French Catholicism: A New Era
Bois, Jules
FRENCH CATHOLICISM: A NEW ERA By JULES BOIS (The following article by M. Bois, distinguished French writer now in this country, gives a sane and hopeful estimate of religious conditions in...
...I feel assured that its acceptance will the time, Catholics rather in name than in fact, since mean the greatest good for the Church, for the rethey profess, more or less openly, atheism or agnosti- public, and for France...
...Even before the war, in certain French provinces where the communes are divided between CalvinistS and Catholics, I knew of Protestant ministers living in sincere friendship with the CUTeS, both struggling together against materialism and unbelief, and uniting to aid the unfortunate regardless of their creed...
...This idea is erroneous...
...However that may be, we are compelled painfully to realize that, for the time being, too many wellintentioned souls in Europe still persist in believing that the Church is inseparable from royalism or from some other reactionary and out-moded form of government...
...These discussions of ours form a part of our civilization...
...M. Alfred Poizat expressed the following accurate judgment concerning the standing of Catholics in France—not the "fanatics," but those who are least heard of and yet do most for the public interest: Owing to their admirable missions, Catholics play an almost preponderant role in colonial policies and an extremely significant one in all our external relations...
...I trust they will never cease, because they arise from a will to reform and to progress, firmly ingrained in the race, and indeed a characteristic of all conscious states that know how to enjoy freedom or are reaching out toward it...
...In France the reconciliation of ting its face towards organization and peace...
...Catholics have only to enter en masse, and the whole aspect of affairs will be quickly changed by their intervention...
...and consequently judgments favorable to us would not be difficult to find here...
...On the other hand, we must recognize that today French Protestants stand in the closest relations with the Catholics...
...There are those who were born in families Catholic in tradition, but who have drifted away—who live the lives of freethinkers and are such both in word and deed...
...But how set about to accomplish this...
...Anti-Semitism, for example, obtains many recruits from their ranks...
...The organization of our democracies is far from being perfect, but it is a beginning which permits the general will to find expression...
...During and after the war, priests were employed in 5i8 THE COMMONWEAL March 17, 1926 the service of France and enjoyed the confidence of the officials...
...We loathe such a procedure...
...The separation of church and state, whatever may be said of it, has been the first step in the path of tolerance and sympathy...
...In reality these men think and act as neo- most propitious...
...Saint Paul and the other Apostles, even when persecuted, always preached obedience tO the powers that be...
...Such Catholicism was the solemn wish expressed by Cardinal Lavigerie and Pope Leo XIII...
...This has been, and is, so much the more regrettable because of the large portion of the French people who respect religion but nevertheless detest on principle what they call "government by cures...
...Let us imagine that the Catholics of the United States should inaugurate a war upon its institutions, and demand a king or a dictator...
...In fact, it is only in America, with the rise of a democracy least troubled by the ancient dissensions, that the people have been granted freedom of belief and instruction, undisturbd by the state...
...rendering it constantly more Christian and making it an instrument better adapted to accomplish its purpose—the welfare of all, materially, intellectually, and spiritually...
...I make no absurd claim to offer here a solution for the difficulties which arise from time to time between the temporal and the spiritual—what Waldeck Rousseau called "the eternal torment of men...
...Morton Fullerton, who, in the Figaro, quoted these words of Leo XIII to an interviewer: uThe Church clings to only one corpse—the One hanging on the Cross...
...it is Life itself—not merely Life, present and future, but Life eternal...
...then there are those who resort to the Church only for their Baptism, First Communion and on occasions of marriage or death...
...on the contrary, he is its faithful defender...
...nay, more than this, he injures the Church in leading its enemies to accept such a statement...
...Unfortunately, this is what happened in France...
...The government of the republic, as established by a majority of the voters, is neither Jewish nor Protestant nor Catholic...
...The American Catholic has never set himself in opposition to the principles of his government and has no disposition to do so...
...Shall it be by indifference and isolation...
...FRENCH CATHOLICISM: A NEW ERA By JULES BOIS (The following article by M. Bois, distinguished French writer now in this country, gives a sane and hopeful estimate of religious conditions in France as this liberal thinker conceives them to be.—The Editors,) FOR a clear and correct understanding of the present condition of the religious problem in France, what is most necessary is a thorough acquaintance with our history, our character, and the methods of our political parties, which are quite different from those of other countries...
...Under the pretext of Catholicism, they wage war against all that displeases them and use religion for their own party purposes...
...By no means...
...These hangers-on are not merely useless—they are maleficent...
...Now, under the pretext of laying stress upon our political and religious discussions, it would not be fair to underestimate the services which France has rendered and is still rendering to religion and democracy...
...Not only in the history of France, but in that of all European nations, clergy and magistrates, feudal lords and bishops, Popes and kings are to be seen at grips with each other...
...And that is Why, at decisive moments, we note that the France of M. Painleve is the France of Colbert...
...But now, we have reason to hope that, with statesmen who understand the real interests of their country and who have the conception of a European, or even a world policy, we shall reach a "durable accordat" in freedom and mutual respect...
...On occasions and with their consent, it enters into relations with them, in order to utilize them for the general good...
...I believe that it was an American, Mr...
...The group which I have called the "fanatics," wage war on the republic, and thus compromise the others—the reasonable, the moderate— those who are both good citizens and Catholics in the best sense...
...but at least it means that, first, the Frenchman has an opinion, whereas we often are too lazy to have any...
...In the first place, it should be kept in mind that while the overwhelming majority of the French people is Catholic by birth and early training, only a minority of the adult population is Catholic in the strict sense of the term...
...A Catholic, if he be a Royalist—and this at his own cost—is as thoroughly within his right as a freethinker or a Protestant would be...
...How attain this end...
...Undoubtedly there has been wrong on both sides...
...On the contrary, if I read the meaning of the encyclical aright, Catholics must by no means neglect public affairs...
...They furnish the solid background of the nation, and form its principal elite...
...or again by indiscriminately waging war on public authorities and starting a condition of general dissension which would be particularly fatal to the expansion of religion, the existence of its clergy, and the multiplication of its followers...
...They have served to make the amorphous and easily influenced minds of the people believe that Catholics are reactionaries, obscurantists, dissatisfied on principle with any political regime, and thus they must take their March 17, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL share in the responsibility for all the calamities which have befallen the Church in France...
...Why...
...The article is entitled France Today, and bears the signature of the editor: Not that all is well in France...
...At first, with Combes of painful memory, we passed through a period of "discordat...
...France, through many crises, is moving surely in the same direction that American democracy has taken...
...But, let us for a moment suppose the impossible...
...But the bellicose spirit of certain Catholics has had the effect of strengthening the anti-clerical group within the republic...
...In order to explain this even summarily to strangers, one needs either to have been born a Frenchman or to have spent in France a sufficient length of time to have become familiar with our intellectual circles and the people at large...
...They should interest themselves in them, participating if possible in the government...
...Because this Corpse is not a dead body...
...When did our Lord suggest that, one day, there would be no cockle in the field, no poisonous fish in the net...
...The Concordat of Napoleon was inapplicable to present conditions...
...The evidence for the fight and for a relative gradual victory is sufficient...
...Distinguished Catholic leaders, such as Comte de Mun and Etienne Lamy, of the French Academy, have followed this ideal...
...For Catholics, the ideal and their duty are certainly in unison for the application to the whole world of the principles formulated by the recent encyclical, to the end that all ruling powers shall recognize the supremacy of Christ, the King—whether these powers be monarchies or republics...
...the new world is not turning toward pagans, while boasting to be proud defenders of the chaos and conflagration but is slowly and surely setthrone and the altar...
...However, I prefer to cite an English opinion, also a competent one, formulated as it is by a wellinformed periodical, the Inter-University Magazine, the organ of the University-Catholic Societies Federation...
...Religion with us has suffered from the fact that it has been possible for a misled multitude to regard Catholicism as essentially opposed to the reoublic...
...Both parties, Republican and Democratic, would combine to put a stop to this state of things and to throttle the rebellion...
...Present conditions are indeed cism...
...It satisfied neither of the contracting parties...
...Unfortunately, it is impossible to omit those who are called "the fanatics," eagerly pretending to be more Catholic than the Pope and their bishop...
...True Catholics stand for tradition, good sense, justice, labor—all the everyday virtues—not to speak of those supernatural virtues whose spring has never dried up, and which make the land of France a land of miracles...
...and his government, entrusted to the Protestant majority, remains faithful, on its part, to the standard of liberty, and permits Catholics to multiply their churches and their schools...
...Often these extremists, far from being real Catholics, take pleasure in announcing that they believe neither in God nor in the Gospel, but are, socially speaking, Catholics because of the spirit of order which characterizes Catholicism...
...If that freedom of discussion had existed in Germany before the war, instead of a mono-ideism, a unique obsession of conquest imposed by Kaiserism, probably that war would not have broken out...
...At any rate religious hatreds—I mean those of one religion for another—have long since died out in our country...
...It became a source of contention and bitterness...
...Never has France been so near a definite rupture with Rome as at the time of Louis XIV, who loved to term himself "le roy tres Chretien...
...The Frenchman, if he thinks it a false opinion, hates it, attacks it, and usually extends his attacks to the holder of it...
...afterwards, as a strange consequence, they at once set about creating as much disorder as possible...
...Evil befalls a country when it begins to attach too much importance to the noisy opinion of narrow and unbalanced sectarians, no matter what party they pretend to belong to, or on what side they happen to be...
...the best and most enlightened on both sides of the Personally, I vision a prosperous future for Catho- "barricade...
...Moreover, this condition of unhampered debate is most advantageous for Catholics, who have already profited by it and will continue to do so...
...Which does not imply that the government does not permit itself to recognize religious organizations and their ministers...
...They are found wherever work is going on in silence for the glory and the aggrandizement of the country...
...This party would certainly, under many circumstances, hold the balance of power...
...At that time Jansenism and Gallicanism were on the point of triumphing...
...and second, that the Frenchman has a conviction, which we are often the republic with Catholicism is urgently demanded by too vague-minded to have, and too fond of our comfort...
...Let the dead bury the dead...
...Such a determination has been couplies in France, provided they do not follow the political selled hY the highest authorities in the Church and in fanatics, whose nationalist leaders are indeed, most of the republic...
...At a dinner given recently to M. Edouard Trogan, editor of the Correspondant, the oldest and most important French Catholic magazine, on the occasion of his nomination as "chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur...
...The way is open to the "ralliement"—the sincere adhesion to the republic...
...The term "Catholic" is losely applied to several categories of citizens...
...they are to be accepted and made the most of...
...at any rate, it is neither of yesterday nor of today...
...They supply the majority of our illustrious generals...
...There is more of politics than of religion in the quarrels between what has been termed "anti-clericalism" and "clericalism...
...For the rest of the time, they give little thought to their religion, and consequently cannot have a true zeal for its defense except when their personal interests are concerned...
...I am persuaded that the best of our statesmen would view without displeasure, and even with positive relief, the formation of a Catholic party sincerely loyal to the republic, and capable of contributing, as in other countries, an element of solid, social, and moral principles which should rise to a policy of reforms carried out with moderation and poise...
...I do not think it would be opportune to ask of her now anything more than impartiality and good will toward all manifestations of worship...
...but he is illadvised to claim that his own political conviction and above all, that of his party, carries with it the Church...
...Religion has no political dogma, and recognizes any worthy form of government accepted by the governed...
...It is a significant fact that, after the war, a Protestant pastor was the first, as a member of our parliament, to request the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Holy See...
...It is apart from churches, beliefs, and unbeliefs...
...Would it not be to the advantage of the French Catholic to imitate the American Catholic, who is a good citizen, whether Republican or Democrat, and forms a part of the machinery of state, imbuing it with his own spirit for the progress of society as a whole ? Such Catholicism has been taught by the Popes, and such illustrious prelates, dead, but still living in our memory, as Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Ireland...
...Facts are not to be discussed...
...America, I know, already has a clear conception of our national temperament...
...it is not even, properly speaking, freethinking...
...This conflict has always existed more or less...
...They continue to make the history of France and to establish its main currents...
Vol. 3 • March 1926 • No. 19
