My Very Dear Brethren:
The painful tidings, announced semi-officially on Feb. 8, by the occupying power, have been confirmed. The bulletin of laws and edicts, dated Feb. 21, requires an inventory of the bells and organs of our churches. Informed by experience, we need not delude ourselves; the inventory of today is the signal for the requisition of tomorrow.
The repeated protests of the Sovereign Pontiff, our appeal to the Chancellor of the Empire, appear thus to have been in vain.
Your Christian hearts will bleed. At a time when we are in such need of comfort, a veil of mourning will descend upon our land, covering like a shroud our every day. It is to be for Catholic Belgium an interminable Way of the Cross.
It is true, is it not, dear brethren, that we should have borne this sorrow, added to so many others, if it had concerned ourselves alone, but this time the rights of God, of our Saviour, Jesus, the freedom of the Church and of her heritage are to be sacrificed to what is called necessity, that is, to the military need of our enemies.
"This term, liberty of the Church, rings harshly on the ears of politicians," writes the great Dom Gueranger. They immediately discern therein the signs of a conspiracy. Now there is no thought in our minds either of conspiracy or of revolt, but of the indefeasible affirmation of the rights granted to His Immaculate Spouse by our Saviour, Jesus.
The freedom of the Church lies in her complete independence with regard to all secular powers, not alone in her teachings of the Word, in the administering of the sacraments, in the untrammeled relations between all ranks of her Divine hierarchy, but also in the publishing and applying of her disciplinary decrees—in the conservation and administration of her temporal heritage.
"Nothing in the world is dearer to God than this liberty of His Church," says St. Anselm.
The Apostolic See, through the medium of Pope Pius VIII., wrote on June 30, 1830, to the Bishops of the Rhine Province: "It is in virtue of a Divine order that the Church, spotless spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, Jesus Christ, is free and subject to no earthly dominion."
"This freedom of the Church," continues Dom Gueranger, "is the bulwark of the very sanctuary, hence, the shepherd, sentinel of Israel, should not wait until the enemy has entered into the fold to sound the cry of alarm. The duty of protecting his flock begins for him at the moment of the enemy's siege of his outposts, upon whose safety depends the police of the entire city."
In the execution of this duty of our pastoral office we protest, dear brethren, against the injury which the forcible seizure of church property will cause to the liberty of our mother, the Holy Church.
We add that the removal of the bells without the consent of the religious authorities and despite their protests will be a sacrilege.
The bell is, in fact, a sacred object its function is sacred. It is a consecrated object; that is to say, it is devoted irrevocably to Divine service. It has been not only blessed but anointed by the Bishop with the holy oil and the holy chrism, just as you were anointed and consecrated at holy baptism; just as anointed and consecrated as the priest's hands which are to touch the consecrated wafer.
The function of the bell is holy. The bell is sanctified by the Holy Ghost, says the liturgy, sanctificetur a Spiritu Sancto, to the end that, in its voice, the faithful shall recognize the voice of the Church calling her children to hasten to her breast.
It announced your initiation into Christian life, your confirmation, your first communion. It announced, dear parents, your Christian marriage; it weeps for the dead; thrice daily it marks the mystery of the Incarnation; it recalls the immolation of the Lamb of God on the altar of sacrifice; it sings the joys of Sabbath rest, the cheer of our festivals of Christmas, of Easter, of Pentecost. Her prayers are associated with all the events and all the great memories, happy or unhappy, of the fatherland.
Yes, the seizure of our bells will be a profanation; whosoever assists in it will lend the hand to a sacrilege.
The Catholic Bishops of Germany and Austria will not deny these principles. If their patriotism has wrung from them concessions which must have cost their religious spirit dear, patriotism with us confirms on the contrary the law of resistance. We would be betraying the Church and the fatherland were we so cowardly as to permit without a public act of reprobation the taking away of metal to be converted by the enemy into engines of destruction, destined to carry death into the ranks of the heroes who are sacrificing themselves for us.
The authorities, strangers to our beliefs, will not be greatly moved, I fear, by the protest, however worthy of respect, of our religious consciences, but at least they should remember their given word and not tear up a juridical code which their believers have elaborated with us and promulgated. Morality has force of law for Governments as for individuals.
On Oct. 18, 1907, the representatives of forty-four Governments gathered together at The Hague, drew up a convention concerning laws and customs of war on land.
They were assembled, they proclaimed unanimously, for a double purpose—in the first place to safeguard peace and prevent armed conflicts between nations; and, in the second place, in the extreme hypothesis of an appeal to arms, to serve, nevertheless, the interests of humanity and the progressive demands of civilization by restraining, as much as possible, the rigors of war.
To this convention there was annexed a set of regulations which, the general tenor of its clauses having been examined a first and a second time, respectively, during the peace conferences held in 1874 at Brussels and in 1899 at The Hague, was submitted a third time, in 1907, to careful study at the second conference at The Hague and signed by the plenipotentiaries of all the great powers.
The first signer of this code of international law in wartime was Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, delegated by his Majesty, the German Emperor, King of Prussia.
Articles 52 and 46 of the regulations annexed to the convention are formulated as follows:
"Article 52. Neither requisitions in kind nor service can be demanded from communes or inhabitants, except for the necessities of the army of occupation."
"Article 46. Family honor and rights, individual life and private property, as well as religious convictions and worship, must be respected."
Evidently bells and organs are not necessary to supply the needs of the army of occupation, they lie in the domain of private property, are destined for the exercise of Catholic worship.
The transformation of these articles of the Church into war munitions will be, therefore, a flagrant violation of international law, an act of force perpetrated on the weaker by the stronger because he is the stronger.
We Belgians, who have never wished nor acted other than well toward Germany, we are the weak ones. I call you all to witness, brethren, is it not true that prior to 1914 a current of sympathy, of esteem, of generous hospitality was turning our trusting hearts toward those who are today so harshly oppressing us? You will remember that on the very day of the invasion the first lines that flowed from my pen spoke to you of those "whom we have the sorrow to call our enemies." For four years Germany has been rewarding us. Nevertheless, we will not rebel. You will not seek in desperate recourse to material force the sudden triumph of our rights.
Courage does not reside in passionate impulse but in self-mastery. We will offer to God in reparation for the sacrilege which is about to be committed against Him, and for the final success of our cause, our supreme sacrifice.
Let us pray, one for the other, that the arm of the All-Powerful may lend us support; "Lord," says the Holy Spirit, in the Book of Esther, "Lord, Sovereign Master, all is subject to Thy authority. Nothing, nobody, is capable of resisting Thee if Thou shalt decide to save Israel. * * * Grant our prayer, Lord! Transform our grief into joy, so that, living, we may glorify Thy name. * * * Thou art just, Lord. Now they are no longer satisfied to weigh us down under the most grievous servitude, they intend to silence the voices that praise Thee and to tarnish the glory of the temple. Remember us, O Lord. Reveal Thyself to us in this hour of our tribulation. * * * O God, Thou art exalted above all, hearken to the voice of those who place their hopes in Thee. Deliver us from the blows of injustice and grant that our courage may control our fears."
In the name of the freedom of the Church, in the name of the sanctity of the Catholic religion, in the name of international law, we condemn and reprove the seizure of the bells and organs of our churches; we forbid the clergy and faithful of our diocese to co-operate toward their removal; we refuse to accept the price of the sacred objects taken from us by violence.
Strong in invincible hope, we await the hour of our God.
D. J. CARDINAL MERCIER,
Archbishop of Malines.
