The state, moreover, took no more notice of the Church in establishing the new order of things than in doing away with the old.
It affected to ignore the Church and legis lated without at all concerning itself with her, exposing itself, in consequence, to that which happened, namely, to have the Church reject the work which the government had done, and destroy it entirely by pronouncing calmly its non possumus. But did the state, whilst dis posing alone of Church rights and property, act with justice and equity? Here in effect is what the law purposes: First the budget of worship is suppressed (Article 2). Now the budget was not entirely a favor dependent on the Concordat. It was morally, if not legally, bound by the obligation recognized by France in 1790, when the Church freely ceded all its property to the nation on the condition, solemnly accepted by the latter, that out of the revenues of that property a suitable compensation should be granted to the clergy. It is to the honor of the Church that she did not insist upon that point in the discus sion, but there was, in fact, an injustice, an offensive repudiation of a national debt.
But the state not merely gives nothing to the Church, it takes away from it, by Article 5, even the pious foundations anterior to the Concordat. It takes away from it, by Article 7, property real or personal affected with a charitable use or any other interest foreign to religious worship? that is to say that everything that has been given to the Church for purposes of charity or education will pass out of its possession into other hands, although the donors have specified that use in their gifts, and although every one of these gifts was approved, at the time it was made, by the Council of State.
Can you conceive of the Church being pro hibited to engage in works of charity and education? Isn't that sort of thing the natural sequence of religious action? Can you imagine that the intentions of the donors should be absolutely ignored? Article 12 denies to the Church any right of property in church buildings: "Building which serve for purpose of public worship or for the residence of ministers (cathedrals, churches, chapels, temples, synagogues, houses of archbishops and bishops, presbyteries, seminaries) with the outbuildings, pertain ing to them, and the furniture and ob jects therein contained at the time the said edifices were reconveyed for religious use, are and remain the property of the state, of the Department and of the Communes.° It is true that by Article 13 "buildings used for purposes of public worship with their furni ture and equipment shall be put free of charge at the disposal of public religious establish ments and thereafter to the associations sum moned to succeed them? but by the same article: "the cessation of this right of use and, if occasion arises, its transfer shall be pro nounced by decree, without right of appeal, by the Council of State in its judicial capacity, Notice also in the last words of Article 13, that, in spite of this precarious enjoyment of the mere use of property, the Associations "shall be held responsible for repairs of all kinds as well as for the cost of insurance and other charges pertaining to the buildings and to the furniture and equipment.* For other buildings, it is even simpler. According to Article 14: houses of archbishops and bishops, presbyteries, and their appurtenances, the Catholic theologi cal seminaries, and faculties of Protestant theology were to be all confiscated in any case after five years.
It is necessary to consider also that there was a possible confiscation threatening the Church in the future and which appeared to her authorities still less acceptable than the rest. Even if the Church had formed the re ligious associations to receive such church property as the law left to her, the title to that property could always be contested by a rival association usurping the same name, and, in case of a contest, the civil power in the per son of the Council of State, was alone to de cide, which of the two contestants was the legitimate heir of the property. The Liberals tried in vain to introduce by amendment of the Article one clear and assuring word, but they did not succeed in securing recognition of the bishops as in the Mexican law, nor of any governing body as is usual in the practical de cision of the American courts. From the
Catholic point of view, in which the hierarchy holds the first place, this fact made the law very difficult to accept, because, as M. Clemen ceau himself wrote in his newspaper L'Aurore, °from an association cultuelle thus vaguely de fined, there is only one step to schism.* Thus the law involved the spoliation of half the Church property and the insecure posses sion of the other half. There must be added to all this a number of annoying provisions, which perhaps do not really amount to much but which are scarcely compatible with a real separation. Thus Articles 5 and 22 oblige the Church to invest its funds in state securities which would be very susceptible of attachment. This referred especially to the proceeds of any property the Church might sell. Articles 22 and 21 limit narrowly the disposable re sources of the Church and provide for a de tailed audit of its receipts, of its expenses and of all its accounts by financial agents of the state. Articles 34 and 35 deprive priests of the right of recourse to the ordinary courts of justice and subject them, exceptionally, to judges named by the state, in cases where other citizens have the benefit of trial by jury. Finally, Article 36 makes the entire associa tion responsible for any fine imposed upon its priest, even though he spoke or acted without their knowledge or consent Are these the fair conditions of an honest separation and have not we a right to see in them only the semblance of separation, a com plete wiping out of every obligation of the state toward the Church, a perpetuation and in many cases an increase of the burdens and responsibilities of the Church toward the state? Never was there seen a more perfect ex emplification of M. Clemenceau's very original rendering of that text in the Gospel which says: "Render unto Cesar the things that are Caesar's . . . and everything is Cesar's.* After all that and especially if we had the time to go into the details of the threats which the Radicals made at the time, especially in the annual Masonic convention, not to limit them selves to the measures provided for by the law of 1905, but to go on and do worse, to continue their war on the Church until they should abolish it, it would perhaps seem less difficult to explain the conduct of the Pope and the Catholics who refused to recognize the law in any way, than to explain the conduct of those (a majority of the bishops, a minority of the priests and of the laymen) who before the decision of Rome wrote and spoke in favor of conciliation, that is to say, practically advised forming associations cultsselks. It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that they approved the law and thought it good in itself. Such was not their opinion; far from it. They merely thought that it was better at first to submit to that law and then to work energeti cally for its amelioration. They anticipated that, if it were rejected, they would, in any case, be compelled to organize upon some legal basis; and so they preferred to suffer the in conveniences of this law rather than expose themselves to greater ones which would occur from some existing law or from one which might be passed; they believed that the crea tion of associations cm:Wiles, containing in their provisions, as they were proposed by the assembly of the bishops, the most scrupulously minute precautions in favor of the hierarchy in order to obviate the danger of schism which the new law contained, represented a lesser evil, and that we ought not to crifice the part of the Church _property which vas left to us in that event. It seemed to th that thus we should have the advantages of the law along with its disadvantages, whilst otherwise we should have only the disadvantages of it; and above all, they were afraid of a threatening state of things, in which it would be impossible to organize the material life of the Church upon any legal basis.