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Title: |
Une Fois Encore
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Descr.: |
On The Separation Of Church And State
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Pope: |
Pope St. Pius X
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Date: |
January 6, 1907
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To
Our Venerable Brethren, the Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops of
France and to the French Clergy and People.
Venerable
Brethren and Beloved Sons, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
1.
Once again the serious events which have been precipitated in your
noble country compel Us to write to the Church of France to
sustain her in her trials, and to comfort her in her sorrow. When
the children are suffering the heart of the Father ought more than
ever to go out to them. And so, now that We see you suffer, from
the depths of our fatherly heart floods of tenderness break forth
more copiously than ever, and flow to you with the greater comfort
and sweetness.
2.
These sufferings, Venerable Brethren and beloved sons, now find a
sorrowful echo throughout the whole Catholic Church; but We feel
them more deeply still and We sympathize with a pity which grows
with your trials and seems to increase day by day.
3.
But with these cruel sorrows the Master has, it is true, mingled a
consolation than which none can be dearer to our heart. It springs
from your unshakable attachment to the Church, from your unfailing
fidelity to this Apostolic See, and from the firm and deeply
founded unity that reigns amongst you. On this fidelity and union
We confidently reckoned from the first, for we were too well aware
of the nobleness and generosity of the French heart to have any
fear that on the field of battle disunion would find its way into
your ranks. Equally great is the joy that We feel at the
magnificent spectacle you are now giving to the world; and with
our high praise of you before the whole Church, We give thanks
from the depths of Our heart to the Father of mercies, the Author
of all good.
4.
Recourse to God, so infinitely good, is all the more necessary
because, far from abating, the struggle grows fiercer and expands
unceasingly. It is no longer only the Christian faith that they
would uproot at all costs from the hearts of the people; it is any
belief which lifting man above the horizon of this world would
supernaturally bring back his wearied eyes to heaven. Illusion on
the subject is no longer possible. War has been declared against
everything supernatural, because behind the supernatural stands
God, and because it is God that they want to tear out of the mind
and heart of man.
5.
The war will be bitter and without respite on the part of those
who wage it. That as it goes on harder trials than those which you
have hitherto known await you is possible and even probable.
Common prudence calls on each of you to prepare for them. And this
you will do simply, valiantly, and full of confidence, sure that
however fiercely the fight may rage, victory will in the end
remain in your hands.
6.
The pledge of this victory is your union first of all amongst
yourselves, and secondly with this Apostolic See. This twofold
union will make you invincible, and against it all efforts will
break.
7.
Our enemies have on this been under no misapprehensions. From the
outset, and with the greatest clearness of vision, they determined
on their objective; first to separate you from Us and the Chair of
Peter, and then to sow disorder among you. From then till now they
have made no change in their tactics; they have pursued their end
without rest and by every means; some with comprehensive and
catching formulas; others with the most brutal cynicism. Specious
promises, dishonorable bribes offered to schism, threats and
violence, all these have been brought into play and employed. But
your clear-sighted fidelity has wrecked all these attempts. Thereupon, thinking that the best way to separate you from Us was to
shatter your confidence in the Apostolic See, they have not
hesitated, from the tribune and in the press, to throw discredit
upon Our acts by misrepresenting and sometimes even by
calumniating Our intentions.
8.
The Church, they said, is seeking to arouse religious war in
France, and is summoning to her aid the violent persecution which
has been the object of her prayers. What a strange accusation!
Founded by Him who came to bring peace to the world and to
reconcile man with God, a Messenger of peace upon earth, the
Church could only seek religious war by repudiating her high
mission and belying it before the eyes of all. To this mission of
patient sweetness and love she rests and will remain always
faithful. Besides, the whole world now knows that if peace of
conscience is broken in France, that is not the work of the Church
but of her enemies. Fair-minded men, even though not of our faith,
recognize that if there is a struggle on the question of religion
in your beloved country, it is not because the Church was the
first to unfurl the flag, but because war was declared against
her. During the last twenty-five years she has had to undergo this
warfare. That is the truth and the proof of it is seen in the
declarations made and repeated over and over again in the Press,
at meetings, at Masonic congresses, and even in Parliament, as
well as in the attacks which have been progressively and
systematically directed against her. These facts are undeniable,
and no argument can ever make away with them. The Church then does
not wish for war, and religious war least of all. To affirm the
contrary is an outrageous calumny.
9.
Nor has she any desire for violent persecution. She knows what
persecution is, for she has suffered it in all times and in all
places. Centuries passed in bloodshed give her the right to say
with a holy boldness that she does not fear it, and that as often
as may be necessary she will be able to meet it. But persecution
is in itself an evil, for it is injustice and prevents man from
worshipping God in freedom. The Church then cannot desire it, even
with a view to the good which Providence in its infinite wisdom
ever draws out of it. Besides, persecution is not only evil, it is
also suffering, and there we have a fresh reason why the Church,
who is the best of mothers, will never seek it.
10.
This persecution which she is reproached as having provoked, and
which they declare they have refused, is now being actually
inflicted upon her. Have they not within these last days evicted
from their houses even the Bishops who are most venerable by their
age and virtues, driven the seminarists from the grands and petits
seminaries, and entered upon the expulsion of the [priests] from their
presbyteries? The whole Catholic world has watched this spectacle
with sadness, and has not hesitated to give the name which they
deserved to such acts of violence.
11.
As for the ecclesiastical property which we are accused of having
abandoned, it is important to remark that this property was partly
the patrimony of the poor and the patrimony, more sacred still, of
the dead. It was not permissible to the Church to abandon or
surrender it; she could only let it be taken from her by violence.
Nobody will believe that she has deliberately abandoned, except
under the pressure of the most overwhelming motives, what was
confided to her keeping, and what was so necessary for the
exercise of worship, for the maintenance of sacred edifices, for
the instruction of her clergy, and for the support of her
ministers. It was only when perfidiously placed in the position of
having to choose between material ruin and consent to the
violation of her constitution, which is of divine origin, that the
Church refused, at the cost of poverty, to allow the work of God
to be touched by her. Her property, then, has been wrested from
her; it was not she that abandoned it. Consequently, to declare
ecclesiastical property unclaimed on a given date unless the
Church had by then created within herself a new organism; to
subject this creation to conditions in rank opposition to the
divine constitution of the Church, which was thus compelled to
reject them; to transfer this property to third parties as if it
had become "sans maitre," and finally to assert that in
thus acting there was no spoliation of the Church but only a
disposal of the property abandoned by her - this is not merely
argument of transparent sophistry but adding insult to the most
cruel spoliation. This spoliation is undeniable in spite of vain
attempts at palliating it by declaring that no moral person
existed to whom the property might be handed over; for the state
has power to confer civil personality on whomsoever the public
good demands that it should be granted to, establishments that are
Catholic as well as others. In any case it would have been easy
for the state not to have subjected the formation of associations
cultuelles to conditions in direct opposition to the divine
constitution of the Church which they were supposed to serve.
12.
And yet that is precisely what was done in the matter of the
associations cultuelles. They were organized under the law in such
a way that its dispositions on this subject ran directly counter
to those rights which, derived from her constitution, are
essential to the Church, notably as affecting the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, the inviolable base given to His work by the Divine
Master himself. Moreover, the law conferred on these associations
powers which are the exclusive prerogative of ecclesiastical
authority both in the matter of the exercise of worship and of the
proprietorship and administration of property. And lastly, not
only are these associations withdrawn from ecclesiastical
jurisdiction but they are made judicially answerable to the civil
authority. These are the reasons which have driven Us in Our
previous Encyclicals to condemn these associations cultuelles in
spite of the heavy sacrifices which such condemnation involved.
13.
We have also been accused of prejudice and inconsistency. It has
been said that We had refused to approve in France what We had
approved in Germany. But this charge is equally lacking in
foundation and justice. For although the German law was blameable
on many points, and has been merely tolerated in order to avoid
greater evils, the cases were quite different, for that law
contained an express recognition of the Catholic hierarchy, which
the French law does not do.
14.
As regards the annual declaration demanded for the exercise of
worship, it did not offer the full legal security which one had a
right to desire. Nevertheless - though in principle gatherings of
the faithful in church have none of the constituent elements
proper to public meetings, and it would, in fact, be odious to
attempt to assimilate them - the Church could, in order to avoid
greater evils, have brought herself to tolerate this declaration.
But by providing that the "curé or officiating priest would
no longer," in his church, "be anything more than an
occupier without any judicial title or power to perform any acts
of administration," there has been imposed on ministers of
religion in the very exercise of their ministry a situation so
humiliating and vague that, under such conditions, it was
impossible to accept the declaration. There remains for
consideration the law recently voted by the two Chambers.
15.
From the point of view of ecclesiastical property, this law is a
law of spoliation and confiscation, and it has completed the
stripping of the Church. Although her Divine Founder was born poor
in a manger, and died poor on the Cross, although she herself has
known poverty from her cradle, the property that came to her was
nonetheless hers, and no one had the right to deprive her of it.
Her ownership, indisputable from every point of view, had been,
moreover, officially sanctioned by the state, which could not
consequently violate it. From the point of view of the exercise of
worship, this law has organized anarchy; it is the consecration of
uncertainty and caprice. Uncertainty whether places of worship,
always liable to be diverted from their purpose, are meanwhile to
be placed, or not placed, at the disposition of the clergy and
faithful; uncertainty whether they shall be [taken from them or
not, and for how long]; whilst an arbitrary administrative
regulates the conditions of their use, which is rendered eminently
precarious. Public worship will be in as many diverse situations
as the other. On the other hand, there is an obligation to meet
all sorts of heavy charges, whilst at the same time there are
draconian restrictions upon the resources by which they are to be
met. Thus, though but of yesterday, this law has already evoked
manifold and severe criticisms from men belonging indiscriminately
to all political parties and all shades of religious belief. These
criticisms alone are sufficient judgment of the law.
16.
It is easy to see, Venerable Brethren and beloved sons, from what
We have just recalled to you, that this law is an aggravation of
the Law of Separation, and we can not therefore do otherwise than
condemn it.
17.
The vague and ambiguous wording of some of its articles places the
end pursued by our enemies in a new light. Their object is, as we
have already pointed out, the destruction of the Church and the
dechristianization of France, but without people's attending to it
or even noticing it. If their enterprise had been really popular,
as they pretend it to be, they would not have hesitated to pursue
it with visor raised and to take the whole responsibility. But
instead of assuming that responsibility, they try to clear
themselves of it and deny it, and in order to succeed the better,
fling it upon the Church their victim. This is the most striking
of all the proofs that their evil work does not respond to the
wishes of the country.
18.
It is in vain that after driving Us to the cruel necessity of
rejecting the laws that have been made - seeing the evils they
have drawn down upon the country, and feeling the universal
reprobation which, like a slow tide, is rising round them - they
seek to lead public opinion astray and to make the responsibility
for these evils fall upon Us. Their attempt will not succeed.
19.
As for Ourselves, We have accomplished Our duty, as every other
Roman Pontiff would have done. The high charge with which it has
pleased Heaven to invest Us, in spite of Our unworthiness, as also
the Christian faith itself, which you profess with Us, dictated to
Us Our conduct. We could not have acted otherwise without
trampling under foot Our conscience, without being false to the
oath which We took on mounting the chair of Peter, and without
violating the Catholic hierarchy, the foundation given to the
Church by our Savior Jesus Christ.
We
await, then, without fear, the verdict of history. History will
tell how We, with Our eyes fixed immutably upon the defense of the
higher rights of God, have neither wished to humiliate the civil
power, nor to combat a form of government, but to safeguard the
inviolable work of Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. It will say
that We have defended you, Our beloved sons, with all the strength
of Our great love; that what We have demanded and now demand for
the Church, of which the French Church is the elder daughter and
an integral part, is respect for its hierarchy and inviolability
of its property and liberty; that if Our demand had been granted
religious peace would not have been troubled in France, and that,
the day it is listened to that peace so much desired will be
restored in the country.
20.
And lastly, history will say that if, sure beforehand of your
magnanimous generosity, We have not hesitated to tell you that the
hour for sacrifice had struck, it is to remind the world, in the
name of the Master of all things, that men here below should feed
their minds upon thoughts of a higher sort than those of the
perishable contingencies of life, and that the supreme and
intangible joy of the human soul on earth is that of duty
supernaturally carried out, cost what it may and so God honored,
served and loved, in spite of all.
21.
Confident that the Immaculate Virgin, Daughter of the Father,
Mother of the Word, and Spouse of the Holy Ghost, will obtain for
you from the most holy and adorable Trinity better days, and as a
token of the calm which We firmly hope will follow the storm, it
is from the depths of Our heart that We impart Our Apostolic
Blessing to you, Venerable Brethren, as well as to your clergy and
the whole French people.
Given
at Rome, at St. Peter's on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6,
1907, the fourth year of Our pontificate.
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