The Law of Associations

The law of associations applies to Protestants and to Jews as well as to Catholics. I

Continuing France Separates Church and State,
with a selection from Sermon on the French Church by John Ireland published in around 1906. This selection is presented in 3.7000000000000002 installments, each one 5 minutes long. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in France Separates Church and State.

Time: 1906

The whole law is permeated with a spirit of injustice and persecution. It was the occasion for a great nation to be large-minded and generous. Here was France in presence of the Church that had been so clearly linked with her destinies throughout her whole history and had won to her so much glory — it is a solemn moment. It is best, the State believes, that less close bonds unite the olden allies. Then at least let State and Church separate in love and peace. “Go,” France should have said to the Church —- “but go with honor, go with all thy rights to life and property; take away the cross which has so long entwined itself around my banners; but take it in all its grandeur, take it shorn of none of its radiant luster, despoiled of none of its native rights.”

The law of associations applies to Protestants and to Jews as well as to Catholics. I shall not discuss the attitude taken by Protestants and Jews toward the law, except to remark that although they have acquiesced in its provisions, they did not do so without complaint and protest.

Under advice from the head of the Church, the bishops of France refused the associations offered by the law of separation. They acted from principle. In the interest of religion, they could not approve such associations. They could not, by tolerating them, appear to approve them. They are not rebels against the laws of the country. The “associations,” as the minister of education, M. Briand, himself has declared, were not statutes binding upon citizens; they were privileges tendered to the Church which she was free to accept or to reject. She has rejected them. Pope and bishops knew full well the consequences that were to follow; the spirit of the Government was not hidden from their eyes. It was an era of persecution but, if no other escape from persecution were possible than the acceptance of the law of associations, they were ready to welcome persecution.

Moreover, the law of “associations” was the last of a series of cruel blows aimed at the Church and her most sacred rights. For the sake of peace, those blows had been borne patiently; but when the last blow was struck the time had come to give evidence of firmness in defense of religion, if ever such evidence were to be given; if ever the enemies of religion were to be bidden to pause in their war of extermination. Law after law had been enacted to cut off the influence of the Church, to drive her into obscure corners, where she was not to be seen or known by the people; to reduce her power to work for souls and she had not lifted her hand in opposition, ever fearing to trouble the public peace, ever hoping that better days were nigh. Her religious orders had been suppressed and their members scattered to the four winds of the earth; she had striven to bear the oppression.

My hearers can scarcely imagine the high-handed tyranny exercised in the suppression of religious orders. The right of existence was denied them. French citizens, men and women, were told that they could not live in community, that they could not consecrate themselves to a life of evangelic perfection by peaceful meditation in the solitude of the cloister, by works of charity in asylums, hospitals, or school-rooms. They were sent adrift, they were robbed of their belongings. Under the fiction of law, their properties were taken by the State, apparently to be restored to owners, when schemes of liquidation had been completed; but in fact to be wrested to the profit of favored liquidators in form of fees, and of the State in form of burdensome taxation, a remnant only returning to the members of the orders or to those who had contributed to the foundation of their homes. There was no respect for personal liberty, none for the rights of property, so long as liberty and rights seem to serve religion. At last, it was the turn of the ordinary pastors of souls, priests and bishops. They were to be free, it was said, in the exercise of their ministry. Yes, free if they bore the manacles of servitude forged by the law of ” associations. ”

The 11th of December, 1906, was the date when, unless power, and it steers the ship of State into the darkest depths of unbelief and irreligion. Yesterday it was Combes, the most brutal of all; today it is Clemenceau, somewhat more subdued in his hatred, but yet a leader in the fight.

With such men, and others dividing with them public power, even if less violent adepts of irreligion, there reigns another idea -— the omnipotence of the State. This was ever the plague of France even when her rulers were devout Catholics. The State must control all agencies of power; it brooks no rival. Even the Church must be in the hands of the Government. So was it with Louis XIV. and with Napoleon; so it is with the republic. The republic is a name in France; it has been well said of it that it sleeps on the bed of Louis XIV. France has never understood the meaning of a republic, which is respect for private and personal liberty, which is to leave as much as possible to the people, to take to the State only what is needed for the public weal. The most republican of republicans seated in parliament set out at once to regulate all things to their own liking. “We are the State,” they cry out, as Louis XIV. once said, “I am the State. And the State is the great power; all must think and act as the State wills and as we will.” This is certainly the spirit of the infidels who now rule the country; and I am not at all sure it were not, to some extent at least, the spirit of some good Catholics, who, were they to-morrow in the ascendency, should believe it their duty to make everyone go to Mass as the present Government assumes it its duty to let no one go to Mass.

Emile Combes begins here. John Ireland begins here. Henry H. Sparling begins here.

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