"You assert that Rome provoked all this; but you state in your report that Rome at this very moment is giving the example of forgiveness, of conciliation in the affair of Dijon, and in the affair of the nomination of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, wherein the Holy See is proceeding slowly in order not to make any choice which would injure our influence in the East.
"You have read the recent allocution of the Pope. It gives you sufficient guarantees of moderation to enable you to enter into this conference with full dignity. There is no intention of humiliating France, or of rehearsing the calamities we have suffered. No! all that is asked for is that you should confer, negotiate, so that the country may not experience the saddest and most cruel misfortunes. I hold no brief for religion, which does not concern me: I am speaking for the State, for which, in my small way, I am responsible. I am defending the rights of the State and the cause of religious peace.
"We have had enough of divisions, enough of mortal hatred, enough causes of enfeeblement! Look back a little. The preceding ministry could see nothing but a struggle against the congregations. That question covered the whole horizon. Let your view be larger and broader. Stand for the interests of France, of religious peace, for the interest of those very ideas which are so dear to you, the success of that separation upon which you have entered, and which I would desire like yourselves, if you would undertake it under conditions that are acceptable and less dangerous.
"But the separation which you propose I cannot in conscience accept. I cannot place my responsibility side by side with yours. We have not approved by vote the policy of the last cabinet. This law, such as you propose, imports a definitive rupture with the Holy See, and is thus the consequence and sorrowful crowning of that policy. We cannot approve of it, but we have a strong hope that the discussion of the various articles will show you still more the difficulty of their application, the dangers to which you are exposing yourselves. I desire most earnestly that, leaving aside all questions of personal ambition which have been the ruin of assemblies and led them into irreparable mistakes, leaving aside all conventional phrases, and acting solely in the interest of our country, you will come back to the true policy of France and the Republic."
LAW OF SEPARATION.
In the meantime, while the debate was in progress the great majority of Catholics could hardly believe in the possibility of separation. Events, however, refused to confirm their hopes. The Bill presented by the Government, confided to a Commission, and modified to the point of absolute stringency in the discussions, was finally adopted by the Chamber of Deputies on July 3, 1905. Docile to orders received, the Senatorial Commission, and afterwards the Senate itself, ratified the decision of the Chamber. The haste in putting the new law to a decisive vote was dictated by the fact that a new election was imminent. The law was accordingly voted definitively on December 6, 1905, and at once promulgated. The Council of State was allowed three months delay in order to prepare the details of the rules which should regulate the execution of the law. That delay would end in April, 1906, just a month before the ensuing elections. The Separation would thus be an accomplished fact before the entrance of a new Government.
According to the Law of Separation the State assumes the position of a Government professing no religion, though it pretends to guarantee liberty of conscience and the free exercise of religious worship. The Budget of Worship and all public maintenance of any religious church or society was suppressed. By this article the Catholic Church in France was deprived of 37,441,800 francs, or $7,488,360 a year. In order to make the odious item seem less heavy than it actually was, the law made provision for certain pensions. Thus ministers of religion who were not less than sixty years of age at the time the law was passed, and who had passed thirty years in ecclesiastical service, were to receive a life pension equivalent to three-fourths of their former salary. Such as were not less than forty-five years of age at the time, and who had passed twenty years in the religious service, were to receive a life pension of one-half of their former salary. To others less than forty-five years of age it granted pensions extending to from four to eight years, which allowances are to decrease progressively until at the end of eight years they shall be completely extinguished. A third article provides for an inventory of ecclesiastical property by government officials.
The crucial point in the Law of Separation was the attempt of the Government to place the administration of ecclesiastical property in the hands of certain organizations termed Associations of Worship. These associations were to consist of seven persons in a parish of one thousand people, of fifteen where the population is over twenty thousand, and of twenty-five where the number is greater. These associations can consist of lay people at least in the majority. They can build up a reserve fund, which, however, must be limited. Where the revenue is 5,000 francs, they can accumulate a sum only equal to three times their annual expense, and for others the reserve fund should not be in excess of over six times the annual outlay. The association must, moreover, accumulate a special fund, which is to be invested, for the purchase, construction, repair or decoration of the ecclesiastical property. By this article a large recognition is given to the hierarchy, since only such religious bodies can be represented as are in communion with the Church which formerly held the property. But by Article 8 the State proceeds to place itself as a judge over the bishops in cases where different religious bodies through their Associations of Worship lay claim to the property.
The other numerous items in the Law of Separation were merely such as might be expected in a law so hostile and so aggressive.
PROTEST OF PIUS X.