THE FRENCH CLERGY AND THE DREYFUS CASE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sia,—The Abbe Pichot, the founder of the Dreyftisard
Comite Catholique pour la Defense du Droit, is desirous that his two brochures, entitled La Conscience Chretienne et la Question Juive," and "La Conscience Chretienne et l'Affaire Dreyfas," should be known. to Englishmen, as representing the views of at least a section of the French clergy. As an appendix to the latter pamphlet he prints a letter addressed to the Figaro last December, on the position of the Anti- Dreyfusard clergy. As this letter supports my own con tentiou that they have not as a body been virulent agitators, but have accepted uncritically what was for a long time the belief of most educated Frenchmen, carried away by a form of party prejudice—suspiciousness and credulity in the case of an accused Jew, and implicit trust in the chiefs of the Army— I should like to place it before your readers. Referring to the charge that the clergy were the instigators of the agita- tion, Abbe Pichot writes as follows :— " Eh bien, it faut qu'on le cache, rien n'est plus faux. Le clerge a ate tromp:: loin d'etre instigateur, it a ate dupe. On m'objec- tera ' Mais c'est impcssible ! Il eat impossible, etant donne* les faits, de croire a is culpabilite de Dreyf UP.' Oui, certes, it y a un an, c'etait deja difficile a nu esprit capable de critique; aujourd' hu c'est absolument impossible quand on connait les faits et lee Umoignages. Mais quand on les ignore ? . . . Or. sans qu'il y ait precisembnt de sa faute, le clerge ignore pour ainsi dire totalement ces faits, lea journaux qu'il lit s'etant systematique- ment appliques soit a les deoaturer, soit a lea passer sous silence. Le clerge en general a donne a priori, sa confiance a l'Etat-Major, aux chefs militaires, comma it l'avait donnee a Leo Taxil, con- fiance aveugle le dispensant d'ex.aminer at d'etudier. Il a cru an Syndicat de trahison comma it croyait a Diana Vaughan. Mais c'est tout : le clerge n'a rien inspire, rien dirige. Je le repete, it a ate dupe. Sa bonne foi, sa sincerite sont absolument indeni- ables. On ne peut qua lui reprocher sa confiance. Ce n'est pas un crime d'etre tromps; c'est un crime de tromper les autres. Ai-je besoin d'ajouter qua le clerge en general, le clerge paroissial, n'a rien fait contra is lumiere, contra la justice et qu'il n'aurait pas hesite a proclamer Dreyfus innocent s'il n'avait ate induit en errenr. Rendre le clerge, l'Eglise at les catholiques responsables . de tout, c'est commettre une sutra injustice. Ittant de ceux qui out vonlu la justice, qui out souffert pour in justice, j'ai is droit de le dire tout haut."
—I am, Sir, &c., WILFRID WARD.
Atlienceum Club, .November 1st.
[We quite agree that it would be moat unfair to condemn the French clergy in general merely for being deceived in regard to the facts of the Dreyfue case, but this does not clear the high ecclesiastical authorities in France and in Rome. They are rightly condemned for not denouncing the methods used by Clerical journalists to raise an Anti-Semite and an Anti-Protestant campaign. Honest belief in the guilt of Dreyfus affords no excuse for the methods of Anti-Dreyfusism.
—ED. Spectator.]
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