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Show THE CONCORDAT. j In France on last Wednesday a committee of the j Chamber of Deputies brought in a report in which it denounces the concordat between Church and State, and in strong terms demands its abrogation. This action will, it is to be expected, be accepted at the Vatican with more than mere passive acquiescence. acqui-escence. Provided the French government is at all fair and just in tho new arrangement it has to propose, pro-pose, there need to be no regrets on behalf of the Church. The absolute independence of the Church must everywhere prevail if she is to be permitted to exercise her benign influence in elevating mankind, man-kind, -unrestrained and unhampered. To be compelled com-pelled to brook tho intercference of the type of politicians poli-ticians with which poor France is, at the present day, infested, is simply intolerable. It may be presumed pre-sumed that the Holy Father is felicitating himself that he has been relieved of the necessity of assuming assum-ing the initiative in the abrogation of the obnoxious concordat; for that it had become obnoxious to him under the modern regime he has more than once manifested by his words at least inferentially. It now remains to bo seen whether the govern" mcnt shall be animated by a spirit of justice and equity and thus render it possible for the Church to accept its terms unprotestingly.. If, however, the dominant party should, because of the virulence of the anti-clerical rabies, which afflicts many of its members, attempt to inflict unjust, unfair and onerous conditions upon the Church, it is to be hoped that the people 'of the country, a large majority ma-jority of whom are devoted Catholics', will not supinely su-pinely submit to the perpetration of the outrage upon their sacred rights and liberties. |