In the meantime the question of the Cultuelle Associations was being strongly discussed among the Catholics of the land. Many, indeed, either through ignorance of their real import, or because they hoped through a compromise to pave the way to greater gains, were in favor of accepting the conditions offered by the Government in regard to these associations. The bishops, however, assembled early in the year to discuss the question. They displayed a resolution and courage worthy of the best traditions of the Church. They condemned almost unanimously the Cultuelle Associations as contrary to the constitution of the Church. Their decision was brought to Rome and submitted to the final judgment of the Holy See.
The Holy Father replied in the encyclical, "Gravissimo officii," of August 10, 1906, addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of France, and containing the instructions promised by the former encyclical, "Vehementer Nos." The Sovereign Pontiff again condemned the law of separation, and confirmed the almost unanimous decision of the assembly of the Bishops. He condemned the Cultuelle Associations as imposed by the law. He added, moreover: "We declare it is not permissible to try some other sort of Associations at once legal and canonical, and thus to preserve the Catholics of France from the grave complications that menace them, so long as it is not established in a sure and legal manner that, under the divine constitution of the Church, the immutable rights of the Roman Pontiff, and of the Bishops, their authority over necessary property of the Church, particularly over the sacred edifices, shall be irrevocably set in full security above the said Associations. To desire the contrary is impossible for us. It would be to betray the sanctity of our office without bringing peace to the Church of France."
The resolute attitude of the Holy Father came as a surprise to the French Ministry. They had imagined that the Pope would not dare to utter words of defiance against the fiat of an irreligious Bloc. They began to fear that any further aggressions must only sting the Catholics to organized opposition. The Bishops met again in September and issued to the Catholic people of France a Joint Pastoral letter signed by every Bishop, announcing their hearty agreement with the instructions of the Holy Father, and forbidding the establishment of of Cultuelle Associations. The Catholic body entered into the spirit of the hierarchy, and only a few unimportant individuals sought to contravene their authority.
The Government, fearing no doubt the effects of further drastic measures, began to modify the tenor of the law. The provision which required that the clergy might not hold religious service in a church without previously notifying the authorities in each case, was so changed that one general notice would suffice for the whole year. At the same time, however, the seminaries were to be closed and become the property of the Commune, while Bishops and priests might buy back or rent their own residences. The Holy Father, however, forbade the Bishops and clergy to furnish the notification about public worship: they were to continue to minister in their churches after the term of the notification had expired as if nothing had occurred.
The stand taken by the Holy See was looked upon by the French Government as a declaration of war, and it accordingly began to exercise newer methods of retaliation. On December 12, 1906, the Papal Nuncio, Mgr. Montagnini, who was then in Paris guarding the archives of the Holy See, was expelled from France, the Nunciature was surrounded, and the papers found therein were seized. It was in vain that the Vatican protested: the Government pursued its oppressive policy with all the more vigor. On December 15, Cardinal Richard was expelled from his archiepiscopal residence, and later the seminarians were driven from the seminaries.
The position of the Catholics in France was thus rendered humiliating and desperate. They still continued, as they do at present, to hold divine service in the churches, but always with the eyes of a hostile Government fixed upon them, scrutinizing their actions, and criticizing their words. The clergy, deprived of their usual stipend, are forced to seek in various kinds of employment the necessary sustentation of life except when the generosity of the faithful enables them to observe the discipline of the Church which ordinarily forbids the clergy to seek their support elsewhere than from the altar.
One of the effects of the separation law was that the Holy Father was liberated from the vexatious interference of the French Government in the appointment of Bishops. Accordingly on February 25. 1906, the Holy Father himself not only appointed fifteen new Bishops but even consecrated them with his own hands in St. Peter's in Rome. It was the first time that a Pope consecrated so large a number of prelates at one time.
The fall of the year 1906 was marked by the creation of a new cabinet of which M. Georges Clemenceau was Premier. The new cabinet included among its members anti-clericals of the most aggressive kind, such as Briand, Doumergue, Picquart, and Viviani. It was this Viviani who, a few years previously had uttered the notorious boast: "We have at last extinguished the lights of Heaven."
Georges Clemenceau has been a rabid foe to Religion and to the Church from the very beginning of his political career. In 1880 he founded for this purpose a journal, "La Justice," and was a powerful advocate of aggression during the Dreyfus trial. From 1883 to 1893 he was looked upon as the master of the political situation in France. In 1901 he founded a weekly paper, "Le Bloc." It was this paper which gave the name to the infamous party which engineered the present anti-Catholic war in France. He has been identified with all the oppressive measures by which the French Government has, of late, striven to vex the French Church. It was only in accordance with his deserts that he himself was driven in disgrace from his leadership in the fall of 1909, when he was succeeded by the no less aggressive but more hypocritical M. Briand.
One of the most shameful features in the French Government's war on the Church was the affair of liquidation. When the Congregations had been dispersed and their property confiscated, the Government appointed certain officials, called liquidators, whose office it was to superintend the sale of Religious property. The first estimates of the sum which might be realized by the sale of this property placed the total amount at 1,000,000,000 francs, the sum which, during the last few years has dwindled down to ridiculously small figures. The recent affair of M. Duez has brought out the whole official corruption of the scheme. M. Duez, one of the three original liquidators attached to the Seine Tribunal, began life as a clerk in a large department store. Afterwards, as solicitor's clerk, he embezzled 500,000 francs. In spite of this he was appointed one of the liquidators for the sale of Church property. In this capacity he handled millions of francs. For a time things went on well enough until the failures of some of the liquidators to produce anything but continual expenses began to arouse the suspicions of the Government. In 1906 the Government was forced to require from the liquidators an annual report of their proceedings. The report, issued toward the end of 1907, was a curious document. Finding that their embezzlements were being exposed, the liquidators began to claim that their work had been seriously hampered by threats of excommunications against the buyers of the property, and by the opposition of the Congregations and others who professed to have claims upon the property. Moreover, it was said that M. Waldeck-Rousseau's estimate of a milliard was excessive, for the net result of the liquidation of one hundred and fifteen Congregations was not more than 189,932 francs. Of these one hundred and fifteen liquidations, sixty-nine produced absolutely nothing, yet the liquidators brought in bills amounting to 62,000 francs besides the 24,000 francs, which were the fees of the lawyers.