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Show Dire Persecution Feared in France Having Passed a BUI Dissolving the Religious Orders, the ' French Government May Also Strike a Blow at I The Secular Clergy. j Vatican rumor in the midst of the French disturbance has it this week that there is a serious possibility that the French government, having at last passed a bill which will emasculate or dissolve the religious orders, "will strike a blow also at the secular clergy by abrogating Napoleon's concordat of 1801. Under that stipulation all ecclesiastical eccle-siastical property seized during the revolution rev-olution was still to continue the property prop-erty of the government, all bishops were to be appointed by nomination of the government, the Vatican concurring, concur-ring, and all cures, even, were to be contirmable by the civil authority; but the government agreed to pay a reasonable rea-sonable stipend or "allocation," for the support of the clergy. What is now feared is that the concordat, which has been in force ever since it was signed, vvill.be denounced by France and the clergy left with neither property nor allocation. This intention, if it exists,-would remove re-move the last doubt as to the real motive mo-tive of the present campaign against the orders. That the secular clergy, dependent as they have been upon the government, not only for advancement, but for their very bread and butter, have busied themselves as little as they know how with political concerns which might attract the lightning of government displeasure, is a matter of-' melancholy notoriety. That they, as well as the orders, are the objects of Premier Combes's purpose is plain enough evidence that it is Catholicism, not orders as such, that he and his allies would strike down. Whether the concordat is to be denounced de-nounced or not, moreover, there is other evidence to the same effect. Hundreds of parish priests are defendants defend-ants under arr.est for alleged utterances utter-ances subversive of the republic. Until now the uretense has uniformly uni-formly been made that the movement agamst--the orders-was.-for self-protection on the part of the Republic. The familiar charge is that the religious became clsely affiliated with' the monarchists, mon-archists, and usually were able to influence in-fluence the secular clergy to the same sympathy, so that under the third republic re-public both seculars and religious were agents of disaffection. At any rate. in 1902 Leo XIII issued an encyclical I calling upon the French clergy to sub-! sub-! mit and recognize the republic as the lawful government. Tne seculars, so M. Combes would say, became reconciled recon-ciled to the inevitable, but the orders did not. The fact was that while the concordat gave the government control over the secular clergy, the orders were free from such control. They might speak as they like and teach as they liked. As early as thirty years ago a premier pre-mier undertook the first step in an attempt at-tempt to establish control over the monks. This was the famous "Article : 7" which provided for the dissolution j of the Jesuits. It failed to pass. So continuously persistent ever since has been the warfare upon the orders that the law passed last year was the thirty-third bill offered in thirty years. Some of them were grotesque. One was an inheritance tax- under which when a member of an order died, the survivors paid a tax on hi3 share in the common property. The orders resisted this, and never paid it. In 1880, acting under an old law-forbidding law-forbidding the assembling of mote than twenty persons, religious houses were broken open by the police (with the assistance of the fire department where mediaeval portal3 were massive) mas-sive) and the seal placed upon the doors of the chapel. A Marist father of this city told the writer that three years ago he went back to Paris and the seal was still on the chapel doors, though the fathers were passing freely free-ly i.i and out of other entrances. Indeed, a small number of fathers or nuns were allowed to remain in each house, as the old law entitled them to, and gradually as the excitement abated, abat-ed, the others, one by one. returned also, and nothing was done by the authorities. au-thorities. Now the main contention of M. Wal-deck-Rousesau, who framed the law of 1901. was that at least half the youth of France were being instructed at religious re-ligious colleges, where they were imbued im-bued with ideas inimical to the republic, and that therefore the very bases of the nation were being undermined. under-mined. It does not appear how he would explain the fact that in a coun- try where the college-bred youth were imbibing sedition, the government j should nevertheless have a majority sufficient to pass this bill by about seventy margin in the deputies over the passionate protests of Count de Mun and other defenders of the re'i- J gious. But. however, that may be, the last previous important step before ' 1901 was the compulsory secularisation I of the colleges. MemberB of unauthor- ized orders must not teach in colleges. j t Direction of these Institutions was " I therefore voluntarily given over to i; secular clergy and the monks lived j outside. ; Then came the new law. Under it . several powerful orders were wiped j out altogether. They must, or M. ' Combes interprets that they must, ; whether established or new. ask authorization au-thorization by submitting to the pre- j feet or sub-prefect a full statement of the names of members, property. In- j come, rules and other details. Some J of the orders engaged mainly in chari- j ties have not hesitated to take this ; step, and are authorized. Others, such as the Jesuits, are morally certain of ; refusal, and are aware that if they t furnish the Information required it will merely be used against them. The act in such cases dissolves the order and j distributes its property to the heirs j who would have received it if the origi- ; nal donor had not given it to the or- ; der. These orders have dissolved, and ' their members are scattered as indi- j viduals throughout France. Even then, as private citizens, they have been ar-rested ar-rested for teaching classes of boys In their apartments. Religious, on the other hand, whose purpose is that of the recluse dwelling in community; have, upon dissolution, no reason left for existence. Their vows are still upon , them, but the state forbid3 the observance. ob-servance. These orders have with- ; drawn from the country. Their situa- ' . J tion has been described by a distin- j guished English Jesuit, the Rev. Her- ; bert Thurston: ""The French government may or may not think fit in their munificence to bestow pensions on the dispersed 1 monks and nuns. But can they give them back their youth, can they find them husbands and wives, or make t the very idea of marriage tolerable to i them; can they provide them anew ' in middle age with the love and affection affec-tion of that home life which they freely i bartered for certain SDiritual sronria. ! now to be taken away from them by j force of law?" j j Topping all the severities of the asso- j ciation law is the article 12, in which I j a direct blow is struck at Vatican in- fluence. This section provides that the council , of ministers may authorize the I president to dissolve any association I "composed for the greater part of for- eigners, those having . foreign admin- istrators, or their legal domicile i abroad." j Order after order has been decreed ' j for suppression, and the dispatches this week say that the schools where i f the unauthorized nuns are teaching j have now been closed in nearly every " ' S department, the final evictions taking f place with militia and stone masons f supporting the police, and th "sedi- ; I tious" nuns accompanied upon their f pathetic departure by gentlewomen of i France, who walk courageously by f their side. f What the religious assert is that i protection to the republican form of i ! government is a pretext. Nobody, re- j I ligious, secular or lay, is opposed to j the republic. That issue is dead. The ; f men in power, say the monks, are of . ! the Free" Masons; the term being uaed.. in religious controversy to embrace all : influential secret societies. From the ! beginning it was men of this class, seeking power, who organized and car- ried on the campaign against the monks. At last they are in control, and they mean to stay in control. The "sedition" of which they accuse " the religious. Is reallv the teachincm nf position to an anti-Christian alliance. . "Read." said a French priest in Bos- j ton this week, "the first article of the I law: 'An association .is the agreement J by which two or more persons perma- I nently unite their knowledge or activity or some other object than pecuniary profit." Is there anything f in that definition which excludes a I Masonic order from the terms of the f law? Watch," he added, significantly, J "and see how many Masonic lodges ' make a complete statement of their rules, as required by this act." Boston I Republic. - j |