9. The Years before the war—1900-1914

So, as wrote the Abbe Brugerette: “Under the image of Jesus crucified, divine symbol of the idea of justice, “La Croix” had passionately co- operated with the work of deception and of crime against truth, uprightness and justice”.(106)

Justice had nevertheless triumphed in the end and the Abbe Fremont, who did not fear mentioning the sinister crusade led by Innocent III against the Albigenses when referring to the Affair, seemed to be a true prophet when he said:

“The Catholics are winning and they think they will overthrow the Republic because of the hatred for the Jews. But they will, I am afraid, only overthrow themselves”.(107)

In fact, when opinion was enlightened, the reaction was fatal. Ranc had learned the lesson of the Affair when he exclaimed: “The Republic will break the power of the Congregations, or she will be strangled”. In 1899, a ministry “of republican defence” was constituted; Father Picard, superior of the “Assumptionists”, Father Bailly, director of “La Croix”, and ten other members of that Order were brought to trial before the tribunal of the Seine for breach of the law on associations. The Congregation of the “Assumptionists” was dissolved.

Waldek-Rousseau, president of the Council, declared in a speech pronounced at Toulouse on the 28th of October 1900: “Dispersed, but not suppressed, the religious Orders formed themselves again, bigger in numbers and more militant; they cover the territory with the network of a political organisation whose links are innumerable and tightly knit, as we have seen through a recent trial”.

(106) Abbe Brugerette, op.cit., II, p.478.
(107) Agnes Siegfried: “L’Abbe Fremont” (F. Alcan. Paris 1932, II, p.163).

At last, in 1901, a law is passed, ruling that no Congregation can be formed without an authorisation, and that those who do not ask for it within the legal time will be automatically dissolved.

It will be these regulations, quite natural on the part of public authorities whose duty it is to check the associations found in their territory, which will be presented to the Catholics as an intolerable abuse. “A man’s house is his castle”, goes the saying; but the Church is not having any of it: the common law is not for her.

The resistance of the clerics to the application of the law would be enough to show how necessary it was. This resistance will only strengthen the government’s attitude, especially under minister Combes; and Rome’s intransigence, especially when Pius I succeeded to Leo XIII, will bring ubout the law of 1904, abolishing the teaching Orders. After that, friction between the French government and the Holy See will be constant. Besides, the election of the new pope was done in significant circumstances.

“Leo XIII died on the 20th of July 1903. The conclave, meeting to designate his successor, gives, after several ballots, 29 votes for Cardinal Rampolla,—42 are needed to be elected—, when the Austrian Cardinal Puzyna stands up and declares that His Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of Austria, king of Hungary, is inspired officially to exclude the secretary of State to Leo XIII. We know that Cardinal Rampolla is pro-French”.(108) Cardinal Sarto is elected. Through the manoeuvre of Austria, which substituted itself for the Holy-Spirit to “inspire” the cardinals of the conclave, this election is a victory for the Jesuits. Indeed, the new pontiff, described as a mixture of “village priest and archangel with a fiery sword”, is the perfect type of man wished for by the Order. This is what M. Adrien Dansette says about it:

“When we love the pope, we do not limit the field in which he can and must exercise his will”.(109)

Or this from his first consistorial address: “We know that we will shock many people when we declare that we will necessarily be involved in politics. But anyone wanting to judge fairly can see that the Sovereign Pontiff, invested by God with a supreme authority, doesn’t have the right to separate politics from the domain of faith and morals”.(110) So Pius X, as soon as he had acceeded to Saint-Peter’s throne, publicly declared that, for him, the pope’s authority must be felt in every domain, and that political clericalism is not only a right but a duty. He also chose for his secretary of State a Spanish prelate, Monseigneur Merry del Val who was thirty-eight years old and, like him, passionately pro-German and anti-French. This state of mind is not surprising when we read these words from the Abbe Fremont:

(108) (109) and (110) Adrien Dansette, op.cit., pp.317, 318, 319.

“Merry del Val, whom I met at the Roman College, was the “Jesuits’ favorite pupil”. (111)

The relations between the Holy See and France soon felt the effects of that choice. First of all, it was the nomination of bishops by the civil power which brought about a conflict.

“Before the war of 1870, the Holy See learned the names of the new bishops only after they had been nominated. The pope reserved the right, if one was not acceptable to him, to stop him being a bishop by withholding the canonical institution. In fact, the difficulties were enormous as the governments, under any kind of regime, were careful to elect candidates worthy of the episcopal office”.(112)

As soon as Pius X was pope, most of the nominations for new bishops were refused by Rome. Besides, the nuncio in Paris, Lorenzelli, was, as we are told by M. Adrien Dansette, “a theologian who has gone astray in diplomacy and madly hostile to France”. Some will say: “Just another one added to all the others!” But such a choice for such a post clearly shows what were the intentions of the Roman Curia towards our country.

This systematic hostility was going to show itself even more clearly in 1904, when M. Loubet, president of the Republic, went to Rome to return the visit paid to him in Paris sometime before by the king of Italy, Victor-Emmanuel III.

M. Loubet wished to be received by the pope also. But the Roman Curia produced a supposed “invincible protocol”: “The pope could not receive a head of state who, when visiting the king of Italy in Rome, seemed to acknoweldge as lawful the “usurpation” of that ancient pontifical State. But there were precedents: twice, in 1888 and 1903, a head of state—and not one of the less important—had been received in Rome by the king of Italy and the pope. Of course, this visitor was not the president of a Republic, but the German Emperor Guillaume II… The same honour had been given to Edward VII, King of England, and the Czar.

The insulting intention of that refusal was evident, and even emphasised by a note sent to the various chancellories by the secretary of State Merry del Val. A Catholic author, M. Charles Ledre, recently wrote this concerning the matter:

“Could the pontifical diplomacy ignore the decisively important objective which, behind the visit of president Loubet to Rome, was really takingshape?”(113)

(111) Agnes Siegfried, op.cit., p.342.
(112) Adrien Dansette, op.cit., p.323.
(113) Charles Ledre: “Un siecle sous la tiare” (Bibliotheque catholique Amiot-Dumont, Paris 1955, p. 125).

Of course, the Vatican knew about the plan to separate Italy from her partners of the Triple Alliance: Germany and Austria-Hungary, these two Germanic powers considered by the Roman Church to be her best secular arms. This was the very crux of the matter, and was, in fact the reason for the Vatican’s frequent bursts of temper.

Other conflicts arose concerning French bishops, considered in Rome to be too Republican. At last, tired of the constant difficulties arising from the Vatican’s infringements of the terms of the Concordat, the French government put an end, on the 29th of July 1904, to “relations which were made void by the Holy See”.

The breaking of diplomatic: relations was bound to lead, soon after, to the separation of Church and state.

“We find it normal today”, wrote M. Adrien Dansette, “that France should maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and that State and Church should live under the regime of separation. Diplomatic relations are necessary as France must be represented wherever she had interests to defend, outside any doctrinal consideration. But separation is necessary as, in a democracy founded on the sovereignty of a people divided by several beliefs, the state only owes liberty to the Church”.(114) And the author adds: “This is, at least, the general opinion”.

We can only agree with this reasonable opinion, without forgetting, of course, that the papacy would never endorse it. The Roman Church never stopped proclaiming her preeminence over civil history, throughout her own history, and, for want of being able to impose it openly in recent times, she has done her best to implant it with the help of her secret army, the Company of Jesus.

Besides, it was at that time that Father Wernz, general of this Order, wrote: “The State is under the Church’s jurisdiction; so, secular authority is indeed under the subjection of ecclesiastical authority and has to obey”.(U5)

That is the doctrine of these intransigent champions of theocracy, counsellors as well as those who execute their commands, who made themselves indispensable at the Vatican, so much so that, today, it would he absolutely impossible to distinguish even the smallest difference between “the black pope” and “the white pope”; they are one and the same. And, when we refer to the politics of the Vatican, we simply mean the Jesuits’ politics.

(114) and (117) Adrien Dansette, op.cit., pp.333, 361.
(115) Pierre Dominique, op.cit., p.241.
(116) Agnes Siegfried, op.cit., p.421.

With many other qualified observers, the Abbe Fremont admits it as follows: “The Jesuits dominate the Vatican”.(116) Before the irreducible opposition of the Jesuits, all-powerful in the Church, to the Republic, the State is constrained to enforce the law of Separation, with several amendments, from 1905 to 1908. This law does not want to decrease the Church’s wealth and her buildings set up for worship. The faithful can form themselves into local associations, under the direction of the priest, to manage them. What is Rome going to do?

“In the encyclical letter “Vehementer” (11th of February 1906), Pius X condemned the principle of separation and the one pertaining to the local associations. But does he go beyond the principles?”(117) We will soon know. In spite of the advice from the French episcopate, he rejects all settlement, on the 10th of August 1906, in the encyclical letter “Gravissimo”.

This is another disappointment for the liberal Catholics: “When I think”, exclaims Brunetiere, “that what is refused to the French Catholics, with the certain knowledge that such refusal will unleash a religious war in our poor country which needs peace so much, is granted to the German Catholics, that the “local associations” have been operating there for thirty years to everyone’s satisfaction, I cannot help, as a patriot as well as a Catholic, feeling most indignant”.(118)

There was some trouble, in fact, when an inventory of ecclesiastical properties was taken, but not a religious war… Even though the ultramontanes were stirring up trouble, the population as a whole remained calm when some of the Church’s properties were returned to the state, by her, rather than submit to the conciliatory measures laid down by the law.

Did, then, the writer Brunetiere understand fully the reason for that difference in which the French Catholics and German Catholics were treated by the Holy See? The first world war was to reveal all the significance of it. While the Jesuits had effectually worked, through the “Dreyfus Affair”, at dividing the French people and weakening the prestige of our army, in Germany, they were doing the exact opposite.

Bismark who, himself, had launched in the past the “Kulturkampf” against the Catholic Church, was being loaded with her favours. This is what we are told by the Catholic writer, Joseph Rovan, who also explains it: “Bismark will be the first Protestant to receive the “Order of Christ” with jewels, one of the highest honours of the Church. The German government allows newspapers devoted to it to publish the fact that the chancellor would be ready effecually to uphold the pope’s pretentions of a partial restoration of his temporal authority”.(119)

(118) Adrien Dansette, op.cit., p.363. (119) and (121) Joseph Rovan, op.cit., pp.121, 150 ss.

“In 1886, the Centre—German Catholic party—was hostile to the military projects presented by Bismark. Leo XIII intervened in the German interior affairs in favour of Bismark. His secretary of State wrote to the nuncio of Munich: “In view of the approaching revision of the religious legislation which, as we have reasons to believe, will be carried out in a conciliatory manner, the Holy-Father wishes that the Centre promote, in every possible way, the projects of the military”.(120)

This is what Joseph Rovan has to say: “German diplomacy intervenes— it is already an old habit—at the Vatican to make the pope exercise his influence over the Zentrum (Catholic party), so as to favour the military projects… The German Catholics are going to speak about the great “political mission” of Germany which is, at the same time, a universal moral mission… The “Zentrum” makes itself also responsible for the prolongation of a reign which, from, blustering in weakness, war-like speeches over naval armaments to more war-like harangues, will eventually lead Germany to catastrophe… The “Zentrum” enters the war (of 1914) convinced of the uprightness, purity and moral integrity of its country’s leaders, of the agreement of their plans and programme with the plans of eternal justice”.(121)

As we can see, the papacy had done what was necessary to implant this conviction. Besides, as Monseigneur Fruhwirth said in 1914: “Germany is the base on which the Holy-Father can and must establish great hopes”.

(120) Jean Bruhat: “Le Vatican contre les peuples” (Paralleles, 21st of December 1950)

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