T HE TABLET

A W eekly Newspaper and Review

D u m VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS UT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS,

from the Brief of His Holiness Pius IX. to T he T ablet, June 4, 1870.

Voi. 54. No. 2034. London, A pril 5, 1879.

P r ice 50!. By P ost 5% d

[R e g is tered a t t h e G en e r a l P ost O f f i c e a s a N ew spaper.

C hronicle of t h e W eek

Paeje

The French Episcopate and the Education Bills.— The Bishop of Grenoble and M. Lepere.— The Return to Paris.— The Adjournment o f the Question.— The War in Afghanistan. — Another Disaster.— The End of the Armenian Schism.— The Italian Government and the Celestine Nuns.— Missioned to Equatorial Africa. — Theophane Vdnard and other Martyrs. — The Debate on the Vote of Censure in the Commons. — The Mixed Occupation Question.— Property Qualification in Municipalities.— The Revenue.— The Queen in Italy.— Wellington College . . . . . . . . 417

C O N T

Page

P e t er s P en c e ........................... 421 L e a d e r s :

The French Education Bills . . 421 4' Thoughts on the Pr esent Dis­

contents.” .. . . . . . . 421 The Irish Model Schools.. .. 422 The Mendicant Orders in Austria 424 Recent Struggles of German Pro­

testantism .................................... 42S R e v ie w s :

Elizabeth Eden . . . . . . 426 The Contemporary Review . . 427 S hort N otices ;

The Favourite Library . . . . 428 Totius Summae Theologicse S.

Thomse Compendium . . . . 428 C o r r e s p o n d e n c e :

A Catholic Eirenicon in the

Eighteenth Century . . . . 428

E N T S .

C orrespondence (continued)

An Eirenieon of the Eighteenth

Page

Century .. . . . . . . 429 The Jubilee Communion . . . . 429 The Jubilee Visits.. . . . . 429 The Jubilee Fast . . . . . . 429 Happy Easter _ . . . . . . 429 Missions in India .. . . . . 430 The Election for Poor Law

Guardians.. . . .. . . 430 The Case of Distress at Brook

Green .................................... 430 Save the Boy . . . . . . 430 “ The Jesuit Style o f Church

Architecture .. . . . . 430 The Abbey of St. Gall ^ . . . 430 English Liberalism Without Ex­

cuse . . . . . . . . 431 P a r l ia m e n t a r y S ummary : . . 431

r

R ome : — Letter from our own

Page

Correspondent............................434 D io cesan N ews

Westminster....................................... ç S o u th w a rk .......................................435 Birmingham....................................... 435 Clifton . . . . . . .. 436 Hexham and Newcastle . . .. 436 Leeds.................................................. 436 L i v e r p o o l ....................................... 436 Salford . . . . . . . . 436 I r e lan d :—

Letter from our own Corre­

spondent ......................... _ 436 F oreign N ews

Germany . . . . . . . . 438 M em oranda :

Religious . .

G en er a l N ews : .............................. 439

438

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

THE FRENCH EPISCOPATF.

AND THÉ EDUCATION

BILLS.

T'H E protest of the Archbishop of Tours and of his Suffragans against the Bills affecting the Catholic Universities has been followed up by similar appeals addressed by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris and the Cardinal Arch-

'bishop o f Rouen, and their respective Suffragans, to the Senators and Deputies, and by the Archbishop o f Rheims, and the Bishops of Chalons, Amiens, Soissons, and Beauvais, to the President of the Republic. Similar protests from the provinces of Toulouse have already appeared, and others are announced as about to appear from the Provinces of Sens, Rennes, Aix, and Besançon. These documents, couched, as might be expected, in moderate and dignified language, demonstrate the gross injustice of the proposed changes, as well as the fatal influence which they would exercise, if carried into effect, upon the future o f the country. The Archbishop of Paris draws attention to the fact that since 1875 no less than 15,000,000 francs have been subscribed forCatholic universities, and thatduring the twenty-nine years which have elapsed since the law of ,1850 established freedom of secondary education the country has been covered with Catholic schools. These large vested interests, created on the faith of the national law of the country, it is now proposed to confiscate. The same Prelate exposes with great vigour the injustice, folly, and ingratitude of the 7th section of the proposed law of higher education, which would disqualify from the work of education the members of Religious communities not recognised by the State. He points especially to the great services rendered by the Jesuits to literature, and to their admitted success as teachers, and vindicates them from the ■ charge o f being other than patriotic Frenchmen, and he contrasts forcibly the proposed measure o f persecution against Orders which had done and suffered so much for their countrymen during the Commune, with the pardon lately accorded to the Communists. The violence which would be done to individual liberty by the proposed interference with the parental choice so largely manifested in the preference shown to the Religious Orders for secondary education is shown to be entirely inconsistent with the principles of freedom which are supposed to be established under the Republican form of Government. The Cardinal de Bonnechose, in his letter to the President, dwells upon the manifest injustice of confiscating the property created by the subscriptions for the establishment of the free Universities, against which no crime has been alleged, and which

N ew Series, V ol. XX I . No. 543.

have been guilty of no offence against social order or public morality, The same considerations are urged with eloquence and force in the address of the Archbishop of Rheims and his suffragans. These eloquent appeals of the Heads of the Church in France constitute together a most comprehensive and conclusive protest against the measures which the French Government have unhappily brought forward.

The Bishop of Grenoble has replied to the t h e b is h o p letter of the Minister of the Interior concerning ° F the late Pastoral of the Bishop. To the asserm. LEPf.RE. tion of M. Lepere that the cause of the secular clergy is different from that of the ReligiousCongregations the Bishop replies that in the Catholic Church there is but one cause, that of Jesus Christ, and he points out that it is the duty of a Bishop to avail himself in the promotion of this cause of all the assistance which he can obtain. He therefore employs the secular clergy in the ordinary parochial duties, the regular clergy in preaching and education, and other Religious Congregations in the teaching of children. The Bishop asks that the Orders, recognised or not recognised, should be allowed by the Government to perform these functions, and in reply to the objection of the Minister that they were not recognised in France at the time when the Concordat was signed, that they were not contemplated by any clause of that covenant, and that they have consequently remained legally under the exclusive power of the State, the Bishop points out that before the Concordat the Religious Orders were canonically subject to the Cnurch, and, the Concordat not having mentioned them, the Church remains in full possession of her rights in respect to them. The relation of the Orders, on the other hand, towards the State is that which is within their rights as private citizens, and when they have wished for particular privileges, either as communities or individuals, they have sought for them in a manner conformable to law. The Bishop expresses his respect for the Concordat and his desire to fulfil its conditions, but points out that when laws are prepared which tend to withdraw its concessions, and to attack the liberty of the Church, it is the duty of the Bishops to protest, as the Church has always done since 1801, against some of the “ Organic Articles.” To illustrate his meaning the Bishop quotes the third of these Articles, which enacts that the decrees of foreign synods, even those of General Councils, may not be published in France until the Government shall have examined into their conformity with the rights and practices of the French Republic and their effect upon the public tranquillity, and points out that this article, to speak of no other, is of such a nature as to prevent the Head of the Church making communications of vital moment to its members.