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.