French Church

“ Catholicism is the acknowledged religion of the majority of the French people; the church property belongs to the state, with the obligation to maintain the clergy and ordinances; the clergy who had taken the oath and those who were expatriated were all to resign, but were eligible for election; new boundaries were to be marked out for the episcopal dioceses with reference to the political divisions of the country; the government elects and the pope confirms the bishops, and these, with approval of the government, appoint the priests. ”

“ Comparative independence of French Church. But meanwhile the French Clergy had not lost their feeling of nationality, and the kings of France had been able to use much more independent action in the appointment of Bishops than was the case in other countries. Hence the Bishops and Clergy joined with the king in resisting the sentence of excommunication pronounced by the Pope on Philip and his kingdom. ”

“ When an organ pours forth its sonorous and mellow notes and men's voices chant Gregorian music before the brilliantly lighted altar sparkling with golden ornament, when the solemn Latin liturgy is recited and the consecrated elements are raised by the priest, the average religious requirements of the French would seem to be satisfied. Those who do not find any satisfaction in watching and listening to these offices of the Roman Church as a rule drop into a state of agnosticism, if not of complete irreligion. ”

“ One must go to the Catholic historians, especially the French, to know the details of the lives of those saints whom the Catholic Church has canonized. Of nothing is Protestant ecclesiastical history more barren than the heroism, sufferings, and struggles of those great characters who adorned the fourth and fifth centuries, as if the early ages of the Church have no interest except to Catholics. ”

“ If they still stirred up burning passions, human blood no longer flowed.
Divine worship was celebrated almost everywhere without obstacle in the seven hundred and sixty churches that remained to the French Reformation; and when serious grievances were laid before the council, they were redressed. The faithful of Paris had been compelled to open their church in the little village of Ablon, five leagues from the town. The courtiers complained that they could not on the same day discharge their duty to God and the king. ”

“ In such a church come flashes of insight, momentary liftings of the veil, periods of mental fecundity that make clear why the true mystic passes without loss from his isolated reverie of Divine Love to an intensely practical activity, and when you begin to understand that you are on the way to a comprehensive sympathy with that pillar of French Christianity, that apostle sent of God as surely as was Paul to the Gentiles—Bernard the Burgundian, who prayed and preached in this abbey church. ”

“ The Italians, the Spaniards, the French, or any other nation or nations, may renounce the faith and abandon the church, as England and several nations did in the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, yet the church exists and is none the less really and essentially Catholic. The church has existed in all her divinity without including any one nationality or race, and, if it please God, can do so again. ”

“ In any case the duty which is at present incumbent on the French bishops is to labor in perfect harmony of thought and action to prevail upon the people to save the rights and interests of the religious congregations, which We love with all Our fatherly heart, and whose existence, hberty, and prosperity concern the Catholic Church, France, and humanity. ”

“ Churches were erected, episcopal and archiepiscopal Sees were founded and endowed, colleges and monasteries were established by the various religious orders, and in the course of less than a century the Church had gained in the new world almost as much as she had lost in the old. ”

“ But what is all this, compared to the artificial distinctions introduced into their churches? It has always been the pride of the Catholic church in Europe to offer a place of worship to every man, without distinction of rank, title, or wealth. ”

“ This cordial intercourse between bishops, priests, and laymen has contributed no little toward the glory of the church and the efficiency of the Catholic press. Except in the sanctuary itself, the Catholic Church in France is utterly devoid of pomp and splendor, and by far the largest part of her resources is set aside for the maintenance of numerous educational, charitable, and other benevolent establishments, at which it may be interesting in this connection to cast here a brief glance. ”

“ What a power is in a creed and a service which thus links us with the past! As we listen to the Te Deum or the Litany, we are carried back not only to the Middle Ages, but to the days of persecution, when "the noble army of martyrs" was not a name; when the Church worshipped in crypts and catacombs. Perhaps we of other communions do not consider enough the influence of a Church which has a long history, and whose very service seems to unite the living and the dead—the worship on earth with the worship in heaven. ”

“ The Catholic Church, as churches go to-day, is certainly the most spectacular; but it must feel that it has a great fund of impressiveness to draw upon when it opens such sordid little shops of sanctity as this. It is impossible not to be struck with the grotesqueness of such an establishment as the last link in the chain of a great ecclesiastical tradition. ”

“ One is brought suddenly face to face with the tremendous difference which exists between the Protestant and the Catholic conception of what a church is and what it is for. To the one it is a place where men meet for mutual support and instruction, for united worship; to the other it is a place where men meet God. ”

“ And as it seems necessary that in human affairs the ridiculous should always place itself beside the tragic, a certain bishop of Avranches distributed a tract throughout all Paris, in which, comparing the sound of the bells of the Catholic service to that of the arquebuses which had interrupted the Lutheran worship, he detailed a tissue of antitheses: “The bells ring, and the arquebuses thunder; those have a soft sound, and these a sound of fear; those open heaven, these open hell....” And thence this prelatical buffoon inferred that (Roman) Catholicism has all the signs of the true church. ”

“ We hear constant complaints that Popery is on the increase. How can it be otherwise? Where and when was union not a source of strength, and division of weakness? The Protestant High Church is like a brilliant meteor shooting through the air in splendour and brightness; but constantly detaching from its own body some vital elements of its own existence. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is like a snow-ball rolling along the ground, with apparent humility, a dense and cohesive mass, alike tenacious of that which it possesses, and attractive of that which falls in its way. ”

“ Before this great human tide the old emigrant priests were like the primitive rocks which arrest and fix geological deposits, The Catholic part of the tossing flood invariably settled around them and their disciples. All over the West the churches founded by the old French settlers increased, and new ones sprang up wherever a Catholic priest established himself. From that moment the grand progressive movement has never ceased. The blood of the martyrs of France, the spirit of her banished apostles, became fruitful of blessings, of which the American churches are daily sensible. ”

“ He spoke with compassion of the miserably infidel state of France, and quite admitted my remark that a great change seemed to be passing over the mind of men everywhere, and that they were in the process of being won back to the faith, as in the last century they were falling from it. The Church was the best friend of all governments, for they must be bad indeed for the clergy not to support them ”

“ New churches were built, new congregations were formed, new dioceses were organized. On some mountain-side or in deep wooded vale a cloister, a convent, a college, a seminary arose, one hardly knew how, and yet another and another, until these retreats of learning and virtue dotted the land. The elements of discord and disturbance within the church grew less and less active, the relations between priest and people became more intimate and cordial, the tone of Catholic feeling improved, ecclesiastical discipline was strengthened, and the self-respect of the Catholic body increased. ”

“ Why call it catholic, when it is not only just one among many churches, but is even hostile to all the rest of the churches? Father, why not let the Catholic Church become really the universal Church? ”

“ Wherefore, as in the days when Christ walked on the earth and companied with the clergy, the high priests, priests and Pharisees—the different grades of the priesthood—observing the traditions of their own making, and asserting that they had God for their Father and that they were of Abraham's seed, and at no time served any man and enjoying a reputation among the people, did not do all these things, so that the clergy might by antonomasia and truly be called the holy church, inasmuch as Christ himself said of them, Matt. ”

“ A small part of the works of our day would suffice for the glory of any epoch. The clergy encourage and direct these movements; they display zeal and self-abnegation; and, devoted to their chiefs, they become more and more devoted to the church. The élite of society do them honor by following in their footsteps. Disabused of the unhealthy and destructive ideas by which their fathers were lost, and instructed by a hundred years of experience and misery, the higher classes, in France especially, return with simplicity to the faith and to the Christian virtues. ”

“ The unreasonableness of the catholic faith exists only in the imagination of the protestants, who, in general, know nothing about it. One of them asked me why the prayers were translated into Latin: I answered, that the pope had ordered them to be subtracted in this manner from the curiosity of the good people of ——, naming the town nearest the country residence of my interrogator. Another, a little perplexed on the subject of unity, asked, "What is the catholic church?" as an answer, I asked, "What is the church of England?" An Anglican clergyman put the question, "What is the mass?" ”

“ In France, the inner Christianity, has, for all that, through the dual effect of its Catholic and French envelope, grown warmer among the clergy especially among the regular clergy, but is has cooled off among the people and it is especially here that it is needed. ”

“ So we say, Mankind feel and always did feel the necessity of an infallible church, of a distinct, positive, dogmatic faith. Therefore they exist, and always did exist. Only in the Catholic Church are these wants realized; therefore the Catholic Church is the true Church of God. ”

“ From the earliest records we have of the administration of ecclesiastical affairs, as well as from all later history, we may learn that the Catholic Church never aimed at the senseless project of a pure communion, which, by excluding all but the finally elect, should rival in sanctity the fellowship of the saints above.
The worship of the Christian Church has always been open, unrestricted, unconfined by classical distinctions, such as those of the elect and the reprobate. The gates of the temple are closed against none who would join in the celebration of its holy rites. ”

“ The Catholic Church is to-day more zealous, more compact, more united, more confident of herself, more energetic, and better organized, than she was at the commencement of 1871. The Roman Catholics have good reason to be thankful that their church has gained in faith, in the spirit of sacrifice and prayer, in devoutness in worship, and in all Christian virtues. ”

“ These waverers, these men who lack force of character, whose hearts are charged with diluted Catholicism, know and believe, and by listening to sermons and religious instructions can completely convince themselves, that the Catholic Church is divine in her origin, holy in her founder, infallible in her doctrines, apostolic in her organization, glorious and wonderful in her saints. ”

“ Relying upon these maxims, the Protestants conceived that they were authorized in conceding to the priests as little as possible; but the latter replied,—“The opinion of the judges is nothing to us. The clergy alone have the light of deciding in sacramental matters. No human power can compel us to give them to those whom we think unworthy. Attend the mass and our instructions for years; confess yourselves regularly; show yourselves, in a word, to be [377] faithful Catholics, and you shall participate in the favours of the Church ”

“ If religion was at this time in a most flourishing state amongst us, abounding with such congregations as made up the primitive church, it would be great injustice to suppose that the clergy had not, under God, been the chief instruments of building it up to such a state of perfection. ”

“ The Catholic Church alone possesses, as her undivided property, the glorious character of Catholic. In her communion alone, numbers of holy apostolic men have abounded in all ages, who, leaving all they possessed or could expect in this world, and burning with zeal for the conversion of souls to God, have dedicated themselves entirely to carry the light of the Gospel to those who " sat in darkness and in the shadow of death," and to bring heathen nations to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. ”

“ In a word, most Holy Father, the clergy of France, which is the most learned and most illustrious of Holy Church, and which has no other aim than to promote the glory of the Church, does now judge after deep reflection that the reception of the Brief of Your Holiness will cast a shadow on the glory of the clergy of France ”