107. French Catholic Revival;   108. Iberian Catholic Ordeals;   109. Catholic Minorities

107. FRENCH CATHOLIC REVIVAL

Transition. Prewar France had been in a frenzied condition since the Franco-Prussian War. Its élan had been nourished on hatred for Germany which alone united a host of irreconcilable parties. Desire for revenge had been sufficient to rally even supposedly cosmopolitan Socialists to France’s support in 1914, and the military peril, combined with clerical loyalty, had eased the anticlerical animus. After an exhausting struggle, victory had been won at the cost of over a million casualties among a declining population of forty million. After the war, then, the problems of reconstruction and of security were paramount.

Reparations. Local districts, devastated by the war, sent in reports of losses often estimated at five times the 1914 valuation. Despite a depreciated franc, these claims were too high, but the state reimbursed private individuals lavishly in the expectation of being recompensed from German reparation payments. But while a “Budget of Recoverable Expenditures” liberally and corruptly dispensed 21 billion francs, Germany eventually repaid only 250 millions. This and other causes produced severe economic crisis. In fear of Communism, Rightists formed a bloc in which Millerand, Briand, and Poincaré were prominent. An attempt to make the Germans pay, culminating in seizure of the Ruhr, ended in failure. This and the Leftist dissatisfaction with Rightist leniency toward clericalism, overthrew the bloc in the 1924 elections.

The Left Cartel (1924-26), led by Herriot, adopted a conciliatory policy toward Germany, but a hostile attitude toward the Vatican. The Soviet Union was recognized, but Herriot’s attempt to revive the anticlerical issue and to extend the ban on religious education to the newly ^{[p. 732]} recovered Alsace-Lorraine found most Frenchmen apathetic. Interest on the national debt was continually rising and reparations were barely trickling in from Germany. Afraid to tax cautious French bourgeoisie, the Cartel attempted inflation in vain. Finally, failure to readjust finances caused the Cartel’s fall.

The National Union (1926-32) was a coalition of former President Poincaré and six ex-premiers. Armed with dictatorial financal powers, Poincaré imposed heavy taxes, reduced expenditures, balanced the budget, and stabilized the franc. Reparations resumed for a brief period, the costs of reconstruction terminated, and 1927 proved a boom year. Hence, the Union was endorsed in the 1928 election. Though Poincaré himself retired in 1929, the Conservatives remained in office until 1932 under the Rightist ministries of Laval and Tardieu. Having disposed of the damage of the last war, every effort was made to secure future security for France by isolating Germany through alliances. The Maginot Line was commenced. In 1930 France evacuated the German Rhineland, ending her stranglehold on German recovery, but within six years Nazi reoccupation and remilitarization of this crucial zone would signalize the shift of military preponderance from France to Germany.

(2) FRENCH INSTABILITY (1932-44)

The Left Cartel returned after a victory in the 1932 elections, but its tenure of office was brief. Anticlerical gestures by Herriot were again ignored by the populace in the face of renewed economic stress. For France suffered by adhering to the gold standard after the rest of the world had begun to desert it in the wake of the great depression. Production fell off in France and unemployment increased. Hence, in December, 1932, the Herriot ministry was overthrown for insisting on French debt repayment to the United States.

The totalitarian menace then loomed large during a period of unstable ministries. During 1934 severe Parisian riots were provoked by the Stavisky Case, in which leading politicians seemed to be involved in fraudulent foreign speculation. Rightist agitation for the overthrow of the Third Republic found its greatest opportunity since the Dreyfus Affair. Charles Maurras of Action Française backed his youthful “Camelots du Roi,” Colonel de la Roque organized a pro-Fascist “Croix de Feu” group; and the ‘Blue Shirts” of the Solidarité Française made a good deal of noise. Premier Daladier had a Parisian mob fired upon, killing eighteen. He was dismissed in disgrace, and a coalition summoned to save the Republic. Ex-president Doumergue as premier stabilized finances, but was overthrown in turn on proposing a conservative change in the constitution. Abroad, Hitler’s advent to power, Mussolini’s defiance ^{[p. 733]} of the League in Ethiopia, and his alliance with the Nazis, and Franco’s rebellion in Spain frightened French Liberals with the spectre of Fascist encirclement.

The Popular Front (1936-38) of Léon Blum and Camille Chautemps represented an alliance of these Liberals with Communist and Socialist groups, who were then stressing Moscow’s propaganda line of cooperation with Democracy in a common front against Fascism. Though Blum’s government lent all but official assistance to Communist intervention in Spain, it would seem that French Communists gave no sincere co-operation in return on the home front. If they endorsed suppression of Fascist groups within France, their strikes, if not their sabotage, weakened national defense against Germany. Blum’s imitation of the American New Deal failed to satisfy his supporters or to solve France’s financial problems. Eventually the Popular Front was turned out of office, and the grim Daladier returned with an austere defense program. Failure of the Communists and Socialists to endorse the Munich Pact, momentarily hailed by French Liberals, dissolved the Popular Front.

World War II revealed a decay of French spirit; at any rate, there was total unpreparedness for modern methods of conflict. French Liberals, under the leadership of Premiers Daladier and Reynaud, could offer little more consolation for military disasters than frantic appeals to the United States for aid and vague exhortations to fight on in the French colonies. Military realists, headed by Marshall Pétain, considered such plans visionary. Actuated by a desire to spare France needless suffering, but also displaying a senile pessimism, Pétain assumed a thankless premiership and capitulated to the Nazis on terms of German occupation of two-thirds of France. On July 11, 1940, Pétain virtually abolished the Third Republic in favor of a provisional dictatorship under himself as chief of state and Laval as active administrator. The dictatorship (1940-44) had a distinctly Rightist tinge and made a few anti-Semitic gestures to placate the Nazis. But despite public repudiation of De Gaulle’s “Free French” forces and the Allies, Pétain secretly treated with the latter and never surrendered essential points to the Nazis.

B. Ecclesiastical History (1918-45)

(1) CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS

Clerical war service. Some 32,700 clerics were mobilized for active duty during World War I, and of these 4,618 were slain—a severe loss for an already understaffed clergy. Besides these combatants in the trenches, four hundred chaplains were found, some from priests exiled by the Separation Laws. For though the anticlerical bloc had abolished ^{[p. 734]} peace—time chaplaincies, an old law of 1880 was discovered authorizing their enrolment during armed conflict. The clergy’s patriotism greatly eased anticlerical animosity and many decorations were bestowed upon clerical war heroes by the government. Among the generals, Foch, Pau, Catelnau, Gouraud, Mangin, D’Esperay, and Weygand were practicing Catholics. Previously sidetracked, they were called up in the emergency by the masonic commander-in-chief, Joffre, and with good results.

Vatican relations. Such distinguished Catholic loyalty had elicited a tribute even from Premier Clemenceau in 1919. Hence, the Rightist Bloc, chosen in 1919, proposed the reopening of diplomatic relations with the Vatican. This move was delayed by an unexpected protest by several French bishops that they were “unanimous in their respectful resistance.” It is possible that they feared that a Vatican accord would accrue to the prestige and longevity of the Third Republic, for whose overthrow the popular Maurras clamored. Diplomatic relations were nonetheless resumed in 1921, and in January, 1924, Pope Pius XI in the letter Maximum proposed that the lay cultural associations be revised in keeping with both canon and civil law. Though both President Millerand and Premier Poincaré endorsed this solution, they were turned out of office in May, 1924, by Herriot who again severed Vatican relations. The new premier insisted on re-enforcement of the Ferry Laws against some religious who had returned to France. When several clerical war veterans retorted, “We shall not go,” they were well sustained by public opinion. Herriot also met defeat in his effort to abolish religious schools in Alsace-Lorraine which had been under German rule at the time of the French Separation Laws. Except for another brief flurry in 1932, anticlericalism was thenceforth on the wane in the politics of the Third Republic. Diplomatic relations were soon resumed with Rome, and became cordial while Abbé Charles-Roux served as French ambassador from 1932 to 1940. Religious were allowed to resume instructional tasks without molestation, and ecclesiastical authorities were not disturbed in the use of church properties. The anticlerical laws, still on the statute books, were suspended by Pétain in 1940.

Catholic Action, in order to combat the mounting threat of Marxism in France, had stressed workingmen’s associations. In 1887 Brother Dieron of the Christian Brothers had organized the first Catholic trade union for men, and in 1902 a Daughter of Charity founded the first for women. These and other Catholic social organizations were joined during 1919 into a Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens. This contributed to the defeat of a general rail strike the following year. Among the younger workers, Canon Cardijn’s Jocist movement spread from neighboring Belgium into France in 1926, while priest-workers, some heroic, others venturesome, returned to Pauline norms of the ^{[p. 735]} apostolate. A small political party, the Démocrates Populaires led by George Bidault, came into being, though scarcely prominence, during the 1930’s.

(2) THE “ACTION FRANÇAISE” CRISIS

Origins. Action Française was the title of an organization and publication—daily from 1908 under the lead of Charles Maurras (1868-1952), a brilliant but agnostic monarchist and chauvinist. His witty sallies at the expense of the Third Republic and his care to cloak his less pious views under expressions of respect for the Church’s civilizing mission, revived the hopes of clerical monarchists. Several bishops, however, had detected in Maurras’s “Integrism” a latent Totalitarianism, and had denounced several articles to the Holy Office, which condemned them on January 29, 1914. St. Pius X had approved of this decree before his death, but Benedict XV withheld promulgation. The Holy See evidently did not deem it prudent to issue any condemnation of French Nationalism during the war, but did order dissolution of Monsignor Benigni’s Sodalitiunt Pianum which had endorsed “Integrism.”

“What is Action Française ? Essentially a political movement bent on overthrowing by all means, lawful or unlawful, the republican regime.  Its faounder and recognized head, Maurras, is a man without religion and who, judging from his books, has long since flung  Christian moral to the  winds. The existence of God he rejects and of course the divinity of Jesus Christ and his teachings in the Gospel; while at the same time by a strange somersault of common sense and distortion of history he extols to the skies the Catholic Church because of the strong social spirit and principle of authority which he says it inherited from imperial Rome, and is antagonistic to the anarchy taught by the Gospel.” ¹²

1² Charles Souvay, “France,” Peter Guilday, editor, The Church in Contemporary Europe (New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1932), p. 95.

Condemnation. On August 23, 1926, Cardinal Andrieu, archbishop of Bordeaux, condemned Action Française. His trenchant attack was branded as unfair by the indicted leaders, who replied in kind, eliciting considerable clerical sympathy. But the cardinal’s criticism was republished in the Osservatore Romano, and Pope Pius XI sustained his position by sending him, January 5, 1927, the 1914 decree of the Holy Office, together with a new condemnation of Maurras’s review and other writings. Though most of the French hierarchy then testified their acceptance of the papal directives, March, 1927, three bishops and numerous priests and laymen publicly questioned the wisdom of the censures by the Holy See. Cardinal Billot, long intimately connected with the leaders of Action Française, resigned from the cardinalate in September, 1927. Except for a note congratulating Léon Daudet on a ^{[p. 736]} published retort to Cardinal Andrieu, the Jesuit theologian remained in submissive retirement until his death in 1931. Fathers Pegues and Le Floch resigned teaching positions. Jacques Maritain not merely repudiated the movement, but defended the papal condemnation in a book, Things That Are Not Caesar’s. Pius XI was adamant in his prosecution: on October 11, 1927, he insisted on observance of a decree of the Sacred Penitentiary of March 8 denying absolution to those who continued to read the condemned works, which had been put on the Index.

Dissolution. Though some of the clerical politicians continued to support Action Française, the majority of practicing Catholics submitted to the decisions of the Holy See. In 1939, after Action Française had modified some of its political views and had published an apology, Pope Pius XII removed the ban on the review. Yet the movement seems to have been permanently weakened by the papal condemnation. Disillusioned by the Nazi triumph, Maurras, sentenced to life imprisonment as a collaborationist, fell on hard days. He died, reportedly at length reconciled to the Church, in 1952.

C. The Fourth Republic (1944-58)

(1) REVIVAL OF POLITICS

General Charles De Gaulle, undersecretary of war in the Reynaud ministry, had refused to accept Pétain’s capitulation and had organized at London the “Free French” forces which continued the struggle. These co-operated with “resistance fighters” springing up within occupied France until Allied troops liberated Paris in August, 1944. Until 1946 De Gaulle as provisional chief of state guided rehabilitation, though French Liberalism again reacted against any “great man” cult.  Rejecting proposals for strengthening the executive power somewhat on the American model, a Constitutional Convention created a Fourth Republic quite similar to the Third in its political instability. The elections of December, 1946, returned 151 Communists to the 586 member assembly. They had been opposed by 150 MRP, a Moderate Catholic Republican group, and 139 Socialists. Communist strike tactics, however, backfired, and during 1951 the Communists lost votes to De Gaullist Rightists, while a “Third Force” Center remained comparatively stable, even though the MRP percentage of it declined. But if France was saved from immediate surrender to Communism, it was not clear what its positive program would be. Nativist movements for independence in North Africa and Indochina put an end to French colonialism, nor was it clear that a reorganized “French Union” after the British Commonwealth pattern could continue to keep its territories intact. ^{[p. 737]}

(2) STRENUOUS APOSTOLATE  [“worker priests”]

Catholics and clerics had participated in the resistance and both were brought closer to their nonpracticing environment, not always for their own good. Catholic social movements resumed and rallied to the pope’s appeal for the defeat of Communism at the polls. Abbé Pierre won general commendation for his heroic work on behalf of the homeless and underprivileged of Paris. He was one of the more intelligent and submissive members of the Mission de France, born in 1941 to penetrate the “dechristianized” areas. Members of this movement tried in varying degrees to share the living and working conditions of the proletariat and to adapt liturgical services to their mentality. Some priest-workers also took regular jobs in factories or docks in order to win the confidence of their fellow workers. If this apostolate had its good and even heroic features, there were cases of insubordination and even apostasy which induced the Holy See and the French hierarchy to restrain the movement in 1954, and terminate it definitively in 1959. Clerical missions, however, continued, and Catholic Action groups were urged to step into the lay apostolate.

(3) COMING OF THE FIFTH REPUBLIC

The Fourth Republic has been accused of mediocrity erected into a political system. Disgusted with the fumbling of bourgeois politicians in regard to the colonial problem, in May, 1958, the army in Algiers, led by General Massu, staged a coup and demanded: “De Gaulle to power.” Though the Chamber voted Premier Pflimlin of the MRP plenary powers, the army and other elements manifested solidarity with the insurgents. Refusing to rely upon Communist assistance to repress the rising, Pflimlin resigned and President Coty advised the Assembly to summon De Gaulle. On June 1, 1958, he was named premier with plenary powers. Later in the year a new constitution, midway between the British and American systems, provided for inaugural of a Fifth Republic in 1959 with De Gaulle as an authoritative president. The Fourth Republic’s dominion-status “French Union” was to yield to a revamped “French Community” made up of entirely independent states in friendly association.

108. IBERIAN CATHOLIC ORDEALS

     Monarchical retoration. The violently anti-Catholic First Republic had been overthrown late in 1874 by the generals—who would serve ^{[p. 738]} the Second in like fashion. The restored monarch, Alfonso XII (1874-85), self-styled “good Catholic and good Liberal,” was the soul of tact in appeasing factions, and the 1876 Constitution compromised between Carlist absolutism and extreme Liberalism. Two parliamentary parties, the Conservatives under Canovas del Castillo (d. 1897) and the Liberals headed by Sagasta (d. 1903), alternated in office. In 1887 a “law of associations” subjected religious to civil registry, and in 1901, 1906, and 1911-12 anticlericalism tried to apply this and similar regulations to the detriment of clerical freedom and religious instruction. None of these attempts had any lasting success; relations with Rome, momentarily interrupted, were restored in 1912, and no major conflict occurred until 1931. But Maura’s plan of conservative modernization failed of enough support.

Social discontent. In Spain the Church and the Monarchy were the sole unifying agencies; elsewhere a proud Catalan and Basque regionalism survived, and political co-operation was hindered by traditional Iberian aversion to compromise. Yet some social changes were imperative. Farming and industry were relatively undeveloped, although the fault lay as much with Spain as with the Spaniards. It is possible that the Spanish hierarchy, in virtue of the royal patronage, was somewhat too complacent to the status quo, but in any event it lacked the material resources to effect a social transformation. Ever since extensive confiscation began during the nineteenth century, clerical revenues were far from excessive. Peers ⁷³ estimated that the average bishop had but $5,000 a year, while ordinary clerics might range between $150 and $600. Yet the idea persisted in certain circles in Spain and abroad that the Church was immensely wealthy. Beginning in 1910, Cardinal Aguirre publicized a program of Catholic Action, but since 1879 Marxist Action had been at work as expounded by the Socialist Pablo Iglesias (d. 1925), while Bakunin’s Anarchism advanced an ever more drastic program. The working class, largely centered in Barcelona and Madrid, was roused by the new ideas and from 1909 a series of strikes paralyzed industry. During the “Tragic Week” of riots (1909), moreover, sixty-three churches and convents were burned in Barcelona.

“ E. Allison Peers, Spain, the Church and the Orders (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1939) .

Dictatorship, mildly imitative of Italian Fascism, was the cure proposed by Primo de Rivera (1923-30). Though Rivera was not totalitarian, his son José founded the Falange (1933) which exhibited such tendencies. The dictator indeed repressed Red disturbances and maintained military discipline, but he solved no basic problems. Lacking political experience, Rivera could administer efficiently, but failed to ^{[p. 739]} reconcile divergent groups. Ill health induced him to resign in 1930, and when his successor, General Berenguer (1930-31) proved unable to carry on, King Alfonso XIII (1886-1931) announced elections preparatory to the restoration of parliamentary rule.

Second Republic. The municipal elections of April 12, 1931, were interpreted as a Republican victory—though no full count was published. Alfonso left quietly on April 14, and Niceto Alcalá Zamora, a “Liberal Catholic,” was installed as provisional president of a Second Republic. But whether clerical or anticlerical, the doctrinaire Liberals who assumed control of the state were inexperienced. Quickly they fell under pressure from the Socialist-Communist Left, whose violence they did little to check. An orgy of riots, confiscations, church-burnings, and attacks on clerics followed in May, only belatedly halted by the president’s declaration of martial law.

In June, 1931, a constitutional convention, largely influenced by the Socialists,

and placed other religious orders in a precarious legal position.

Pope Pius XI directed Catholics to support the Republic provisionally and to organize politically to thwart antiecclesiastical measures. Cardinal Goma then led the Spanish hierarchy in a declaration of loyalty to the Republic, Zamora agreed to serve as constitutional president (1931-36), and Gil Robles formed a Catholic Republican Party. The Left remained in power until November, 1933, but while its policy remained consistently anticlerical, its execution was hampered by internal dissension and the need of suppressing revolts and of placating Catalonian and Basque regionalists.

A moderate respite followed a Right-Center victory in the 1933 elections. The Right was divided, however, among reactionary Carlists, moderate Alfonsists, and progressive Falangists, while the Center comprised not only Robles’ Republicans, but the moderate Liberals of Lerroux. The latter served as premier (1933-35); he was adroit but superficial. Anticlerical legislation was relaxed and severed relations with the Holy See resumed. But the Socialists refused to co-operate in progressive legislation, and the Communists disrupted order with riots, strikes, and assassinations. Effective government became impossible, and President Zamora called for new elections.

Red terror commenced almost immediately after an electoral triumph of a Popular Front of Liberals, Socialists, Communists, and Syndicalists. Incendiarism was no longer checked; anticlerical riots and jailing of ^{[p. 740]} Rightists followed; Conservative military leaders were demoted, sidetracked, or dismissed. On the technicality of having illegally authorized elections, Zamora was replaced by Azana (1936-39) as head of the “Loyalist” government. In July, the Rightists charged anarchy, and revolt and civil war followed. Though accuracy seems impossible, it is conservatively estimated that within a year of February, 1936, ten bishops, six thousand priests, and sixteen thousand religious or lay leaders were murdered. All churches within Leftist jurisdiction were closed to worship, and two thousand were damaged or destroyed. Unrestrained vandalism, iconoclasm, terrorism, lynch law came to be more the rule than the exception in Loyalist territory down to the end of the Civil War—all these acts were supposedly justified by an “Emergency Law in defense of the Republic.”

Anarchist and Communist hate reached insane proportions. Juan Peiro asserted:

“To kill God Himself if He existed ... would be perfectly natural.”

 Yet Loyalist propaganda, largely directed from Moscow, was eminently successful in representing its regime as defending the cause of democracy against “Fascist” aggression, and in enlisting the sympathy, support, and even the military assistance of the Liberal West. Rightist sources claim that the Reds killed twelve prelates, 6,700 priests, 2,545 brothers or nuns, 400,000 lay persons, and destroyed or profaned 20,000 churches.^l’

‘ Francisco Montalban, S.J., Historia de la Iglesia Catolica (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1951), IV, 637.

Nationalist revolt. In the February, 1936, elections, Rightist groups were guilty of dissension, overconfidence, apathy, and blindness to the Leftist unconcern for law. Though the popular vote may have favored them, Rightists won but 176 seats to the Left’s 240 and the Center’s 46. When anticlerical assaults on persons and property began, Rightist members of the Cortes confined themselves to protests. In April, 1936, Zamora was impeached, and his successor Azana was an opportunist Liberal who thereafter served as a respectable front for the Reds. Azana’s replies to Rightist protests gave no evidence of either the will or the power to afford relief. Calvo Soltello, who had repeatedly denounced the government for conniving with disorder, was murdered on July 13. Two days later Count Vallellano led Rightist deputies out of the Cortes, claiming that “ever since February 16 we have been living in anarchy.” This was the signal for a revolt, apparently concerted with military leaders on July 17. Regiments in Morocco rebelled and General Franco flew from the Canaries to assume command. The summer months were critical for the Nationalists as they strove to convoy forces to the mainland ^{[p. 741]}, to relieve Colonel Moscardo in his heroic defense of Toledo’s Alcazar, forty miles from Madrid, and to unite their scattered supporters from south to north. All these aims were achieved by November, and the insurgents began a siege of Madrid. If the Loyalists enjoyed greater favor abroad diplomatically and for long obtained better military equipment, the Nationalists proved superior in native man power, territory controlled and military skill. But only during February, 1939, could they terminate a bitter struggle in their favor.

Nationalist rule. The original revolt by the generals had been made in the name of the Republic, although the leaders were probably monarchist in sentiment. But by October 1, 1936, Franco had been designated as “chief of state” of a rival government at Burgos. During the Civil War and the era of Axis supremacy down to 1942, Franco was largely dependent upon the semi-totalitarian Falange. He was saluted as Il Caudillo, and in an early speech had declared: “Spain will be organized according to a totalitarian concept ... with the establishment of a severe principle of authority.” Franco’s indebtedness to the Axis for military aid during the Civil War caused him acute diplomatic distress during World War II, although the United States Ambassador Carlton Hayes (1942-45) succeeded with President Franklin Roosevelt’s backing in averting a formal break between Spain and the United Nations. After the Allied triumph, however, Franco’s regime was long ostracized by Liberal statesmen to the detriment of economic assistance urgently needed for Spanish reconstruction. Franco, nevertheless, proved to be a well-intentioned and comparatively moderate dictator, recognized by most Spanish factions as the only alternative to renewed partisan strife.

Ecclesiastical status. Few Spanish clerics could regard the Nationalist cause as other than a crusade, and with Franco’s victory the Concordat of 1851 was substantially restored. The Fuero de los Espanoles of July 13, 1945, declared: “Profession and practice of the Catholic religion, which is that of the Spanish state, shall enjoy official protection. None shall be molested for their religious beliefs or their private practice. No other ceremonies or external demonstrations than those of the Catholic religion are permitted.” Although no actual persecution of the few foreign Protestants followed, the avowed policy of the Fuero remained a hard saying to Liberals throughout the world. In 1953 the Fuero on religion was incorporated in a new Concordat with the Holy See. This confirmed the concession made in 1941 of a voice in the choice of prelates to the Chief of state. Thus, Franco’s Spain remained the traditional Catholic Spain, and his religious policy at least seems to have met with the approbation of the majority of Spaniards. ^{[p. 742]}

B. Portugal (1900-50)

(1) ANTICLERICALISM (1906-26)

Fall of the monarchy. Pseudo-parliamentary constitutional monarchy had existed in Portugal since the expulsion of the absolutist and staunch clerical, Dom Miguel, in 1834. The monarchy lost favor with intellectuals and since 1811 a Republican Party claimed the allegiance of many extreme anticlericals. King Carlos (1889-1910) reputed something of a playboy like his contemporary, Alfonso XIII of Spain, anticipated his brother monarch in resorting to dictatorship. In 1906 Carlos entrusted full powers to Joao Franco, but this regime met an early demise in the assassination of the king and crown prince in 1908. Dom Manoel II the Unfortunate (1908-10), young and inexperienced, failed to cope with the Republican opposition, who proclaimed the Portuguese Republic, October 5, 1910.

Religious persecution. The spirit of the new government was secular, and at first anticlericalism united selfish Republican factions. Pombal’s anti-Jesuitical legislation was revived by Afonso Costa, the minister of justice: schools were to be deprived of religious instruction; ecclesiastical holy days denied civic recognition; and the army forbidden to assist at cult in uniform. When the Portuguese hierarchy rebuked the government in a joint pastoral, December, 1910, Costa forbade its circulation. For defying the government, the bishop of Oporto was bidden to Lisbon and “deposed.” On April 20, 1911, Liberal anticlericalism took its standard course by proclaiming separation of Church and state. The Portuguese government seems to have patterned its legislation on that of the Third French Republic, for ecclesiastical property was placed at the legal disposal of lay groups entitled “cultural associations.” When these were repudiated by the bishops, the Portuguese Republic broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican, protesting prelates were banished on one pretext or another, outspoken priests and laymen imprisoned, and clerical subsidies suspended. Meanwhile Costa and his “Democratic Party” publicly announced a program for “extinguishing Catholicism within two generations.” Costa, however, went out of office in January, 1914, and Premier Machado somewhat relaxed the anticlerical laws and permitted the return of the exiled bishops.

Anarchy. Throughout its entire history the Portuguese Republic remained unstable. In 1915 General Pimenta de Castro overthrew the parliament and set up a dictatorship which abolished the “cultural associations.” But within four months his regime had collapsed and the Democratic Party had returned to power. In a ministry largely dominated by Freemasons, the “cultural associations” were restored, and the patriarch of Lisbon and the bishop of Oporto sent into exile. General ^{[p. 743]} Paiz, another militarist, revoked this legislation during 1918, but was promptly assassinated. Anticlericalism came back to power in 1919, although ministerial instability and attempted military uprisings followed one another with monotonous regularity. Inefficiency and corruption reduced the government to bankruptcy prior to the successful revolt of General Carmona during May, 1926. The Catholic Church in Portugal, heartened by the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917, had survived the ridicule and persecution of her foes, and was now promised a respite from vexatious restrictions.

(2) CATHOLIC REVIVAL (1926-50)

Dictatorship. General Antonio di Carmona, dictator-president from 1926 until his death in 1951, was but a military chief without any political program save for the dubious claim of having rescued the country from Communism. But a period of administrative drifting terminated in 1928 when he named Antonio Salazar his minister of finance, a post which the latter held until 1940. From 1917 to 1928 the governmental deficit had amounted to 2,574,000 contos; during an equal period under Salazar there was a surplus of 1,963,000 contos. The explanation of this modern financial miracle lay in conscientious administration by an exemplary and skilled Catholic layman, using old-fashioned orthodox economy: single budgets, decreased expenditures, increased taxes. In 1932 Salazar was called to the premiership which he has held for more than a quarter century. By 1930 Portugal had become a single party state of National Union, and in 1933 a new constitution proclaimed the Estado Novo, an authoritarian government under Carmona and Salazar. Since 1945 there exists a legislature elected by restricted suffrage which acts as a consultive body during three months of the year; there is also a “corporative chamber,” the supreme council of professional and trade associations.

Ecclesiastical affairs. Tension between Church and state had eased after 1918 when the Portuguese hierarchy at Benedict XV’s suggestion had acknowledged the Republic without reservations. By 1929 accord at last proved possible, though anticlerical habits of thought persisted. In virtue of an understanding between Portugal and the Vatican in 1940, Church and state remain formally separated, but the government undertakes to allow only Catholic rites in connection with governmental celebrations. The bishops are named by the Holy See without any governmental intervention. Religion remains an extracurricular subject in the state schools. Catholic marriage as witnessed by priests is civilly recognized when the registration office is notified, but civil marriage and divorce are available for non-Catholics, who are likewise allowed freedom of worship in law and in fact. ^{[p. 744]}

109. CATHOLIC MINORITIES

Vatican infallibility became the pretext for attacks on the Church. After Liberal Catholics had joined Protestants in spreading biased reports of the proceedings of the Vatican Council, the Swiss federal and cantonal governments tried to prevent the bishops from promulgating its decrees and encouraged the Old Catholic schism. In Basle, Bishop Lachat was driven into a Catholic corner of his diocese when he suspended the priests Egli and Gechward for refusing to accept the dogma; parishes were then given to the rebel clergy. During 1872 the Genevois defied Gaspard Mermillod (1824-92), auxiliary of Bishop Marilley of Lausanne-Geneva, and exiled him to France, along with the Daughters of Charity and the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Geneva Civic Council then decreed that henceforth the clergy be named by the laity. In Berne, clerics were expelled for refusing to accept a “civil constitution,” and churches and university chairs given to the Old Catholics. During 1874 civil positions were bestowed on the Old Catholic prelate Herzog and the renegade Carmelite Loyson, while federal control over religious affairs in the cantons was strengthened. Sees might not be established without governmental approval, episcopal jurisdiction was scrutinized, Jesuits and “affiliates” banished, and neutral state schools provided. When Pius IX condemned this Kulturkampf in Etsi Multa Luctuosa (1873) the papal nuncio was dismissed for a decade (1874-84) .

Reconciliation came during Leo XIII’s pontificate. After the voting strength of Catholics had been displayed in a referendum rejecting a federal minister of education (1874), negotiations with the Vatican commenced. Although Bishop Lachat for the sake of peace exchanged the see of Basle for a new diocese in the Ticino district, hitherto subject to Italian jurisdiction, Bishop Mermillod returned to become bishop of Lausanne-Geneva and was subsequently named cardinal. In time secularism mitigated Protestant bigotry, and during 1906 even Calvin’s Geneva separated Church and state. In 1955 anti-Jesuit legislation was mitigated.

(2) SOCIAL QUESTIONS (1884-1947)

Catholic social activity was organized by Cardinal Mermillod. In 1886 Gaspard Decurtins founded an Arbeiterbund, basically of Catholic membership, but admitting Protestant workers. During 1889 the Catholic University of Freiburg opened an international intellectual center. A Federation of Catholic Societies was formed in 1894, and from 1903 ^{[p. 745]} annual Catholic congresses were held. Cardinal Mermillod had interested laymen in social-political questions through journals and discussion clubs. In 1895 a Catholic became president of Switzerland, a post subsequently held for five terms by the Catholic Giuseppe Motta, honorary president of the first session of the League of Nations, at which he opposed entry of the Soviet Union. Bishop Egger and Canon Jung meanwhile had organized Catholic labor unions. Swiss society during the early twentieth century afforded a haven of tranquility and moderate progressivism amid a turbulent European environment. In 1947 Switzerland voted for moderate regulation of industry and labor, while repudiating Marxian Socialism.

B. The Netherlands

(1) HOLLAND (1870-1958)

Educational equality. Although Catholics had gained complete freedom of worship in 1848 and 1853, their interests were threatened by the Liberal-sponsored neutral public schools established in 1857. When the Liberals confirmed this system in 1878, the Catholics made an alliance with the Calvinists in order to secure recognition of religious instruction in private schools (1889). In return for permitting government inspection, these private schools were given subsidies. In 1894 a chair of Thomistic philosophy was set up at Amsterdam University, and in 1905 Catholics were authorized to erect their own university—though realization of this took time. By 1909 the Catholic-Calvinist political coalition had defeated the Liberals and Socialists, so that during 1917 an amended constitution provided complete state aid for private schools. Its Article 192 guaranteed that henceforth the entire cost of primary education, whether in public or private schools, would be borne by the state. When this provision went into effect in 1921, public schools had fifty-five per cent of the students; by 1947 over seventy-two per cent of the children were in private schools teaching religion, and forty-two per cent of these were Catholic. During 1923, moreover, a Catholic University had been erected at Nijmegen, and this was granted some state aid in 1948. In 1922 and 1945 the state had pledged support of eighty per cent of the costs of secondary education.

Political influence. The 1917 constitution, as revised in 1922, completed the grant of universal suffrage. In the 1918 elections the Catholic political party won about thirty per cent of the votes, a proportion which it has generally continued to hold. Indeed, a Catholic, Ruys de Beerenbrouck, became prime minister from 1918 to 1925. In 1915 a special envoy was sent to the Vatican. Though this legation lapsed in 1925, it was revived during World War II. Along with other Dutch ^{[p. 746]} organizations, the Catholic Party was dissolved during the Nazi occupation. Catholics, directed by the courageous Archbishop De Jong of Utrecht, remained loyal to Queen Wilhelmina (1890-1948) . After the war, they reorganized their party, to which non-Catholics were now admitted as members.

Social welfare has been a matter of keen interest to Dutch Catholics since 1888 when Father Ariens began a guild of textile workers. After Rerum Novarum, this expanded into local, diocesan, and national Catholic labor organizations, which helped defeat Socialist tactics during the Railway Strike of 1903. After Quadragesimo Anno (1931) the Catholic Workers’ Union, in co-operation with the Catholic Peoples’ Party, began to urge acceptance of its principles upon the Dutch legislature. They inspired the Foreman Councils’ Act (1933) and the Labor Contract Act (1937). During the Nazi occupation these organizations were suppressed, but they revived after the war in order to combat the Communist-dominated United Trade Union. The better to fight Communism, the Catholic labor groups allied with Protestant and Liberal organizations. Catholics have also organized a Farmers’ Union, which like all these vocational groups, is solicitous for the religious and cultural welfare of its members, as well as for their economic well-being. In 1948 the Catholic vote was divided among Conservatives and Progressives, so that its influence was diminished. But in response to an episcopal appeal for unity in 1954, there was a Catholic resurgence in the 1958 elections, and a Catholic-Socialist alliance gave way to a Catholic-Liberal coalition.

(2) BELGIUM (1870-1958)

Educational issue. The control of the Belgian government by the Liberals (1845-55; 1857-70) had resulted in numerous antireligious acts which finally provoked the Catholics to political activity. Yet their victory in the 1870 elections proved abortive. Their premier, Malou (1871-78), was intimidated from repealing hostile legislation by Liberal threats from urban areas. Thus the Catholic tenure of office proved an empty parenthesis between Liberal regimes. The next Liberal premier, FrèreOrban (1878-84), was more radical than his predecessors, and the minister of education, Van Humbeck, had asserted in a masonic lodge that, “Catholicism is a corpse that bars the way of progress.” His new education law, nicknamed by Catholics “law of misfortune,” excluded all religious instruction from public schools and barred all teachers trained under religious auspices. This time Catholic apathy was fully shaken off. Within a year they had provided for three thousand educational centers and the public schools were crippled by the resignation of two thousand teachers and the loss of fifty-five per cent of their pupils. ^{[p. 747]}

Liberal reprisals failed and the Catholics won the 1884 elections by a landslide, and maintained a parliamentary majority until 1919. The “law of misfortune” was repealed along with other antireligious legislation. The primary public schools were taken from central to local control, and small subsidies granted to private schools. After 1919, the Catholic Party, while preserving a plurality, could no longer command a majority, so that subsidies to Catholic schools continued to be inadequate.

The Social question at once succeeded the educational issue. In 1886 Marxist riots portended a crisis for Belgian industrialized economy. The Catholic premier, Auguste Beernaert (1884-94), and his successors met this problem with a thorough program of social legislation—codes, minimum wages, insurance, etc.—and thwarted a Socialist-inspired general strike during 1913. Catholic Social Action was stimulated by Bishop Doutreloux of Liége who presided over Congresses of Social Work in 1886, 1887, and 1890. From these emerged the Democratic Christian League for practical social reforms. In 1909 Cardinal Mercier, coming directly from his neo-scholastic revival at Louvain University, assembled a great conference of three thousand clerics and laymen to discuss moral and social welfare. A practical program was drawn up and followed. In 1921 the various industrial and agrarian unions were confederated with religious and cultural groups into the Belgian Catholic Union. Canon Cardijn initiated his highly successful Jocist movement among Young Christian Workers in the course of 1925, and it spread to other countries.

Political problems in a predominantly Catholic country often involved the Church. King Albert (1909-34) and Cardinal Mercier of Malines (1906-26) co-operated heroically during Belgium’s trials in World War I and in 1919 consecrated the country to the Sacred Heart in token of gratitude for its preservation. Racial-linguistic disputes between Flemings and Walloons disturbed postwar politics, and during the 1930’s Léon Degrelle’s semi-Fascist Rexists made an unsuccessful bid for power. During World War II, the surrender of the Belgian army to the Germans by King Leopold III (1934-51) exposed him to Liberal and Socialist criticism. Although the Catholics led a coalition which recalled Leopold by a fifty-seven per cent vote in 1950, strikes and sabotage paralyzed his government. To avert possible civil war, the monarch abdicated in favor of his son. The Catholic Party continued to hold about forty per cent of the parliamentary seats, and were disturbed by a return of educational discrimination. Protests and appeals by the hierarchy were long ignored, but in June, 1958, the Catholics won another landslide victory and were able to take over the ministry. ^{[p. 748]}

C. Scandinavia

(1) DENMARK

Danish Catholic emancipation had taken place in 1849, and steady Catholic progress is indicated by the establishment of a prefecture (1887) and a vicariate apostolic (1892) . In the latter year Bishop Euch became the first Catholic prelate in Copenhagen since 1536. Catholic churches and property were incorporated, the bishop serving as head of the clerical-lay trustees. Catholic schools and hospitals had an influence in excess of Catholic numbers, estimated as forty priests and nine thousand faithful. But in 1896 the conversion of Johannes Jorgenson, a distinguished writer, demonstrated non-Catholic interest in the Catholic Church. In 1953 the Catholic residential hierarchy was formally restored in Denmark, as well as in the other Scandinavian countries.

(2) ICELAND

Iceland was not visited by a Catholic priest from the sixteenth century until 1850. In 1896 the Montfort Fathers and the Sisters of St. Joseph took up residence. After Iceland became politically autonomous in 1918, a vicariate apostolic was established (1929) . To this post in 1942 was nominated the native Icelander, Johan Gunnarson, just two years before Iceland regained its full independence, lost since 1262.

(3) NORWAY

Norway exhibited little bigotry toward Catholics. In 1887 a prefecture, and in 1892 a vicariate came into being, and additional missionary districts were set up in 1931 and 1944. In 1894 and 1897 most civil disabilities were removed from the two thousand Catholics, and religious orders were admitted into the country. Conversion in 1900 of the Norwegian “Newman,” the Lutheran minister Dr. Krogh-Tonnin, and in 1922 a Nobel prize-winning novelist Sigrid Undset, raised Catholic prestige among Protestants. By 1946 there were nearly five thousand Catholics and in 1953 a bishopric was erected.

(4) SWEDEN

Sweden did not relax her ban on Catholic office holding until 1870, and only in 1873 were dissenters allowed to open churches and acquire property without restriction. Even then minors were not permitted to leave the established religion before their majority, and all religious save nursing sisters were banned. The remains of the penal laws were removed on January 1, 1952. Though Protestant bigotry remained stronger in Sweden than elsewhere in Scandinavia, Bishop Erik Müller, ^{[p. 749]} vicar apostolic since 1923, attended the funeral of King Gustavus V (1907-50) . Catholics then numbered about five thousand.

(5) FINLAND

The few Finnish converts requested a vicar apostolic in 1906. What the Russian government then denied was granted to independent Finland by the Holy See in 1920. Diplomatic relations with the Holy See were established in 1942.

D. The Balkans

(1) GREECE

Greece was the first Balkan nation to establish its independence of Turkey (1820-29) . The European powers imposed freedom of worship as a condition of recognition of the new state (1830), but popular sentiment has continued anti-Catholic. A Latin Rite bishopric was established at Athens in 1875, and other sees were added so that there were six in 1950. The Latin clergy were not allowed to wear clerical dress in public, but Catholic primary and secondary schools flourished. By 1950 there were twenty-six thousand Catholics of the Latin Rite, with perhaps a thousand more of the Greek Rite, but 93% per cent of the Greek nation remained dissident.

(2) YUGOSLAVIA

The Serbs began to agitate for independence in 1806, but were not recognized as fully sovereign until 1878. The vast majority of the Serbs remained Orthodox Dissidents, but there were fifty-five thousand Catholics of the Byzantine Rite under their bishop by 1945.

Croats and Slovenes, subject to the Habsburg Monarchy until 1918, added some six million Latin Catholics to the new state of Yugoslavia set up after World War I. National and racial disagreements disturbed the monarchy until the Nazi-Fascist occupation in 1941. During this crisis, General Nedich essayed the role of Pétain, and Colonel Mihailovich that of De Gaulle. The latter for a time achieved considerable success, but eventually was outmaneuvered in propaganda by the Croatian Communist leader, Broz, alias Tito.

Communist persecution of the Church began with Tito’s accession to power in 1944. The Catholic hierarchy, headed by Archbishop Step-Mac of Zagreb, were accused of collaboration with the Fascist-inspired puppet Croatian monarchy. The archbishop was condemned to sixteen years of forced labor, a sentence reduced to partial detention after six years. By 1956, four hundred priests had been killed during or after the war, others were imprisoned, and at least five hundred had been forced into exile. ^{[p. 750]}

 (3) ALBANIA

Albanian independence (1913-39) granted religious toleration to Catholics, though the majority of Albanians were Mohammedans or Dissidents. In 1944 Enver Hoxha, a sub-satellite of Tito, gained control of the government. His Communist regime persecuted the some 100,000 Catholics and 250,000 Dissidents. Catholic prelates were forced from office on one pretext or another, the majority of priests inhibited from priestly functions, nuns interned or exiled, and all Catholic institutions suppressed.

(4) BULGARIA

In 1856 the Turkish government promised religious freedom and the Bulgarian Orthodox clergy demanded reforms from the patriarch of Constantinople. When the latter refused to concede these, the Bulgarian Nationalists obtained them by a grant of the Porte. In 1870 they declared the Bulgarian Orthodox Church autocephalous, and in 1878 political autonomy was achieved, full independence following in 1909. Although Prince Ferdinand (1887-1918) was a Catholic, he allowed his heir, Boris, to apostasize in 1896. To the fifty thousand Latin Rite Catholics were added sixty thousand converts from the Greek Rite Dissidents in 1861, although only one-tenth of the latter persevered. Communist persecution at first concentrated upon the Orthodox, but eventually Bishop Basilkov and three Catholic priests were executed, and the usual constraints placed upon Catholic clerics and institutions.

(5) ROMANIA

Romanian autonomy was obtained in 1829 and political independence was recognized in 1864. King Charles (1881-1914) was a Catholic, but his descendants conformed to Dissident Orthodoxy. Of the three million Romanian Catholics in the twentieth century, half were of the Latin Rite and half of the Byzantine Rite. The latter were accordingly forced into external apostasy when the Communists subjected them to the Muscovite puppet patriarchate (1949) . At the same time efforts were made to create a schism within the ranks of the Latin Catholics. Eventually the Catholic clergy were executed, imprisoned, or inhibited, and the Church’s many social institutions destroyed or confiscated.

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