Time Was When French Bishops Condemned Secularism
Nine months before Pius XI’s encyclical Quas primas of 11 December 1925, on the kingship of Christ and its rejection of state atheism, the Assembly of Cardinals and Archbishops of France anticipated it by condemning secularism as being contrary to the rights of God over society. That was one hundred years ago to the day.
A Primarily Uncompromising French Episcopate
The Separation of Church and State in 1905 had provoked a profound trauma in the French episcopate, which felt dispossessed of much of its social influence, as well as of its episcopal palaces. However, while under the Concordat regime, all national meetings had been forbidden, after the Great War, an Assembly of Cardinals and Archbishops, the ACA[1], was able to freely assemble, with the blessing of Benedict XV and then Pius XI.
From 1919 to 1930, in the period of interest to us, the French episcopate was still composed of the prelates Saint Pius X had appointed after the Separation of Church and State, and guided by the orientation he had given to it. These prelates, all of whom were uncompromising to varying degrees, included such figures as NNSS Humbrecht (Besançon), du Bois de La Villerabel (Rouen), Ricard (Auch), Dubillard (Chambéry), Castellan (Digne), Monestès (Dijon), Maurin (Grenoble), Durfort (Poitiers), Charost (Rennes), Marty (Montauban), de Cabrières (Montpellier), Penon (Moulins), Bougouin (Périgueux), Nègre (Tours), and Métreau (Tulle).
With the death of Pius X, the episcopate found itself at odds with Rome, represented by the Nuncio Cerretti. Secretary of State Gasparri, relying on the sacred union sealed during the war between Catholics and Republicans, wanted to ensure that Leo XIII’s Ralliement directives were being implemented. In concrete terms, the aim was to secure the resumption of diplomatic relations between the French Republic and the Holy See, and to reach a compromise with the former, which would allow for the recognition of diocesan associations, thereby granting French dioceses a legal basis, in contrast to Saint Pius X, who had urged the episcopate to reject religious associations (encyclical Maximam gravissimamque of 1924).
The ACA’s permanent commission was chaired by Louis Luçon, archbishop of Rheims, created a cardinal by Pius X, and its secretary was Mgr Chollet, who had been archbishop of Cambrai since 1913, both of whom were unwavering, Mgr Chollet being assisted by Fr Marie-Albert Janvier, a Dominican, a representative of those Catholics who had refused the Ralliement; (he had soundly rejected Jacques Piou’s Action libérale Populaire (the Popular Liberal Action political party).
However, if there were tensions between the ACA – and, indeed, acceptance of the Republic was far from being a foregone conclusion among many French prelates – and Rome’s policy of compromise, these tensions had nothing to do with the condemnation of the Separation of Church and State and of secularism, both of which were deemed unacceptable by Pius XI; (“We too lifted Our heart to God in prayer, and then after considering at great length the matter in the Divine Presence, We confirmed the condemnation which had been made of the iniquitous law of separation,” Pius XI states in Maximam gravissimamque).
However, in 1924, the Chamber of Deputies came to be dominated by the Left-Wing Coalition, which had succeeded the National Bloc Party, which in 1919 had obtained a large majority (known as the Horizon-Blue Chamber, in allusion to the color of the uniforms worn by the many veterans who held office there). Édouard Herriot, the new President of the Council of Ministers (14 April 1924 – 10 April 1925) and member of the Radical Party, who was as cultivated a man as he was a shrewd political schemer, boasting “scrupulous respect for secular laws”, wanted to break off diplomatic relations once again, to resume the expulsion of religious congregations, to abrogate the concordat status in Alsace-Lorraine, which had been adopted from that of Germany, and to revive secular laws in the domain of education.
Disregarding the Roman policy line, the ACA opted for a confrontation.
“Secular laws are not laws.”
The declaration “on the so-called secular laws and the measures to combat them” of 10 March 1925[2], prepared by Fr Janvier, certainly took Leo XIII’s encyclical Au milieu des sollicitudes into account, attacking the bad laws of the Republic, though not the republican institutions themselves. Yet on the matter of secularism, it did in fact attack the very matrix of the Revolution: “The laws of secularism are unjust first of all because they are contrary to the formal rights of God. They proceed from and lead to atheism in the individual, familial, social, political, national and international order. They presuppose the total disregard for Our Lord Jesus Christ and his Gospel. They tend to replace the true God with idols (freedom, solidarity, humanity, science, etc.) and to de-Christianize all lives and all institutions. Those who inaugurated their reign, as well as those who consolidated, extended and imposed it, had no other aim in mind. As a result, such laws are the work of impiety, which is the expression of the most culpable of injustices, in the same manner that the Catholic religion is the expression of the highest justice.” The declaration then went on to enumerate four sets of secularizing legislation: the school legislation, which “deprives parents of the freedom that belongs to them,” while at the same time misleading children’s minds, perverting their wills and distorting their consciences; the law of Separation, which strips the Church of the goods that were necessary for its ministry, “not to mention the fact that it entails society’s official, public and scandalous break with the Church, religion and God”; the divorce legislation, which “legally sanctions adultery”; and all the provisions that secularize hospitals and deprive the sick of spiritual consolation, exposing them to a death without the sacraments.
Then came the heart of the matter: not only is it a right, but it is a duty to disobey such laws. “Secular laws are not laws. They are law in name only, a usurped name; they are only corruptions of the law, and constitute acts of violence rather than laws, as Saint Thomas states[3] […]. After having ruined the essential principles on which society rests, they are enemies of the true religion, which commands us to recognize and adore God and his Christ in every sphere of life, to adhere to their teaching, to submit to their commandments, to save our souls at all costs; it is not permissible for us to obey such laws; rather, we have the right and the duty to fight them and to demand, by all honest means, their abrogation.”
The French prelates, freed from all ties with the Concordat, strengthened by the sacrifice of priests, religious and seminarians during the war, and not yet bridled by the condemnation of the Action Française (AF), were clearly combative, nearly subversive.
Two tactics are possible, they explained. “The first would be to avoid clashing head-on with secular legislators; to try to appease them and to induce them, after having applied their laws in a spirit of moderation, to ultimately let them fall into disuse.” However, this tactic has serious disadvantages, they continued:
- “It leaves the laws standing. Assuming that a ministry or several ministries only apply them benevolently, or cease to wield them against Catholics, all it would take is for a new government to rescue them from oblivion.” The effects of secularism are temporarily mitigated, but the principle subsists. “It will be asserted that a conciliatory attitude has earned us some special favors. Paltry advantages when one considers the immense current of error that is invading souls and leading them to apostasy!”
- “The most evil among these laws continues to have its effect, whatever the intentions of the successive ministries.”
- “This policy encourages our adversaries, who, counting on our resignation and passivity, carry out new attacks against the Church each and every day.”
A second, “more militant and energetic” tactic was thus advocated. It involved “openly and unanimously declaring war on secularism and its principles in all areas, in all the regions of the country, until the iniquitous laws emanating from it are abolished,” with “all legitimate weaponry,” enumerated here, once again in three points, as in a well-ordered sermon:
- Action aimed at swaying public opinion through persistent propaganda, particularly through newspapers and conferences, as well as “external demonstrations”.
- Action aimed at legislators, essentially by voting only for politicians opposed to secularism. The declaration, referring to the opinion of “earnest gentlemen”, refuted the “lesser evil” tactic of voting, which consists, in the absence of a good candidate, of voting for the least bad.
- Action aimed at the government, by imitating those demonstrators who “go in droves to the portals of town halls, prefectures and ministries,” send protest petitions, delegations and ultimatums to those in power, and initiate strikes.
Paving the Way for the Encyclical Quas Primas
The ACA declaration stirred up a storm in the Chamber of Deputies. Herriot, questioned by a deputy from the Left-Wing Coalition on the government’s intended attitude, gave a very measured response, but denounced, in particular, as the ideological source of the episcopal text, the doctrine of the French Seminary in Rome, where the bishops of France were largely recruited; (Herriot was targeting Fr Henri Le Floch, a Spiritan, who was the superior of the French Seminary and one of the leading figures of integral Catholicism). Above all, he denounced the most subversive aspect of the bishops’ text: “The declaration of the archbishops and cardinals does not state that the law must be reformed, but that it must be violated.”
In Rome, Cardinal Gasparri discovered the declaration of the cardinals and archbishops while reading La Croix. One can readily imagine his displeasure at doing so. He expressed his regret to Cardinal Luçon that he hadn’t been informed, and especially regretted the “aggressive” tone of the document. Both Cardinal Luçon and Mgr Chollet defended themselves by invoking the urgency of the situation …
However, while Pius XI’s wariness with regard to the French prelates was obvious, as the latter were excessively imbued with the Pius X spirit to suit his taste, the pope, whose motto was Pax Christi in regno Christi, nonetheless fully endorsed the substance of their condemnation of secularism. In his 1922 encyclical Ubi arcano, he asserted that “Jesus Christ reigns over society when men recognize and reverence the sovereignty of Christ, when they accept the divine origin and control over all social forces, a recognition which is the basis of the right to command for those in authority and of the duty to obey for those who are subjects” and that there was “no peace of Christ except through the reign of Christ.” In the Pope’s view, it was the apostasy of the nations that had led them to the collective suicide which the Great War had constituted. The ACA’s declaration thus anticipated the themes of the encyclical Quas primas, published nine months later, whose aim, in instituting an annual feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday in October, was likewise to target “the plague which now infects society, […] secularism, with its errors and impious activities.”
“Whatever form a government may take,” said Leo XIII in Immortale Dei, “provided only that it be of a nature of the government, rulers must ever bear in mind that God is the paramount ruler of the world, and must set him before themselves as their exemplar and law in the administration of the State. […] All who rule, therefore, must hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety..” And Pius XI added: “Governments and magistrates, as well as private individuals, are under the obligation to render public worship to Christ and to obey his laws.”
Happy were the days when the magisterium of the pope and the bishops reminded us that the obligation incumbent upon political society to render public worship to God is a matter of natural law.
The “armed wing” of the French bishops?
The ACA declaration of 10 March 1925 had been preceded by the founding, in February 1924, at the instigation of cardinals and archbishops, of the National Catholic Federation (FNC) by General Édouard de Castelnau, the most astute of the First World War generals according to his peers. It constituted a powerful pressure group whose organization into diocesan unions, cantonal unions and parish unions was modelled on that of French Catholicism into dioceses, deaneries and parishes. Its first national congress, the General Assembly of the FNC, a sort of assembly of all militant Catholics, took place in February 1925, just prior to the publication of the ACA declaration, which galvanized the militants who had by then gone back to their homes. Everything had been well calculated. Janvier was also chaplain to the FNC.
The militant ACA program was applied to the letter by the FNC. Until 1927, large-scale demonstrations multiplied, especially in the western regions (50,000 demonstrators in Angers, 60,000 in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, etc.), but also in the eastern departments and in Toulouse, where bishops did not fear to speak out.
However, General de Castelnau’s FNC, which brought together a wide range of currents and tendencies, was on the whole a notch below the ACA from a political standpoint: it was certainly not substantially democratic, like Marc Sangnier’s Sillon movement, from which the French Christian Democrats would emerge, but it was not intended to be subversive in the manner of Action Française, as the latter had at the time retained its “seizure of power” plan.
The AF also contributed to the FNC’s huge demonstrations. Fr Janvier (even after his condemnation in 1926), and quite a few bishops with him, were sympathetic to Charles Maurras’ movement, as Pius XI bitterly experienced when he condemned it the following year. Castelnau, on the other hand, was clearly “non-Action française”. In fact, he had given up all political ambitions after having served as a deputy during the legislature of the Horizon-Blue Chamber, within the large liberal and conservative party which the Republican Federation constituted.
The benefits resulting from the revendications-based policy instigated by the declaration of the French high prelates were not negligible, since, as early as 1925, Édouard Herriot backed down in the face of the pressure coming from all right-wing groups: the Concordat of 1801 was maintained in Alsace-Lorraine, diplomatic relations with the Holy See continued, and religious congregations, both those which had returned to France after the Great War and those which had not left the country, remained in place.
Yet the secular Republic remained secular. How far were the French bishops prepared to go in their guidelines? The ACA’s declaration of 10 March 1925 contained a key passage, somewhat awkwardly phrased, and surprisingly bound by parentheses: “(Religion leaves everyone free to be a republican, royalist, or imperialist, as these various forms of government are reconcilable with it, but it does not leave one free to be a socialist, communist or anarchist, because these three sects are condemned by reason and by the Church. Unless there are special circumstances, Catholics are bound to serve de facto governments loyally, so long as the latter work for the temporal and spiritual good of their subjects [emphasis added]; they are not permitted to lend their support to unjust or impious measures taken by governments; they are obliged to remember that politics, being a part of morality, is subject, like morality, to reason, to religion and to God. It is in an analogous manner that they must refute the other prejudices which are widely spread among the population.)”
The ACA thus placed itself in a position of calculated ambiguity: respecting Leo XIII’s instructions to rally to the established republican power, simply described as a “de facto government”, but rendering possible the passage from disobedience to unjust laws to secession: Catholics are only obliged to serve governments loyally “so long as they work for the temporal and spiritual good of their subjects”.
Nonetheless, these bishops’ defense of the Christian City was reduced to giving birth to a conservative pressure group. And its leader, General de Castelnau, despite leading a considerable movement which, in just one year, had succeeded in bringing together two million Catholics, contented himself with having succeeded in maintaining a papal nuncio at the apostolic nunciature situated on President Wilson Avenue in Paris. He did not entertain, even as a utopian idea, any plans for establishing a Catholic state.
Abbé Claude Barthe
[1] The ACA existed from 1919 to 1964, when it was replaced by the Conférence des Évêques de France, CEF.
[2] Déclaration sur les « lois dites de laïcité », La Documentation catholique, no 282, 21 mars 1925, col. 707-712 ; La Porte latine, Quand les évêques de France déclaraient : « Les lois laïques ne sont pas des lois » – LPL.
[3] Summa Theologica, Ia IIae, q. 96, art. 4.