584: 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. (AUSTRIA ITALY SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.) 



fused to forbid. He had no objection to episcopal 

 control within the limits prescribed, he said. But 

 the point was, that the law expected and de- 

 manded more. It wished to separate the houses 

 of the orders from their head, and to make them 

 dependent for control, and even for existence, on 

 the will of their own paid servants. 



The result of the passage of the law was the 

 exile of most of the great religious orders of 

 France. Rather than apply on the terms pre- 

 scribed they left the country by thousands, set- 

 tling in Italy, Canada, England, Germany, and 

 Austria. Of 12,176 houses, only 416 applied for 

 authorization, the remainder preferring to sur- 

 render their homes and property at once to being 

 robbed of it piecemeal while under a ban which 

 prevented them from carrying on their work. 



With their appetites nicely whetted by this 

 success, the socialists took another step toward 

 the destruction of the Church in France by re- 

 fusing to pass the annual budget of worship, 

 from which are paid the salaries of the priests 

 and bishops. It was not until Waldeck-Rousseau 

 had clearly explained that their opposition was 

 premature, and that the design was to enlarge 

 the responsibility of the bishops while making 

 them dependent on the state, that he forced the 

 budget through the house. 



A third opportunity came in the discussion of 

 the Chinese indemnity loan bill, by which it was 

 proposed to commute the instalments of the in- 

 demnity of $53,000,000 which China- had agreed 

 to pay to France by means of a loan. Of the 

 indemnity, about $6,000,000 belonged to the re- 

 ligious orders, and this part it was proposed not 

 to raise by a loan, but to leave it dependent on 

 China's leisurely payments. In a word, France 

 purposed to guarantee all the indemnity except 

 that going to the orders. To this, however, the 

 Premier demurred again, showing that it was 

 necessary for France to protect in China congrega- 

 tions whose property it was confiscating at home 

 in order to preserve French spheres of influence in 

 disputed territory; and by using all the party 

 machinery, the Premier succeeded in having the 

 indemnity loan include the orders. 



Mgr. Isoard, Bishop of Annecy, died Aug. 3. 



Nine vacant sees were filled during the year. 

 Mgr. Bonnefoy, Bishop of La Rochelle, was trans- 

 ferred to the archiepiscopate of Aix, Canon Le 

 Camus succeeding him. Abbe" Bouquet was ap- 

 pointed to Mende, M. Ricard to Angouleme, Abbe 

 Andrien to Marseilles, Abbe Delamaire to Peri- 

 gueux, Abbe" Lacroix to Farentaise, Abbe Dubois 

 to Verdun, and Abbe" Canappe to Guadeloupe. 



Austria. The anticlericalism which agitated 

 France so greatly throughout the year found 

 echoes in the countries in the southern tier of 

 Europe, more or less strong in direct ratio with 

 the strength of the socialist parties. In Austria 

 the outbreak came in April, when his Highness 

 the Archduke Francis Ferdinand became protector 

 of the Austrian Catholic Schools Association. 

 Since Catholicism is the state religion of the 

 dual monarchy, it is difficult to see the basis for 

 the socialist uproar which followed the arch- 

 duke's act. Dr. Menger, the leader of the Ger- 

 man progressivist party in the Reichstag, moved 

 immediately for the repeal of the paragraph of 

 the criminal law which provided for the punish- 

 ment of any one uttering offensive language 

 toward a member of the imperial family. With- 

 out the repeal of the act, he said, it would be 

 impossible for him to express his opinion of the 

 archduke's action. The Prime Minister success- 

 fully urged the defeat of the motion. 



A further indication of the anticlerical spirit 



was given in May in Budapest. The university 

 there is Catholic, but on the ground that it was 

 an institution of the state, the Minister of Public 

 Instruction prohibited the display of the crucifix 

 in the lecture-rooms. The Catholic students 

 thereupon hung wooden crosses on the doors of 

 the lecture-rooms, when the liberal students at- 

 tempted to tear them down. In the disorderly 

 scenes which ensued considerable injury was done 

 to person and property, but the Catholics, out- 

 numbering their opponents, had the best of the 

 physical argument, and shortly afterward the 

 offensive prohibition was withdrawn. 



Italy. The Quirinal and the Vatican contin- 

 ued during the year their state of armed neu- 

 trality, though the House of Deputies and the 

 ministerial branches of the Government kept up 

 their attacks on the Holy See and its supporters. 

 The incident of the College of San Girolamo, end- 

 ing as it did with Austrian intervention, did not 

 add to the good temper of the Socialist party, 

 which gave vent at different times to curious 

 manifestations of " loyalty." One of these oc- 

 curred in Messina, where in March a boy from 

 the Salesian elementary school replied to a ques- 

 tion set in a Government examination by describ- 

 ing Garibaldi as an adventurer. Two or three 

 days later the Salesians of Messina received a 

 document from the superintendent of studies,, 

 informing them that he revoked the authoriza- 

 tion granted to the Salesian College to keep open 

 ginnasio and elementary schools, and that the 

 facts of the case had been referred to the council 

 of the province for action. The college contained 

 300 scholars, and it was closed because one of 

 the boys thought Garibaldi an adventurer. A 

 week later, in Luino, a town on Lake Maggiore, 

 the socialist corporation expunged from the cate- 

 chism all explanation or reference to the tenth 

 commandment* of the decalogue, " which is of a- 

 nature," it naively explains, " to generate in the 

 minds of the children aversion and contempt for 

 an entire class of persons." The entire class of per- 

 sons are the socialists, and the tenth command- 

 ment forbids the coveting of our neighbor's goods- 



As an additional blow to the Vatican, an at- 

 tempt was made to revive the semidefunct " XX 

 Settembre," the anniversary of the fall of the tem- 

 poral power. Some thousands of the boys in the 

 Government schools at Rome were to be mar- 

 shaled outside the walls, and led to a sham 

 assault on the breach. The assault was more 

 of a sham than was anticipated. It had to be 

 given up because only 76 boys attended. 



A greater and farther reaching evil, however,, 

 was the general dissemination of licentious litera- 

 ture by the socialists during the year. The most 

 private parts of the black theology of St. Alphon- 

 sus were published in a Roman paper whose scope 

 and standing are indicated by its name, the Ass, 

 with lewd pictures and still lewder letterpress. 

 The Swan, another of these publications, was 

 brought before the court at Ancona, and its pub- 

 lication enjoined. 



Spain and Portugal. Anticlericalism -is con- 

 tagious. Nearly every country of Europe became 

 infected with it in the year, except Germany, 

 where it would be non grata if only for the rea- 

 son that it originated in France. In Spain it was 

 confined to licentious attacks upon the clergy, 

 though these were carried to such an extent that 

 the .Spanish hierarchy carried to the upper house 

 of the legislature the demands of Catholics gen- 

 erally. The provisions of their demands, which 

 were finally granted, were that the higher grades 

 of education should include an obligatory course 

 of religious and moral lectures; that the liberty 



