Religion and the War

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jan 6, 1916

Religion and the War

It has been stated by various writers that the great conflict now going on in Europe has served to very greatly increase the spirit of religious devotion among the people of the warring nations of the Old World. It is now claimed that there has been a reaction from this in France, and that the reaction is due to the unwise advantage sought by the Roman Catholic Church. Referring to the state of religion in France, the editor of the Record of Christian Work, in that paper for December, 1915, says:—

M. Yves le Febvre, in a symposium which La Grande Revue has instituted concerning the effect of the war on the religious life of France, says that, at first, the people attended mass with great zeal, and interested themselves in pilgrimages, propitiatory services, novenas, and the like. A medieval interest in miracles revived, but the tactlessness of the clergy in other lands, and especially of the Vatican, has checked the movement, if it has not stopped it altogether. French soldiers and their families have not been able to accept the monstrous theory that the war is a chastisement upon France because of her abandonment of the Roman Church.

This reasoning of the Catholic Church, the editor asserts, has little weight in view of the worse “terrors which have fallen upon Belgium, a land that certainly is not deficient in Catholicism;” and Austria, a true son of the church, apparently has suffered equally with France. We can believe that God permits war, famine, pestilence, earthquake, fire, and other ills of life to come upon the inhabitants of the world in order that they may be awakened to a realizing sense of their lost condition, and to their need of his saving grace. But it is indeed a “monstrous theory that the war is a chastisement upon France because of her abandonment of the Roman Church.”

But not content with working upon the feelings of the people, according to the Record of Christian Work, clerical pressure is being brought to bear in French hospitals. Various cases of clerical intolerance have been reported. “Soldiers who should receive convalescent care for a month, are sent away at the end of eight days for having refused to attend Catholic services.” The government has sought to safeguard its soldier wards, and has issued a poster affirming that— “1. Your right is absolute to practice the religion to which you belong. “2. Your right is absolute to remain outside of all religion.”

We are glad that in the midst of the duties and perplexities of war the principles of civil liberty are still recognized by French officials. A religious system which seeks to gain influence through working upon the fears of its devotees, which refuses succor to those in sickness and distress because they are not of the same religious faith, does not truly represent the religion of Jesus Christ. We believe that in the Catholic Church there may be found many earnest Christian men and women; but they are Christians not because of the system with which they are connected, but in spite of it.