The Papacy is evidently most reluctant to begin a contest
with the French Government which might end in the suppression of the Ecclesiastical Budget. The Vatican has, therefore, while declaring that "it reproves and condemns all provisions of the new law which infringe the rights, prerogatives, and legitimate liberties of the religious Orders," allowed all non-recognised Orders to apply for the authorisa- tion demanded by the new law on Associations. They are not, however, to submit their old rules and statutes, but only "a synopsis of statutes answering to the various points of Article 3," which the secular power may not consider sufficient. How, indeed, is it to tell without the original statutes that the synopsis agrees with them, or condemns them all ? The difficulty will strike the lawyers who guide the Ministry, and, though it will be surmounted, may occasion further correspondence. The submission of the Vatican is a new proof that the Papacy can be influenced by the civil power, and this even when the laws to which it directs obedi- ence are formally "reproved and condemned."
