Leo. XIII. has addressed a letter of twelve pages to
M. Grevy personally, a sketch of which has been communicated to the Times Correspondent in Paris. The Pope comments on the legislation of the past three years, the expulsion of the Orders, the subjection of seminarists to the conscription, and the right assumed to suppress curates' Salaries, and observes that all these measures are contrary to the spirit of the Concordat. His Holiness adverts, moreover, to the spirit shown in the discus- sions on the Concordat, especially in M. Paul Bert's report, and observes that he would be regarded as wanting to his duty if he were to pass over such events in silence. He prays the President, therefore, up to the limits of his power to discourage these attacks upon religion, and so diminish the probability of a rupture between the Papacy and France. The letter will, it is said, be answered in a temperate spirit, though M. Grevy is believed to be very anti-clerical, but it may be questioned if a rupture can long be avoided. The more popular a body in France is, the more violently is it opposed to religion, and the Municipality of Paris has only this week suppressed the chaplaincies of the great hospitals, and forbidden the entrance of priests, except when summoned by patients. The Papacy must take a stand at some point or other, and declare that the Government of France can no longer be recognised as Catholic.
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