FRANCE
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FRANCE
agaLost him, threatened to intrude lay authority into
the natural operation of the ecclesiastical organiza-
tion; the Encyclical prohibited the formation not only
of associations cultuelles, but of any form of association
whatsoever " so long as it should not be certainly and
legally evident that the Divine constitution of the
Church, the immutable rights of the Roman pontiff
and of the bishops, such as their authority over the
necessary property of the Church, particularly the
sacred edifices, would, in the said associations, be irrev-
ocably and fully secure ".
The half-contradiction between Article 4 and Arti- cle 8 was not the only serious grievance which the Church could allege. The author of the law had furthermore restricted in a singularly parsimonious fashion the property rights of the future associations cultuelles. They were permitted to establish unlimited reserve funds, but they were to have the free disposal of only a portion equivalent to sbc times the mean annual expenditure, and the surplus was to be kept in the Caisse des Depots et Consignations, and employed exclusively in the acquisition or conservation of real and personal property for the use of religious worship. Moreover, the business transactions of all the cultuelles were to be under state inspection and control.
Thus the law on the one hand did not leave to the Cliurch, legally represented by the associations cul- tuelles, the right of freely possessing the ecclesiastical patrimony, of increasing it at will. Of disposing of it at will; and on the other hand it left to the jurisdic- tion of the State the right, in any case of conflicting claims, to accept or to reject the legitimate claims of any cultuelle which might be m communion with the hierarchy.
The interdict laid upon the associations cultuelles has had several juridical consequences. Fhst, the third of the classes of jabriques property described above was placed under sequestration, to be assigned by the State to communal benevolent institutions, of which every commune possesses at least one — the free hospital and dispensary. Secondly, the suppressed fabrigues were under regular legal obligations, e. g., Masses to be said as consideration for pious founda- tions. In the intention of the author of the law, the obligation of causing these Masses to be said would have fallen upon the associations cultuelles; as these have not been founded, are the communal institutions, which enjoy the revenues of the foundations, bound to fulfil these obligations? For two years the responses given to this question by the civil authority were hesi- tating- The Law of 15 April, 1908, laid it down that these institutions shall in nowise be bound to cause the Masses to be said in prospective consideration of which the foundations were established ; that only the founders themselves or their heirs in direct line shall have the right to claim, within a period of sLx months, restitution of the capital of the said foundations, but that certain clerical benefit societies (the muiuaUtes sacerdotales, organized to receive the funds of the old diocesan caisses for the support of superannuated priests) could receive incomes from these foundations and, in return, accept the obligation of the Masses. _ It appeared to the Holy See, however, that the constitu- tion of these benefit societies did not adequately safe- guard the rights of the bishops, and the French clergy were thenceforward forbidden to avail themselves of this law. As the right of recovery on account of non- fulfilment of the conditions has been allowed only to heirs in the direct line, the numberless pious founda- tions established by priests or other celibates are for- ever lost. And at the present writing no pious founda- tion is legally feasible in France, because there is in the Church no personality legally qualified to receive Buch a beq nest . 1 lenee the absolute impossibility, for any French Catholic, of .securing to him.self in perpe- tuity the celebration in his own parish church of a Mass for the repose of his soul.
Thirdly, the use of the churches was to be assigned
to the itssociations cultuelles, on condition that the lat-
ter should keep up the buildings. The cultuelles not
having been formed, would the State take possession
of the churches? It dared not ; or, rather, it did not
wish to drive home upon the popular mind the eflfect
of the separation. After a brief period of transition,
during which ridiculous proces-verbaux were drawn up
against priests who said Mass, the State left the reli-
gious edifices at the disposal of clergy and people, offi-
cially placing assemblies for religious worship in the
same official category as ordinary public gatherings;
it was sufficient for the religious authority to make, at
the beginning of each year, a declaration in advance
for all the gatherings for public worship to be held
during the year. Rome forbade the Church of France
to comply with this formality of an annual declaration,
thus once more endeavouring to make the State under-
stand that legislation regulating the life of the Catholic
Church could not depend on the mere will of the State,
and that ecclesiastical authority could not, even by a
simple declaration, actively concur in any such legis-
lation. Once more it was thought that the closing of
the churches was imminent. Then came two new
laws.
The Law of 2 Januarj', 1907, permits the exercise of religious worship in the churches purely on sutTeranee and without any legal title. According to this new law, the clergy have only the actual use of the edifices, the maintenance of which Ls an obligation incumbent upon the proprietor — the State or the commune. But grave complications are to be expected. If the pro- prietor refuses the needful repairs, the church may be closed for the sake of public safety — unless, that is, the faithful tax themselves to pay for repairs. The Church, tolerated in her own buildings, has no re- course against any mayor who might order the bells to be tolled for a non-religious funeral. At one time it was believed that the priests would be able to rent the churches on lease, but, owing to the demands of ministerial orders, this last hope had to be aban- doned. At last assemblages for religious worship were juridically classified as public meetings, and, as the Church refused to make the anticipatory declara- tion required by the Law of 1881, on public meetings, a law passed on 28 March, 1907, abolished this require- ment in respect of all public meetings, those for reli- gious worship included.
Such was the patchwork of expedients by which the Government, embarrassed by its own Law of 1905, and still refusing to negotiate with Rome, contrived what looked like a modus rivendi. The voter sees that the priest is still in the church, and that Mass is still said there, and this is all that is needed by the Gov- ernment to convince the shallow multitude that the Church is not persecuted, and that if the conditions of its existence are not prosperous, the blame must be laid on the successive refusals of the pope — the refusal to permit the formation of cultuelles, the refusal to per- mit compliance with the law in the matter of declaring assemblies for public worship, the refusal to let priests form the mutuiditc's approved by the State. All the evils of the situation are due to the fundamental error committed by the State at the very outset, when, wishing to reorganize the life of the Church in France, it broke with the Holy See instead of opening negotia- tions. Hence the impossibility of the Church actively co-operating in the execution of laws enacted by the civil authority in a purely one-sided fashion — laws which took the place of a concordat never regularly annulled. (See Concord.\t of 1801.)
Civil Reguhdion oj Public Worship. — On this point the Law of 190.') contains two classes of provisions.
(a) Rules Relating to Religious Ceremonies. — While, vmder the Concordat, an administrative authoriza- tion was necessary for the opening of even a private chapel, it is now lawful to upcu places of worship
