The French Hierarchy and the Franc

Extract

Not the least embarrassment of the French bishops, in the present political crisis of France, has been to decide whether Catholics should be called upon to forget the constant annoyance and petty persecution to which they are still subjected—even since the fall of M. Herriot’s deliberately anti-Catholic Government—and to respond generously to all appeals made by the Government, as though the union sacrée which M. Herriot brought to an end were still really in existence. It is true that, since M. Herriot’s downfall, the open challenge to the Church on the question of the Vatican’ Embassy has not been officially renewed. The threats to the religious communities which have settled in France in defiance of the laws proscribing them, have not been carried out; though the inquisition into their numbers and their status throughout the country, which was set up by M. Herriot’s Government and methodically organised, has placed full information in the Government’s hands, which may at any time be made use of by an anti-clerical Government. And the attempt to compel Alsace and Lorraine to accept the same educational system as the rest of France has also been suspended.

But all over the country minor incidents have continued to provoke violent resentment. The Ministry for the Interior, which controls the whole local government of the country, and through the distribution of patronage arid by more direct means ‘makes’ the elections in a manner calculated to ensure the permanent success of the Left, has always been jealously kept in the hands of anti-clerical Ministers even during the war; and the Prefects nominated by them have been using their powers to prohibit religious processions, and to interfere in various other ways with such liberties as the Catholics still possess.