20th August, 1906.

“AND the Lord said to Peter, Launch out into the deep,” Duc in altum. To-day again the successor of Peter has heard the word of command, Duc in altum. He has exercised that potentiorem principalitatem or eminent leadership ascribed to the Roman See by St. IrenÆus in the second century, and the whole leash of anti-clericals are transported with rage and surprise at this grand act of Pius X, the one contingency for which they were not prepared. The previous encyclical (Vehementer) had left them indifferent. They treated it as a mere rhetorical manoeuvre destined to cover a retreat, and as a covert acquiescence in their law of tyranny and spoliation.

The whole venom of this law is, as I wrote a year ago (August 19th, 1905), contained in the numerous articles that regard Associations cultuelles—which are aimed at the very life of the Church, by the destruction of her hierarchy, which is the basis of her constitution. In the English and American Press it is sought, disingenuously, to make-believe that these associations were merely “boards of trustees” to administer Church property, and that similar associations exist in the United States, England, Germany, etc., with the approbation of the Holy See. This is not so; French parishes already have fabriques and conseils de fabriques, that correspond to boards of trustees. They are abolished by the Law of Separation, and for them are substituted these Associations cultuelles, in which the bishops have no standing and no authority whatever. Any seven, twelve, or twenty-five persons, calling themselves Catholics, because they happen to be baptized, can form one of these associations, claim a church and all its revenues, and run the parish to suit themselves.

Even after one association has been legally formed “according to the general rules of worship” (Art. 4), a most ambiguous expression, which the lawmakers deliberately refused to make explicit, it is anticipated that scissions may occur, and that rival associations may claim the same Church property. In all these contentions the bishop has no voice except incidentally. The Conseil d’Etat, an administrative tribunal composed exclusively of Freemasons, is the supreme judge of the orthodoxy of these associations. The phrase “formed according to the general rules of worship” was supposed to offer ample guarantee to Catholics. Yet recently the Journal Officiel has officially registered four or five schismatic associations, formed by already interdicted priests. They are in insignificant hamlets, it is true, one of them being a parish of only 175 members, but they are test cases, and show how foolish it would have been to trust to the illusory guarantee offered by Article 4, “according to the general rules of organization of worship.”

The discussion raised by M. Combes with the Vatican, regarding the words nobis nominavit in the canonical investiture of French bishops presented by the Government as candidates, and then the affair of the deposition of the Bishops of Dijon and Laval, 1894, convinced them that a national schismatic church was impossible, so they fell back on this alternative scheme of Associations cultuelles, destined to set in motion a process of slow disintegration and gradual decomposition. A noted Freemason said recently, “Twenty years of secular schools have made us the masters of France; with twenty years of Associations cultuelles every trace of the Catholic religion in France will be effaced.”

In the Senate M. Berger, a Protestant Freemason, made the following interesting statement (Journal Officiel, p. 1380): “The law,” he said, “had been slumbering in the Republican programme for the past fifty years ... but how can a law be perfect that has had only one deliberation?... Instead of this a voice cries to us, ‘Vote, vote.’ Here are articles in disagreement with each other—Vote. They are in contradiction with the spirit of the law—Vote. They violate existing rights—Vote, vote. Do your duty as a Republican.... Well, yes, I will vote this law from a sense of duty.”[18]

This same senator described the true character of the Associations cultuelles when he said, “They are free associations destined to take the place of the ancient Church.”

Not less clear was the statement of M. Briand, Minister of Public Worship: “Dissensions may arise, not in matters of dogma only, but in questions of administration. We must allow those, who do not wish to submit, to form independent autonomous associations if they wish to use the same church.”

If Christians anywhere wonder at the severity of the papal encyclical rejecting these associations, it is because they have not even scanned the text of the law, and accept, unchallenged, the misrepresentations of a Press which seems to derive all its information from organs like La Lanterne, L’Action, Le SiÈcle, Le Temps, etc. This Law of alleged Separation presumes to dictate to the Catholic Church, an organization in which episcopal authority, the basis of her divinely given constitution, is completely set at naught. The Roman Pontiff, her supreme head, was not once consulted, and in order to make it impossible to do so, they began by severing all connexion with the Vatican in 1904. It is very much as if, after suppressing all their schools and colleges, the English Government were to pass a law declaring that Quakers and Presbyterians are to be deprived of all their ecclesiastical property unless they consent to adopt episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer. Would any one under these circumstances hesitate to say that Quakers and Presbyterians were persecuted? I trow not.

When Henry VIII had resolved to reduce the Church of England to the condition of a department of State, his first step was to undermine her constitution by removing the keystone of the arch. To do this it was necessary to detach the clergy from Rome, the See of Peter on whom the Church is founded. In 1530 he compelled them “to acknowledge the king to be the singular protector and only supreme lord, and, so far as the law of Christ will allow, supreme head of the English Church and clergy.” In 1532 Convocation further abdicated by the elimination of the saving clause, “as far as the law of Christ will allow.” They also consented to have their canon law revised by a Royal Commission, “with a view to the elimination of all canons contrary to the laws of God and of the realm.” Their abdication and submission were recorded in an Act of Parliament, and “henceforth,” writes Wakeman, the Anglican author of a history of the English Church, “the Church of England will be at the mercy of Parliament.” We all know how the schism and apostasy of this great province of the Church were consummated by Elizabeth. The fate of Moscow, and that of Constantinople five centuries before, was the same. Detached from Rome, they fell beneath the tyranny of the State.

It is this condition that the Judeo-Masonic coterie would fain have brought about in France. The seventy-six Organic Articles added surreptitiously to the Concordat of 1801 had no other object in view. But, as M. Combes admitted in the Chambers, the Papacy never accepted them, and no government had ever succeeded in enforcing them. The question of nobis nominavit and that of the Bishops of Dijon and Laval were the last abortive efforts to bring about a schism. Failing this, they resolved to reduce the Church in France to the condition of a Polish Diet, in which the Conseil d’Etat, i.e. the Grand Orient, would have enjoyed an unlimited liberum veto.

Even legally speaking, these Associations cultuelles could not function normally, because their situation was anomalous. They were neither owners, usufruitiers, nor simple tenants of the Church property of which they had the charge and the responsibility. The law is, as I said before, full of antinomies and obscurities. Senators of the Right pointed them out one by one. All in vain. Decrees of Conseil d’Etat will settle every question as it arises was always the Government’s reply.

The trap was smartly constructed, and neatly baited with the greater portion of the present patrimony of the Church, some two million pounds, it is said, and all Church edifices, etc. Everything is to be confiscated if Associations cultuelles are not formed by December 11th, 1906.

Considering the disastrous consequences of not forming associations, it is not surprising that some Catholics, and even some priests, were disposed, once more, to retreat before the enemy by forming some kind of Janus-faced association, canonical on one side, and in conformity with the law on the other. But it is absolutely false that a majority, or even a minority, of the bishops at the Assembly were in favour of the acceptation of the Law, telle quelle.

The clergy and the Catholics of France have been retreating before the enemy for twenty years and more, quite forgetting the “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

Leo XIII, in his profound attachment to France, loyally lent his aid to the Third Republic when implored by M. Grevy. He begged the clergy and the Catholics to rally to the new regime in the interest of peace.

He even discountenanced the formation of a Catholic party in France at that time, because Catholics being divided, politically, into three camps—Royalists, Republicans, and Imperialists or Bonapartists—he feared strife, and did not wish the Catholic religion to be identified with any form of government.

At the time of Leo’s death the Journal de GenÈve (Protestant) declared that “this Pontiff had at least one miracle to his credit, in that to the end he had maintained kindly relations with an ungrateful Republic that repaid his condescendence and friendly aid by reiterated provocations.” This is quite true. The scholar laws of 1886, when this campaign against religion was begun by irreligious instruction, given under a mask of neutralitÉ, now completely laid aside; unjust fiscal laws against the Congregations; and finally the laws of 1901, 1902 and 1904 which embittered Leo’s last hours, were so many acts of hostility, leading up to the final assault, all foreseen and prepared in the Judeo-Masonic lodges since a century we may say. “Il faut sÉrier les questions,” said Gambetta, whose maxim was Le clericalism c’est l’ennemi; and “clericalism,” it seems now, means simply God. To-day, they openly proclaim that God is the enemy.

After destroying the outposts and the ramparts by the destruction of all her religious orders engaged in teaching, preaching, and ministering to the poor and the halt, it was resolved to storm the citadel, the Church of France herself, and the Law of alleged Separation was sprung upon the nation.

If any confirmation were needed as to the great hopes the Masonic coterie had founded on the Associations cultuelles, we find it in the unanimous outburst of surprise and fury which some of their more moderate Press organs sought in vain to dissimulate. Billingsgate cannot furnish the Lanterne with terms adequate to the occasion; all the more so, that from the beginning it has affirmed, in most scurrilous language, that never, never would the Church refuse the “liberalities” of the law, by which is meant the permission to keep some of her property. Three editorials of La Lanterne—November 25th, 1905, “Ils capitulent!”; August 16th, 1906, “C’est la guerre”; and “La folie suprÊme,” of August 20th—are most interesting revelations of the contemporary Jacobin mind.[19] Even the millions represented by the confiscation of the menses episcopales, etc., which the law had assigned to the Associations cultuelles, cannot console these sectarian Jacobins, whose budget shows a deficit of hundreds of millions. They loudly proclaim that the law must be enforced integrally, forgetting that the numerous articles regarding Associations cultuelles are already null and void, and that they themselves propose to annul those regarding pensions to aged priests. If they had the courage to enforce Article 35 of the law (police des cultes) every French bishop would be in prison for reading the encyclical of August 15th in the churches. Other articles of the police des cultes also fall to the ground, as they were aimed at Associations cultuelles, who were to be held responsible if a preacher used seditious language in the pulpit.

No Associations cultuelles will be formed except by Freemasons masquerading as Catholics; but at least there will be no confusion, no disorganization of the Church, which was the main purpose of the law. Thus has Pius X unmasked their batteries and spiked their guns. They will have to resort to other arms, those of undisguised persecution, the very thing they wished, above all, to avoid.

Little is left standing of the Law of Separation but the articles of spoliation and confiscation. If these Jacobins have the courage to enforce them “integrally,” as they say, even to the confiscation of Church edifices, it will mean, for the present, the most threadbare poverty. Whether they will dare to do so remains to be seen.

M. Clemenceau stopped the inventories, because, he said, “it was not worth while to have riots and bloodshed for the pleasure of counting a few candelabras.” He and his employers may find that it is not worth while to risk the Republic for the sake of some Church edifices, for which they have no use.

They may content themselves for the present with seizing all the available cash, which will go the way of the “billions” of the Congregations, and the exchequer will grow poorer and poorer, till the vanishing point of national bankruptcy is reached as in 1793.[20]

Referring to the critical condition in which the Church was placed under the feudal system owing to the abusive practice of investiture by laymen of ecclesiastical dignitaries, Guizot writes: “There was but one force adequate to save the Church from anarchy and dissolution, this was the Papacy” (History of Civilization).

To-day also, the Papacy, alone, could rally the clergy and the faithful in complete unity, to offer a solid and compact resistance to these associations of a law of anarchy and dissolution. “That they all may be one that the world may believe” (John XVI).

By a stroke of his pen Pius X, whom these anti-clericals affect to despise as an ignorant peasant, has broken up their cunningly contrived trap. To reject the associations seemed fraught with dire consequences and a perilous launching into deep waters. Happily the French episcopate are worthy and equal to the emergency. My “First Impressions” regarding them (p. 5) were correct.

Their addresses to Pius X and to their flocks, form, with the encyclicals “Vehementer” and “Gravissimo” (15th August), one of the grandest pages of the annals of the Church. “Satan hath desired to sift you as wheat”; to sift you in sore persecutions; to sift you by poverty and by riches; to sift you in the flux and reflux of barbarian invasions; to sift you in the ruins of crumbling empires, that you, like them, might become as “dust which the wind scattereth,” the dust of sects and schisms and national churches. “But I have prayed for thee, Peter, and thou, confirm thy brethren.” Duc in altum.