, restrains the liberty of the Church guaranteed by a solemn contract, and prevents the Church from fulfilling her divine mission by depriving her of precious co-operators, while on the other hand, it increases bitterness of spirit at a moment when the need of pacification is most vital and pressing, and it takes away from the State the most zealous apostles of civilization and charity, the most efficacious propagators of the French name, the French tongue and French prestige abroad.

The effects of this law which has been well characterized as anti-social, inhuman, anti-religious, and anti-French, began to be felt at once. Many religious orders, such as the Jesuits, the a.s.sumptionists, the Benedictines, Carmelites, etc., foreseeing that legal authorization would be denied them, abandoned their country, their colleges and their convents; many others still hoped. The Government into whose hands they had fallen had invited them to seek authorization, and there was no reason, apparently, to suppose that this invitation was only a mockery.

Still others, which had formerly been authorized, imagined that they might still continue in the enjoyment of such recognition. Both the latter cla.s.ses were, however, deceived. According to the new law a congregation "might not found a new establishment except in virtue of a decree issued by the Council of State." It was thus difficult to see how the law could effect the establishments already founded. The promulgators of the bill, however, intended to confine themselves within no limits, and hence their purpose was very soon made plain. By a circular of December 15, 1901, the law was formally extended to include all establishments, both old and new, going back as far as those recognized in 1825. Later still, January 23, 1902, the Council of State decided that: "in the case of the opening of a school by one or more congregationists, that school should be considered as a new establishment opened by the congregation, whoever might be proprietor or tenant." A few days later, February 8, Waldeck-Rousseau sent notice of the same to the prefects. By these various circulars the law was thus aimed at all new schools founded by the congregations, at all new schools not founded by the congregations, but directed by religious, and at all old schools founded by the congregations.

It is a notable fact that these iniquitous extensions of an evil law were perpetrated in spite of the clearest a.s.surances of the Government that the two latter cla.s.ses of schools should not be touched. Even as late as February 4, 1902, the Government responded to a request of the Holy Father for an explanation of its intentions, by a note from M.

Delca.s.se, which reads as follows:

Paris, February 4, 1902.

The Council of Ministers have decided that the law of July, 1901, should not have a retroactive effect, and did not apply to educational establishments opened in virtue of the law of 1886. The conclusions of the Council of State enumerated in your despatch of January 29, do not touch them. This was a point with which the Nuncio was very much preoccupied. Mgr.

Lorenzelli appears to be fully satisfied with the decision of the Council, of which I immediately made him cognizant.--Delca.s.se.

The actions of the Government were thus in direct contradiction with its a.s.surances. Its protestations of fairness and leniency were falsified by its circulars and decrees. Its intentions were aimed at extermination complete and irrevocable.

The ending of Waldeck-Rousseau's career was pathetic and tragical. In 1904 he arose one day "from his bed of sickness to unburden his conscience by protesting against the anti-clerical fury of his ci-devant supporters and instruments. In vain he denounced the violations of his law of 1901, travestied by that of 1904 suppressing even authorized congregations. The verve of the great tribune had abandoned him. His speech was but a hollow echo of its former eloquence. Twice he reeled and was forced to steady himself by clinging to the railing. When he arose for the second time, to reply to the sarcasms of M. Combes, he suddenly lost the thread of his discourse, and before he had ended many benches were vacated; the forum, where his words had so often been greeted with wild applause, was almost empty." (Brodhead.--_Religious Persecution in France._)

His death came two years later. It was rumored that he attempted to commit suicide. Whether he received the last sacraments or not is not known. He had left instructions, however, that he was to be buried from his parish church of St. Clothilde.

_THE COMBES MINISTRY._

The seventh legislature was dissolved at the beginning of April, 1902, and preparations were at once begun for the election of its successor.

The point at issue in the approaching elections was the vindication or the condemnation of the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry, which had now been in office for three years. The result was entirely satisfactory to the parties whose life had been lived in open hostility to the Church. The Ministerialists, that is to say, the supporters of the administration of Waldeck-Rousseau, won 69 seats in the Chamber, as against 131 by the several elements of the opposition. The new legislature counted among its members ninety-six Radicals, eighty-three Republicans of the Left, 135 Radical-Socialists, forty-one Unified Socialists, fourteen Independent Socialists. Here were 369 men out of 500, every one of whom was pledged to exert every effort, by fair means or foul, to overthrow the life and power of the Church in France. As soon as the result of the election had become known Waldeck-Rousseau, as if satisfied with his work of destruction, resigned the ministry and retired to private life.

Before abandoning the active field of political life, Waldeck-Rousseau was careful to point out the man he desired to take his place and carry into execution the laws he had devised. This man was Emile Combes, the most violent of politicians. To this man, M. Loubet, who could not bear him--but who pa.s.sed his life in doing what he disapproved of, and in condemning in his speeches the very political acts which he signed with his name,--to this man M. Loubet hastened to confide the Presidency of the Council, and the direction of the Government. M. Combes! It is a name of ill omen, which echoes like the sound of a funeral bell among the cloisters in the empty convents, and by the firesides of Christian homes. The aged mutter the name and grow pale as if they had said an unholy thing. The little ones shrink to their mothers' side as the horror of that name strikes upon their innocent ears, for it brings back the memory of dear sisters who have vanished, engulfed as it were in the cavernous jaws of the anti-Christ. It is a name at which many lips hesitate when they utter the prayer! "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive those who have trespa.s.sed against us." Yet, they will hesitate only for the moment, for in those very communities which he has robbed and persecuted a prayer will ever go up to G.o.d for his conversion. It is the way in which the true Christian takes revenge upon those who wrong him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EMILE COMBES.]

Emile Combes is a native of Roquecourbe, in the south of France, where he was born on September 6, 1835. His parents were good, honest people, filled with that simple piety which characterizes the true French peasant. He had an uncle, the Abbe Gaubert, cure of Bion to whose generous interest the future politician owed his first advances in life.

Through the influence of this good man the young Combes entered, in 1846, the _pet.i.t seminaire_ of Castres, the scholars of which were supposed to have the first promptings of ecclesiastical vocation. During his college days the young man certainly gave every evidence of profound faith and devotion. The lessons of his pious mother made him, as he says himself, believe to the very depths of his soul. In his twentieth year he entered the Grand Seminary at Albi. While in this inst.i.tution he received minor orders, thereby proclaiming to the world his intention of preparing for the priesthood. For two years his purpose remained unchanged. He even fortified himself therein by deep and special studies in scholastic theology, and has left as memorials of his better life two treatises in that matter: _A Study of the Psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas_, and _The Controversy between St. Bernard and Abelard_, copies of which are still extant in the library of the Sorbonne at Paris.

Whether the vocation of Emile Combes was real or not, he certainly abandoned it in the midst of his ecclesiastical studies. He quitted the Seminary and became a professor in the College of the a.s.sumption at Nimes, an inst.i.tution established by the Abbe d'Alzon, founder of the religious order of the a.s.sumptionists. Here he remained for three years, until 1860. He taught then in another Catholic college at Pons.

Hitherto there had been no certain indications of a weakening in his faith. But in 1864, as he was attending the medical school at Paris, he met with Renan. The acquaintanceship developed the seeds of that atheism which has since become his ruling quality.

To one who reads French history it ought not to be surprising that a Catholic seminary should have sheltered the youth of a man like Combes.

Voltaire was a pupil of the Jesuits, whom he betrayed; Renan was once a student in St. Sulpice; Gambetta, the leader of anti-clericalism in the stormy 80's, studied in his boyhood in a _pet.i.t seminaire_. That they proved false to their early teaching is not remarkable when one considers the disaffection of an apostle who was privileged to enjoy an intimacy with the Savior of the world.

It was during his vacations in 1865 that Combes was initiated into the Freemasons. It marked the first step in that path which he was soon to follow with persistent energy. In 1868 he received his degree as doctor of medicine, a profession which he practised at Pons. In 1874 he was elected Mayor of that town. His real political life began in 1885 when he was elected senator. Re-elected in 1894, he accepted the ministry of Public Instruction, Fine Arts and Worship in the Bourgeois Cabinet, wherein he showed himself one of the most obstinate promoters of lay education as opposed to that of the clergy. It was at this time that he inaugurated, in his relations with the Vatican relative to the Concordat, the policy which, ten years later, led to the separation of Church and State.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PROTEST OF FRENCH AUTHORS AGAINST COMBES.]

As President of the Democratic Left in the Senate he lent his efforts to the policy of Waldeck-Rousseau from 1899 to 1902. He was elected President of the Senatorial Commission on the Law of a.s.sociations; he contributed largely to its adoption, and notably to the vote on Article 14, when he declared in the tribune his conviction of the moral incompatibility of the profession of teaching with the doctrine and life of the monastic orders. On June 7, 1902, upon the recommendation of Rousseau, he succeeded to the Presidency of the Council thereby becoming Premier in the Government.

His first words upon taking up this office signalized his determination of carrying on to its ultimate issue the war just inaugurated against the Catholic Church. "What can the new Cabinet do," he asked, "what can any cabinet do but continue the policy of that which precedes us, a policy which is resumed by saying that it has been nothing more than an incessant war of the Republican party against two dangers which republican unity alone can overcome; Caesarian reaction, and theocratic pretensions. That is the policy which we are determined to pursue and which we invite you to pursue with us until we have completely disarmed the enemy."

An _order of the day_ was pa.s.sed voting confidence in the Government, and thus adopting as the policy of the Chambers, the war plan enunciated by the President of the Council. This was the work of the four groups of the Left, all radical and anti-religious to the depths of their hearts.

The _bloc_, as they called this cohesion of the different parties of the ministerial majority, was thus const.i.tuted, and adopted as its plan of action the war against Catholicity.

The new Premier set to work at once to put into execution the law of July 1, 1901. Beginning with schools recently opened, that is, posterity to the late law, he closed at one stroke on July 15, 1902, as many as 2500. The congregationist teachers were allowed only eight days before abandoning their establishments and retiring to their mother houses. It was an illegal act in itself; it not only aggravated unduly the rigor of the law, but it was also irregular in form, since Article 13 of the law declared that a measure of this nature could not be taken except "by a decree emanating from the Council of the ministers," and not by a simple circular as in the present case.

Cardinal Richard, upon learning of this execution, wrote immediately to M. Loubet a letter to which many other bishops hastened to give their adhesion; M. Jules Roche published a letter to the President of the Council (Combes) in which he proved that the law had been violated; a pet.i.tion was presented to M. Loubet by a delegation of the Christian mothers from the district of Saint-Roch. To these protests the Government answered by a presidential decree of Aug. 2, 1902--this time in legal form--whereby it declared the closing of 324 other establishments.

The war went on. In Brittany many scenes of open conflict took place as the troubled peasantry strove to prevent the sudden spoliation of those inst.i.tutions which they held dearest on earth. They had reason indeed to rebel, as the persecutors aimed not only at the extinction of their beloved teaching orders, but also at the destruction of that cherished Breton tongue which they had inherited from their fathers. The show of violence here and there manifested brought its inevitable consequences from a power only too anxious to find pretexts for persecution. The powers of many mayors were revoked, many ecclesiastics were deprived of their livings and correctional measures were p.r.o.nounced against all who dared to take part in the various manifestations. Then came other decrees in August, laicising _en ma.s.se_ the greater part of the public schools as yet directed by the congregations.

When the matter was brought into the Chamber (Oct. 13, 1902,) protests went up eloquently from a number of indignant deputies. Conspicuous among these were such bright names as Messrs. Aynard, Baudry d'a.s.son, Denys Cochin, George Berry, de Ramel, Charles Benoist and the Count de Mun. The answer of the latter to the policy of Combes is worth recording:

Majorities may cover your actions and sanction your decisions, but nothing can efface the evil you have done. The country--for I speak not of Brittany alone--can never forget those scenes of odious violence executed by your orders, wherein we have witnessed commissaries of police, followed by armed marauders, storming the doors of private houses, not merely the doors of a religious dwelling, but the doors of my own house, to drive out into the streets humble ladies who consecrate their lives, their labors and their devotion to the instruction of the children of the people. Nothing--and understand it well--nothing can make us forget that; nothing above all can make us forget that you have condemned the soldiers of France to a.s.sist at such scenes, and to march with tears in their eyes, in the midst of a distracted and desperate crowd, the pathway of your persecutors. That shall never be forgotten! That shall never be pardoned.

While these things were going on the bishops of France framed a collective letter pet.i.tioning the Chambers to accede to the application for authorization made by the congregations. This letter when published contained the signatures of seventy-four bishops; only seven, for different reasons had deferred signing, though fully in sympathy with the movement. This letter, moderate and respectful, as it was, and merely asking in the way of pet.i.tion for favors that might easily be granted, was treated by the Council of State as a hostile manifesto and was declared "abusive" and as such it rendered its authors culpable before the law. The Archbishop of Besancon, together with the Bishops of Orleans and of Seez, were considered as the promoters of the doc.u.ment, and as such were deprived of their salaries.

When the war against all new establishments was well under way, the "Bloc" then took up the question of congregations unauthorized but applying in due legal form for the favor of authorization. This the orders had been instructed and encouraged to do. Their treatment displayed at once the insincerity and hatred of the Government. A "Commission on Congregations" was formed, composed of thirty-three members, of whom twenty-one were Freemasons. The Commission instructed the anti-clerical Rabier to draw up a bill. The discussions of the Chamber upon this bill, resulted in the dissolution of fifty-three orders of men. On March 18, 1903, twenty-five teaching congregations were suppressed, comprising 11,763 religious divided into 1690 communities. A few days later twenty-eight preaching orders received the same sentence. Among these were the Capuchins, the Redemptorists, the Dominicans, the Pa.s.sionists, the Salesians, the Franciscans, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Benedictines, the Fathers of the Oratory, the Barnabites, the Carmelites and many others. On March 26, the Carthusians, considered as a commercial order, were condemned by a vote of 322 against 222. It was at this time that the anti-clerical Rouanet uttered that saying so significant of the whole Governmental policy: "We need not concern ourselves with either legality or right." The proscriptions were hardly p.r.o.nounced than measures were at once taken for the liquidation of the property belonging to the dissolved congregations. We need not linger to relate the pathetic scenes accompanying the consequent expulsion of these fifty-three orders of men, nor the wave of indignation it produced throughout France and the civilized world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARDINAL RICHARD.]

After the congregations of men the war was carried on against similar orders of women. It was to no purpose that Messrs. Plichon and Grousseau demonstrated in the Chamber the confusion manifested in the articles of the bill which designated as teaching orders the congregations devoted to the hospitals, and those whose lives were purely contemplative; it was in vain that they showed forth the success of the incriminated orders that they brought forth the declarations of the majority of the munic.i.p.al councils p.r.o.nouncing for the maintenance of these orders. Even M. Leygues who had voted for the law of July 1, 1901, as Minister of Public Instruction at the time, declared that the new bill by rejecting the demands of the Sisters _en bloc_ was contrary to that law. In spite of all protests the project was voted and carried by a majority of 285 to 269. Thus eighty-one congregations of women were at a single blow dissolved.

On August 9, 1903, M. Combes speaking at Ma.r.s.eilles before a congress of teachers declared:

I have refused 12,600 pet.i.tions for authorization. This figure suppressed 9,934 teaching establishments, 1,856 hospital corps, and 822 establishments of a mixed nature, i.

e. hospitaller and teaching. Out of the 9,934 teaching establishments there are 1,770 situated in communes still wanting, I am sorry to say, in public schools.

The _Temps_ of December 4, 1903, declared that 10,049 schools had been closed within a period of eighteen months, and that there remained only 1,300 yet to be suppressed.

To these 10,049 schools must be added 165 colleges and 1,347 schools conducted by the twenty-five orders of men suppressed on the 18th of March preceding, as also the 517 establishments directed by the eighty-one congregations of women proscribed on June 24, thus representing a total of 12,000 congregationists schools stricken in the s.p.a.ce of eighteen months, with about 50,000 religious thrown out upon the streets, and more than 1,000,000 children deprived of their beloved instructors.

Charles Bota in his _Grand Faute des Catholiques de France_ thus reflects upon these sinister events:

One can well imagine what went on in the mother-houses, the communities and the schools which the decrees of suppression invaded, bringing ravage and desolation! What sad and heart-rending scenes! The odious perquisitions of procureurs and police commissaries goaded on by superior orders, or even perhaps--it looked that way sometimes--by the quality of the victims; the painful, insidious interrogatories wherein the simplicity and timidity of souls habituated to peace was violated; the alarm of the aged religious, of the sick and the infirm as they begged to know what it all meant; the returning religious hunted from their houses coming back to the mother-house to cast themselves weeping into the arms of their superiors, while the latter pointed out how the house was too small to receive them and too poor to afford them food; the uncertainty as to the morrow, the privations, the anguish, the moral tortures, the desperation of all; one should have seen such scenes near at hand to comprehend all that they meant. 'Ah!' cried M. Emile Olivier, 'all the cruelty, the tears, the consternation contained in those few words written by an official scribe upon the desk of a minister--On such a day, such a congregation of women will be dispersed.' They merited no regard, no commiseration those poor women so good to others, so delicate, so pure, that Taine could call them the pride of France.

The efforts of the enemy had thus far touched only unauthorized congregations. There were still many orders which lived in the possession of full authorization and which according to the existing laws had nothing to fear from the hatred of the anti-clericals. In this, however, they were very much deceived. A new bill directed at all religious teaching orders, of whatever kind or description, was introduced in the Chamber on February 29, 1904. Its first article, declaring the suppression, a.s.serted "teaching of every order and of every nature is interdicted in France to the congregations." It was adopted by a majority of eighty-seven votes on March 14. The second article stated that from the date of the promulgation of the law the teaching congregations could not receive new members, and that their novitiates must be dissolved. This article also--with the exception in favor of congregations destined for foreign schools--was adopted. It was decided, moreover, in article fourth, that novitiates for foreign missions could not maintain any of the dissolved congregations. The law was carried before the Senate, towards the end of June. It became a law of the land, with the official signature of M. Loubet, on July 8, 1904.

The triumph of anti-Christianism was thus complete, and the death sentence had been p.r.o.nounced against the very existence of the monastic life in France.

It might be of interest to introduce here some appreciations of the Premier who had done so much harm to France and who was soon to begin the first scenes in the last act of our sorrowful drama. M. Emile f.a.guet, though not a Catholic, nor inspired by any definite admiration for Catholic principles, thus characterizes M. Combes in his _l'Anticlericalism_: