Church edifices and everything pertaining thereto, as well as pious legacies (fondations), are to confiscated, if Associations cultuelles are not formed before 6th December, 1906, or if said associations are dissolved for any of the five cases foreseen by the law ironically called of “Separation.” Lineal descendants may claim fondations made by ancestors, but this liberal provision is illusory, as all important bequests are made by people who are childless. Thus the dead are despoiled as well as the living.
The recitals which fill the daily papers of churches besieged and assaulted by gens d’armes and the regular army are very sickening, coming so soon after a similar campaign against convents. There are places where no workmen will break down doors or pick locks for the fiscal agents, and they are obliged to carry operators, or official crocheteurs, around with them.
Recently two thousand soldiers were mobilized against a village church. In many places the regular army have occupied the churches, unexpectedly, before daylight, and thus the people were outwitted and the inventories were made quietly. Though, if we may believe a functionary interviewed by a reporter of the Journal de Génève, not one inventory has been made thoroughly, as the Government is very anxious to have it over. The probability is that the odious work will soon be suspended entirely, so that all may be forgotten before the elections of May.[16]
Yesterday two superior officers of the Engineering Corps at Cherbourg had their swords broken by the Government, because they manifested their disgust too openly. Many others are under arrest, because they refused to lead the assault on Church edifices, and their careers may be considered at an end.[17]
The first article of this Law of alleged Separation declares that “the Republic assures liberty of conscience.” Yet surely it is a violation of liberty of conscience to command a Catholic officer to batter down the doors of his parish church. Moreover, when this article of the law was being discussed in the Senate, the Minister of Cults (M. Briand), speaking for the Government (as M. Rouvier was never present!), gave it to be clearly understood that functionaries would never be allowed to send their children to any but government schools! Yet surely it must be a matter of conscience with any Catholic to send his children to schools, which are frankly and aggressively materialistic and atheist.
Article II declares that “the Republic recognizes, salaries, and subventions no religion.” This too must not be taken literally. For, as I anticipated last year (May 29th), this law, made against thirty-five million French Catholics, is not applicable to six million Mohammedans of Algeria. Their mosques, their ulemas, their schools and congregations will continue to be supported by the Republic which neither recognizes nor supports any religion. This is just, seeing that the Third Republic took all their ecclesiastical property, promising annual subsidies instead, just as the Jacobins of 1790 did with regard to the Catholics, only in the latter case the capital appropriated is retained, while the charge is repudiated.
Meanwhile Islamism is the state religion of France, ipso facto; the only one whose ceremonies and mosques are honoured by government officials on solemn occasions. Shades of Godfrey de Bouillon and St. Louis!
Spoliation and poverty would be endurable if only the Church were truly separated from the State. But the latter presumes to dictate to the Church a new organization of its parishes (Associations cultuelles), to limit its financial resources, and decide how these are to be obtained, how they must be invested, and what use may be made of them.
DUC IN ALTUM
20th August, 1906.