27 MARCH 1886, Page 1

The Paris correspondent of the Times evidently believes that the

Pope must very speedily quarrel with the Republic. The Bill forbidding all monks and nuns to teach in municipal schools is now passing the Senate, and when it is law, he thinks the Pope must ally himself openly with the reactionary party in France. This, he adds, will be the easier because the quarrel between the Vatican and Germany draws to a termination. The Bill is entirely indefensible, parents having as much right to choose monks and nuns for teachers as anybody else; but we doubt if Leo XIII., who is a wise man and seventy-seven years old, will take so imprudent a course. The Radicals would be only too glad of a political excuse for breaking with the Papacy, and suppressing the Budget of Public Worship. The French clergy can fight for religions teaching much better by inducing the municipalities to select pious lay teachers, and by pointing out to French fathers the consequences of irreligious education. The Vatican has had to contend with a wave of infidelity in France before and has survived it, and is not likely to precipitate that dis- organisation of its system which must follow on Disestablish- meat. If it links itself with a system of government, it may lose France for ever.