LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN FRANCE. rpHE political sensation of the
Montagnini papers will 1 pass, but the disclosures are incidentally evidence of a-very important liberalising movement inside the Roman
Catholic Church which will not only last but will grow from strength to strength. Recently we have more than once written of this movement on its intellectual side. At the end of last year Baron von Hiigel and Professor C. A. Briggs published a Liberal protest against the decision of a Biblical Commission appointed by the Roman Church to inquire into the authorship of the Pentateuch. In the face of all Biblical scholarship, which proves beyond a. shadow of doubt that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, the Commission announced that Moses did write it. This was rather as though Convocation in England should encourage Churchmen to believe that the Authorised Version of 1611 came down from heaven just as we have it bound and printed at the Clarendon Press. In England, most fortunately, the Church does not discourage the interpretation of dogma in the light of science and critical research. It knows, as Baron von Hugel and Professor Briggs wrote, that "a system cannot both claim to teach all the world and erect an impenetrable partition-wall between itself and the educated portion of that world." That is the truth which is not recognised at the Vatican, and no man can say what may happen within the Roman Church unless wisdom comes before it is too late.
On Friday week the Times published from its Paris correspondent some reports sent by Mgr. Montagnini to the Vatican which are worth deeper attention than all the others. They reveal a complete obscurantism, a blessing of ignorance and a banning of knowledge. The ecclesisatics in France who have fallen under Papal sus- picion are the very men who are capable of statesmanship, and who might help to retain for their Church its great spiritual influence in the world. Reporting unfavourably on such men is a Vatican agent who is apparently quite honestly shocked at the thought that there are Roman Catholic priests who believe in tho innocence of Dreyfus and support the cause of disarmament. In July, 1906, Mgr. Montagnini sent to Cardinal Merry del Val fifteen Roman Catholic periodicals and books which, in his judgment, required various degrees of reprobation. Some received a bad mark, others a very bad mark. The list is like a supplement to the "Index Expurgatorius." The Revue Apologaique is branded as containing articles of "more than Liberal tendencies on the Biblical question." The new Liberal Roman Catholic weekly paper Demain, published at Lyons, "continues," according to Mgr. Mon- tagnini, "to be very bad." Its approval of "the bad book of the Protestant Sabatier on Separation" is particularly condemned. "Almost all the numbers of this review," adds Mgr. Montagnini, "ought to be prohibited in the dioceses. Many of its contributors take advantage of it to facilitate their escape from condemnation by the Index." Now what is this dreadful Demain 7 It contains articles by cultivated Roman Catholics who wish to take part in thh Biblical scholarship of the day, and who believe, like the rest of the world, that Republicanism is the best form of government for France, and that if the Church is to preserve any hold over the average French Republican (that is to say, over virtually the whole nation) she must accept the laws of the Republic and make herself consonant with the temper of France as she is. • That is all. It seems bare sanity. The Eveil DeSsocratique and the Silica are said by Mgr. Montagnini to "continue their exaggerated democratic campaign. There is never a word about religion in these publica- tions." The truth, of course, is that these publications are professedly trying to save the Church by Liberal political action in order that she may be able in future to say "words about religion" to Frenchmen. That is their immediate, and therefore their almost exclusive, concern. Mgr. Montagnini might as well complain that a Parlia- mentary Bill on religious education is not also a sermon.
After mentioning other periodicals, Mgr. Montagnini sums up the situation. We quote the Times translation :—
" all these publications through their bad spirit unavoidably continue to produce the worst effects among the young clergy and in certain seminaries. Father Bouvier, of Marseilles, affirmed that to me not long ago. He told me that in some seminaries whore he went to preach, especially in that of Aix, a number of seminarists are favourable to Loisy, to Dreyfus, and to disarmament. A parish priest of Faris told me that he was appalled when he realised the abyss which is widening between the priests of to-day and those of ten years ago, and that even his young colleagues showed amazing audacity. One of the latter a short time ago in a series of sermons expressed theories more than curious on the virginity of the Madonna. During the month of May in two or three important parishes of Paris there were sermons full of errors or heresies. Several priests are writing in the ultra-Liberal reviews. Altogether there is a sort of anarchy of ideas, and there is no remedy unless it be from Rome. Many good laymen continually urge the necessary condemnations. One of these laymen insists on that of the Abb6 Loisy."
One can only say that the parish priest in Paris will be much more appalled when he discovers, as he undoubtedly will if the Liberal movement, is persistently scouted, the abyss which has widened between the priests and the thinking laity. The Abbe Loisy, let us remember, has done no more than combine Biblical criticism with pastoral work in a manner which might have led him straight to the Episcopal Bench in England. Mgr. Montagnini is very severe on the Benue du Clerge Francais and the Quinzaine, both of which are happy in commanding con- tributors from some of the first intellects in Fiance. A special paragraph is given to the case of the Abb6 Broussolle, so well known in Paris as a teacher and inspirer of young men at the Lycee Michelet. The Abb6 Broussolle is a disciple of the distinguished historian, the Abbe Duchesne. Mgr. Montagnini puts him on his list as a demolisher of Roman Catholic tradition. Then there is a gem of criticism which would be merely amusing if it were not that the approval which the Vatican con- tinually bestowed on Mgr. Montagnini's labours proves how dangerously the abyss is widening between Pontifical and Galilean thought. Mgr. Montagnini, referring to a copy of the Write Francaise, says: 'You will find there
• a just criticism of the work of a certain Batiffol who appears to be still more rationalist than Loisy and the Protestants themselves." Will it be believed that "a certain Batiffol " is the Rector of the Catholic Institute of Toulouse, one of the most distinguished historians in Prance P
To turn from the intellectual to the political rift in the Roman Church, there is exact evidence that the French Bishops, as we have always thought there was good reason for believing, were ready to accept the Separation Law, and honestly to try to work under it. Mgr. Montagnini remarks that the majority of the Bishops who have been consulted make their acceptance of the public worship Associations dependent in each diocese on two conditions,— . the utterance of a protest and the consent of the Bishop. One opinion which Mgr. Montagnini records is the Arch- bishop of Rouen's that "the French clergy are more than ever attached to the Government." Cardinal Merry del Val on receiving these statements makes this extremely interesting and important answer
71 am very anxious, as I see clearly that we have come to a turning-point in the history of the universal Church. All the forces of evil, of international Freemasonry, are engaged against the Church, and at the present moment France holds the first place in this struggle. What will happen in France will serve as an example for all the others. For that reason the decision to be taken will be of the greatest importance. It is evident that if the majority of the Bishops are of opinion that they ought to submit to the law in practice it will be difficult for the Pope to order them to act contrary to their convictions although he may be assured of their obedience. But it is false, quite false, to say that the Pope is not prepared to proclaim resistance if he be supported by a considerable number of Bishops. The fact of having ordered an inquiry concerning possible future public worship associations does not at all signify that the Pope has already, more or less, decided that it will be necessary to accept them."
It is very difficult to understand after this how the Vatican can have emphatically denied that the French Bishops were in favour of yielding. When the French clergy are pinched more and more by the poverty which the resistance of the Vatican has brought upon them, they will be more than human if they do not let the difference between themselves and Rome revealed here grow into something like resent- ment. The intellectual divergence we have already examined. The combined differences justify the Cardinal's words that a turning-point has been reached. We wish we could see some signs, however small, that the situation will be turned to good instead of to ruin, for we are no wishers of evil to the Roman Church, in France or else- where. If we wished it ill, we should rejoice at, not deplore, the fatal obscurantism and illiberality of view displayed in the Montagnini papers. Burke said of the Jacobins of the Revolution that they would "rather domineer in a parish of atheists than rule the whole Christian world." A similar spirit seems to possess the Vatican of to-day. They would rather domineer in a parish of Mtmmontanes than lead the spiritual and religious revival of Latin Christianity.
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