FOR a period of one thousand two hundred and sixty years, according to divine prophecy and secular history, the bishop of Rome was, under the papal system, and by the consent of the civil power, "HEAD OVER ALL THE CHURCHES" and "TRUE AND ONLY CORRECTOR OF HERETICS." This period began in A.D. 538, when Justinian's decree to that effect went into force by the plucking up of the last opposing power, the Arian Ostrogoths. The period ended in 1798, when France, through General Berthier, took Pius VI. prisoner, and destroyed the political power of the Papacy. The pope was no longer the acknowledged "Head over All the Churches." The wounding by the Reformation, the loss of influence resulting from that, culminated in a deadly wound in 1798. Since that time the Papacy has uttered her anathemas, has pronounced what she considered the deserved punishment; but no power has executed her decrees. The union was broken. She was left a widow.
But the prophecy declares that this wound shall be healed; that the Papacy shall gain its former prestige and power, and the woman on the Tiber shall sing, in the joy of her heart, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Rev. 18:7; 13:3.
It is of interest to note the strength of the Papacy at two periods in that land that chiefly inflicted the deadly wound, the first in 1789, prior to the infliction of that wound, and the second at the present time. It will be remembered by students of history what a tremendous and unbearable burden the Roman Catholic Church was in France previous to the Revolution, and that that was one of the things that hastened the upheaval of the last century in that country.
Last week we quoted from an article by M. Urbain Gohier, editor of L'Aurore, Paris, showing the situation of the French republic in the face of militarism. In the Independent of October 18, M. Gohier has another article on "Roman Clericalism in the French Republic," the first paragraph of which sums up the military conditions in the following words:—
"Financial ruin, physical degradation, economical decay, intellectual abasement, are the first consequences of the military régime that the French nation has been suffering for the last half century. The end will be political slavery, established by an inevitable and imminent assault."
But great as is all this military danger under which the nation is staggering, M. Gohier sees another greater. He continues:—
"Now the military danger to which France is exposed is to be so much dreaded on account of its complication with the clerical danger. The factious military men are only the agents and instruments of a much more intelligent power than they, and still more hostile to the modern spirit, justice, and liberty in all forms, than they—viz., the Catholic Church as represented by the Roman Congregations."
And the reader will note that this is not an infidel attack on religion. M. Gohier says:—
"But the reader should observe that it is not a question here of the high and pure Christian religion, which inspires respect even in the incredulous, and which is for believers a source of consolation, of comfort, of self-denial and charity; that it is not even a question of the Christian Church, which has fulfilled for centuries noble duties, kept the last foci of civilization in the midst of the barbarian ages, and maintained the rights of the mind over brute force. No, it is a question of clericalism in the worst sense of the word."
Roman Catholicism in France in 1789.
The strength of Roman Catholicism in France just previous to the Revolution, as measured by the various orders and the wealth of the church, is thus given by M. Gohier:—
"In 1789 there were about 60,000 monks and nuns in France; the ecclesiastical wealth was worth about $800,000,000 (present value)."
A few years later came the swift, awful, and sure revolution. As its result monastic vows were interdicted, convents were closed, monks and nuns were dispersed, and the ecclesiastical wealth was nationalized.
Present Conditions.
"To-day," says M. Gohier, "they are not only reconstituted, but they have become, within one century, three times stronger than during the long, prosperous centuries under the ancient system." That is to say, the Roman Catholic Church in France has prospered three times more during the last 100 years, with tremendous antagonistic influences, than she did during the Medieval Ages, when France was considered one of the very pillars of the church among the nations. Here is what M. Gohier says as to this:—
"To-day, altho the population of France has not doubled, the inmates of monasteries have been tripled. In 1900 there are more than 180,000 monks and nuns. They constitute 1,468 different religious orders, of which half only are authorized by the State, while 694 live in perpetual violation of the law. Their well-known wealth amounts to nearly ten thousand million francs, which make $2,000,000,000 in absolute value, the much more in reality if estimated in America. In addition to this well-known wealth, registered by the public administration, it is possible that the various orders conceal as much by means of fictitious owners."
Of the control of the clergy by the Vatican, of its grasp of the educational system of the country, of its influence in industrial lines, of its power through the press and politics, our author thus writes:—
"The Congregations—the whole of the [Roman Catholic] religious orders being included in this title—hold all the political, administrative, and economical machinery of the French Society. It is traditional that the magistracy has always been recruited among the agents of the clerical party, and that is a point which has no need to be insisted upon. But the Congregations hold in their power the parochial clergy, public instruction, an important part of industry, almost all the press, and absolutely all the command of the army and navy. A few details on these points will fully explain them.
"The French parochial clergy, the vicars and curates, who have charge of the parishes, either town or country, belong generally to the middle or lower classes. They could be, therefore, easily devoted to the doctrines and aspirations of the democracy, if they were left to themselves. But, under the conventions which bind France to the pope, ecclesiastical officials of any importance are only appointed with the consent of the holy father. At Rome the Congregations are almighty, led by the generals of three or four Congregations, chiefly by the general of the Jesuits. The bishops and their vicar-generals, therefore, who govern in every diocese, the French clergy, and the professors of seminaries who educate the French priests, are necessarily the agents of the Congregations. They would never have succeeded in obtaining the functions with which they are now occupied if they had not given full and complete proofs of their perfect devotion to the Roman Congregations. Whatever may be their real feelings, the French priests are thus held in a slavery by a foreign power, and obliged to carry out the plans of the Congregations, with their immense influence over the people.
"The monks have also a strong grasp over the education of the new generation, which decides the future of the country. Wherever the State opens a lay university, a Congregational university is immediately erected by its side. In the second degree of education, where all the children designed to occupy some social position, such as managers of shops or workshops, magistrates, officers, officials, physicians, lawyers, engineers, are educated, in comparison with 338 lay establishments, there are 418 Congregational establishments much more prosperous than the others. And in the elementary instruction, where the children of the working classes are taught the rudiments of education, the Congregations are in competition with the lay schools in the whole country, and in some parts they absolutely overpower them."
Control of Industry.
"In regard to industry, the enormous capital held by the Congregations naturally gives them supremacy. Not only do they deal in ecclesiastical products, such as masses, indulgences, rosaries, scapulars, miraculous waters, and benedictions of the pope, bishops, etc., but they manufacture in their workshops all that can be manufactured in the world, and sell, by dint of much advertisement, chocolates, teas, wines, brandies, sweets, digestives, or medicinal waters, strengthening jams, tooth powder, oil, vinegar, preserved fish and meat, soaps, fruits, dried plums, and a thousand other alimentary, chemical, or sanitary products.
"As they are always acquiring and never alienating, the Congregations must necessarily end in possessing the whole capital of the nation. The remedy for the monopoly of capital by multi-millionaire individuals is to be found in the division of the inheritances, and in the prodigality of the heirs. But the Congregation—a fictitious and eternal person—never divides or breaks up his property, which constitutes a dreadful economical danger."
Its Influence through the Press.
"The effect of the political power and social working of the Congregation is that it has monopolized, among other things, the instrument which leads public opinion,—the press,—its wealth having permitted it to buy up the principal journals or to enter into partnership with their editors, as well as to buy up the principal manufactures and to enter into partnership with their managers. According as it is to its interest to play a masked role or not, it either takes the papers entirely under its control, or has them directed by its agents, who are sometimes so clever that, while mocking irreverently at religion, they play the part of the Roman Congregation with all fidelity. Almost all French papers with large circulations belong openly or secretly to the Congregation. The principal of this new press is La Croix, a journal controlled by a comparatively new, but already formidable Congregation, that of the 'Pères de l'Assomption.' These supporters of the clerical reaction have had the genius to employ the most modern inventions and methods in order to lead the people of France back to the middle ages. They have founded such a paper with which they have inundated the country, so that in the less enlightened parts the peasants do not believe that any other paper exists. At the top of these papers Christ is always represented on His cross, and the articles are signed 'The Monk.' Between the pious signature and the picture of the God of love and peace are spread atrocious calumnies against every thinking citizen, terrible libels, anathemas, and threats against Jews, Protestants, and free-thinkers. In the space of a few years the Congregational papers have created in France a state of mind which can only be compared to the worst crises of fanaticism in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries."
Influence in the Army.
"The Congregations bring up and educate all the children of the nobles, so numerous in this strange French republic; the modern aristocracy of finance, of industry, and even all the comfortable middle classes, dreaming of joining their offspring to the offspring of the ancient families, confide them likewise to the monks, in order to have them educated together. And it is from these Congregational schools that are chiefly recruited the principal military schools, from where almost all the French officers and absolutely all the officers destined to the higher grades are chosen.
"Now the great strength of the Congregational educators is that they never lose sight of the men they have modeled; they keep them under their eye; they follow them all their lives, arrange rich marriages for them, and look after their advancement. Throughout the entire French army the command is in the power of the Congregation, so that the few officers who have not come from the Congregational schools are obliged to bow the head before the monks or to leave the army. But you would hardly understand what is the military spirit, if you did not guess that the clerical fanaticism of the chiefs in highest command excites a universal emulation of clericalism in the whole body of officers."
Of this illustrations are given of a division commander consecrating his brigadier belt to St. Anne d'Auray, and of the admiral, the chief of the staff of the French navy, consecrating the fleet to "the Archangel St. Michael," and employing "his authority in extorting subscriptions from the naval officers, in order to erect a church" to that being. This admiral is now president of "a great international pilgrimage organized by the Jesuits, to bear the worship of the whole world to Paray le Monial, to the holy heart of Jesus, as it appeared in that place to the blessed Marie Alacoque."
M. Gohier thus concludes this article of interest to every student of prophecy:—
"Soon, no doubt, the military coup d'état, the political slavery of the nation through the sword in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church, will crown the deadly work. The world will look with pity on the great country that once was France, and consider it as on the level of the unfortunate Spain, if not below. Militarism and Roman Catholicism are two diseases which do not spare the patient."
The seilings of God through Daniel represent the kingdoms of earth as the blind horns of a brute, knowing only the present; but the Papacy is represented by a horn with eyes like those of man, observing, far-seeing, measuring, weighing, comparing, behind which is the mind, which plans and9controls the blind horns to do its will. The governments of earth, filled with political schemers who plan for self, are blind as to the future. They see only the active present. As one great French diplomat recently expressed it, "No one has time to think of the future, not even of the immediate future." But on the great chess-board of the world Rome thinks of the future, near and distant, and she is yielding her puppet pawns so pleasing to the nations, but she is gathering knights and castles, kings and queens, empires and republics. And herein is a warning for all.
