To complete the picture, it would be neces sary to show thousands of priests and several bishops dragged into civil courts for having said mass, for having dared to pray to God in the churches without having made the previous declaration required by the Briand circular, and acquitted or condemned (as were about half of them) according to the interpretation of the judge before whom they happened to be brought, because, if it was a crime according to the ministrial circular, it was not an offense according to the law invoked. This sort of thing appeared so ridiculous and so odious to public opinion that the government gave it 'up soon after and got up a new law to regulate in some manner the conduct of worship. This law ratifies and approves of all the confisca tions and spoliations of which we have been speaking. That is the only point in which it is clear. For the rest it only organizes anar chy and enacts arbitrary will. For instance, by a very peculiar application of its idea of separation, it turns the churches with their property over to the town councils; and we have seen those bodies in certain cities trying to interfere in such matters as the length of time children shall receive religious instruction, the date of the first communion and other reli gious functions.
In reality the men of the government do not know any way out of the difficulty. They feel themselves to be in a very embarrassing posi tion. Everything in the law was arranged as adapted for the so-called associations cultuelles which were the only authorized and legal or ganizations for public worship, and now, by the prohibition of the Holy See, which the government was so proud to ignore, there are no such associations for worship. So they will be obliged to propose laws according to each circumstance, which will never end the matter definitely, so long as they deny to Catholics the right of organizing the practice of their religion in conformity with the principles of their discipline and their hierarchy as it is done in America.
The Church on her side suffers extremely from this situation, especially in country par ishes and in poor dioceses. But what worries her the most is not the loss of all her former properties, which have all been taken by the government without exception; it is the abso lute impossibility of acquiring new ones, and of organizing anything at all. The Church, be cause she would not organize in the form of associations cultuelles, such as provided by the new law, has no legal right to exist. That is to say, practically nobody or nothing can rep resent a diocese or a parish in the eyes of the law. In America parishes and dioceses are
represented sometimes by an incorporated board of trustees, sometimes by the bishops as a corporation sole or in fee simple. But in France now there are no bishops and no rec tors of parishes as such, no trustees, no vestry men of any kind. The little wealth which the Church may happen to acquire and which the faithful may give to the bishops or the priest by hand will help them to live from day to day, but it belongs to the recipient, as an indi vidual, and if he dies, neither the diocese nor the parish, but only his personal heir, have a right to his property.
The bishops and priests, even as individuals, have no legal right to the churches nor to any furniture in the churches. And still they continue to use them, because the government does not dare to close the churches, knowing perfectly well that Frenchmen, however indif ferent many of them may be on other points, want to have their churches open for baptisms, marriages, burials and first communions. Man ners and customs of a people, imbued with Catholic faith and ideals for so many centuries, defeat the law hastily established by a mere political party which does not at all represent the truest and deepest feelings of the people. In reality, the present situation cannot remain as it is. Reason and justice will repair in the near future the ills from which the religious portion of the nation is suffering; and this, all the more certainly because through trials and bitter experience this portion will have learned not to exact unreasonable conditions, but will content itself with freedom. The Catholics of France ask for liberty as it is in Brazil and other countries which have recently made the separation between Church and State, and which have done well with it. There is a lib erty for which they do not ask, so far does it surpass their hopes. It is that liberty which exists in the United States. It would be too complete for our customs, impregnated as they are with the habits of Cxsarism and of abso lute monarchism. Who knows, perhaps, but that such a salutary example after all will exer cise a healthy influence upon us by helping us to enlarge our own freedom and acquire a spirit of mutual concord, by showing us that the greatest republic and the greatest democracy that history has known since the beginning of the world is at the same time able to be the most tolerant and the most respectful toward the rights of conscience and the rights of God.
Ant FELIX KLEIN, Prof esseur h.onoraire 6 rUniversite Calholique de Paris.