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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2025
A French Catholic who holds a very influential position in the Catholic movement expressed to me a few weeks ago such strong views on the recent condemnation of the Action Française by Cardinal Andrieu, and subsequently by the Pope himself, that the gist of his argument is worth placing on record. He attached so much importance to the crisis which has been precipitated by the Cardinal’s condemnation that he believed it to mark the beginning of a phase which would lead, after a short period of acute crisis in France, to an immense consolidation of all the Catholic forces in this country, which have hitherto been divided hopelessly by the tendencies towards violent anti-constitutional action on the part of the neo-royalist movement.
The origin of the trouble may be briefly stated. It has been well known to everyone familiar with the various factors of the Catholic movement in France. Broadly speaking, the older generation of Catholics were, at the beginning of the present century, still largely royalist in their sympathies. The tradition of plunder and spoliation under the Republic still carried with it vivid memories for many people; and most of the older clergy and nearly all the Catholic aristocracy were still profoundly hostile to the Republic, which they regarded as being only the latest phase in the series of political crises through which France had passed since the Revolution, with alternating republics and monarchies. But by the beginning of the century it had become quite clear to those who viewed the situation without traditional and personal feelings that the restoration of the monarchy in France had become an impossibility.