THE TABLET

A Weekly Newspaper and Review.

D u m VOBIS GRA.TULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS UT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.

From the Brief oj His Holiness to T he T ablet, June 4, 1870.

Voi. 40. No. 1692. L o n d o n , S eptember 14, 1872.

P r ic e sd . B y P o st

[ R e g is t e r e d a t th e G e n e r a l P o st O f f ic e a s a N ew s p a p e r .

C h r o n ic l e o f t h e W e e k : The

Page.

S. Bartholomew Controversy.— Catholic Judgmenton the Massacre. —The Geneva Award.—The Manoeuvres.— The Meeting of the Emperors.— Prince Bismarck and the Crown Prince.—The Crisis in Bavaria.— The Jesuits at Strasbourg.—Other Religious Congregations.— Attitude of the Government towards Catholics. — The Disruption of the International.— Its Immediate Causes.— The International and the Jesuits.— “ Evangelical ” Liberty. — The Brest Calumny.— Marriage of Priests.— Christian Education Congress. — The English and French Commercial Treaty, &c., &c. . .321

L e a d e r s :

CONTENTS

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C o r r e s pon d en c e :

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The Massacre of S. Bartholomew . 325 Russia and the Berlin Interview . 326 Requirements for Catholic Associa

Protestant Orders. — “ Machyn’s

Diary.”—Talleyrand . . 333 The “ Times” and the Massacre of tions The Italo-German Alliance 3-7 328 R e v ie w s :

Historical Sketches . . . 329 Christina North .... 330 The Month . . . . -331 The Magazines for September . 332 S h o r t N o t ic e s :

Nine Principal Christian Mysteries 332 Electoral Equality . . . 333 By the Seaside .... 333 The Spiritual Retreat . . . 333 New Music: Eighteen Litany Chants for four voices .... 333

S. Bartholomew . . . 334 The Jesuits’ College . . . 334 Catholic Provident Societies . 334 Patron Saints .... 335 “ Cacography” . . . .335 R ome :

Letter from Rome .... 336 The Pope and the State of Rome . 337 Outrages in Rome . . . 3 J7 Peter’s Pence .... 339 R ecord o f t h e G erm an P ersecu­

t io n : The Law against the Jesuits only a Beginning.-The Archbishop of Cologne sympathizing with the

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Jesuits.— Letter to the Very Rev. the Provincial of the Society of Jesus, Pater Oswald, at MariaLaach.—Prussian Poland and the Persecution .... 339 D io c e s a n N ew s :

Westminster...................................... 340 Southwark ..... 341 Clifton 341 I r e l a n d :

The Sands of Youghal . .3 4 t F o reign N ew s :

G e r m a n y ...................................... 342 M em o r a n d a :

Religious-Catholic Union-Literary

-Scientific— Fine Arts—Statistics 343 G e n e r a l N ew s . . . . 345

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

THE S. BARTHOLOMEW •CONTROVERSY. T

H E controversy about the massacre of S. Bartholomew still continues. The Times of Friday week contained a singularly unjust article, in which it was asserted, not only

¡that the Pope of the time approved the act, knowing precisely what it was ; but that no Catholic with any claim to speak -on behalf of the Church had ever disavowed it, or would now disavow it, or consider it “ a crime, or even a mistake.” The writer, therefore, accused Dean Stanley of “ a generous 41 inadvertence ” in stating that the medals struck and pictures painted in commemoration of the massacre were now ■“ disowned with shame and remorse by the Papacy itself.” Thereupon, the Dean explains himself, in a letter in Tuesday’s Times, to have meant that the massacre “ has been 41 disowned indirectly and privately by the Papacy and ■“ its adherents,” but never “ ex-cathedrà, and with the same ■“ official authority as that which sanctioned it.” He proceeds to allege that at the time of the tercentenary the massacre was defended “ in the organ of the chief champion 41 of the Holy See, M. Veuillot.” Now, as regards the Papacy, we have said before that the Bull of Gregory XIII. was founded on the carefully prepared information furnished by the King’s agents, and that there is no proof that the Pope did sanction or would have sanctioned the act knowing precisely what it was. Dean Stanley thinks that the “ Roman Church will be justly open to criticism ” till this Bull is “ withdrawn and denounced in a Bull of equal 41 authority by Pius IX. or his successor.” We fail, however, to see that a Bull is necessary to answer accusations made in the Times newspaper, or even in the pulpit of S. Andrew’s, Edinburgh ; though if the Holy See had any real occasion to make a solemn pronouncement upon the matter, it may safely be assumed that it would declare that it is now evident the Bull of Gregory XIII. had been issued in ignorance of the real facts. As to M. Veuillot, the Dean has apparently not read the remarkable letter of that writer, which we published last week, or he could not, with any fairness, have endeavoured to fix upon him an approval of the massacre. Nothing that we have seen in his paper can be construed into a defence of it, and nothing can be stronger than M. Veuillot’s condemnation of it, which he couches in an epigrammatic phrase borrowed from Count de Maistre— “ quelques scélérats firent périr quelques scélérats.” This of course does not mean that all the victims were “ scélérats ” — that there were not some innocent who suffered with the guilty. But it must be remembered that, taken as a party, the Huguenots were guilty, and had not only broken the public peace in an outrageous manner, but had got up massacres, specially of priests, on their own account, as at Montauban and elsewhere, and forcibly prevented the exercise o f the C a tholic religion where th ey could. T h a t there were innocent persons who suffered with the guilty was the m iserable consequence o f the unjustifiable means taken to punish and repress disorder. T h e Spectator sums up as follows, c itin g Dr. L ingard as a well-known in stance o f a C a tholic who has condemned the massacre :—

W e do not profess at the present moment to recall the exact story of that horrible event, but our impression— not one biassed in favour of Roman Catholic persecutions— certainly is that the Pope’s medal and rejoicings were instituted on the first ex parte account of the event as told by the envoy of Charles IX., and that our own Elizabeth herself, on the ex parte statement of the French Minister, La Motte Fénélon, was so far taken in as to thank the K ing for his communication. But even if we are too favourable to the I'ope in supposing that his rejoicings were proclaimed under a false impression of what had happened, what can be more wicked than deliberately to spread the im pression that the most eminent Roman Catholics of to-day approve and justify that hellish deed ? Dr. Lingard, the Roman Catholic historian, who wrote at a time when the feeling against religious persecution was certainly not so strong as it is at present, speaks of “ the infamy” of the deed, and we should be surprised to hear that a single eminent Roman Catholic in England would characterize it in milder terms. It is an ominous and discreditable symptom of the passions of the day, when a great paper like the Times uses its influence deliberately to inflame religious animosities by statements palpably untrue.

CATHOLIC JUDGMENT

ON THE MASSACRE.

Sir George Bowyer, who, as he says, cannot be accused “ of being a Roman Catholic liberal “ to laxity,” comes forward to state that the act was both a crime and a mistake, adding that he “ could name many, both clergy and laity,

I “ who hold the same opinion.” This testimony the Times, in j its leading article, endeavours to get rid of by hinting—

somewhat disingenuously we think— that Sir George Bowyer Imust be a kind of Gallican, which it very well knows that he is not; and that, if he were a genuine Catholic, he would approve of the massacre. The fact is, that every single publication which can be supposed to represent Catholic opinion, and which treats of the massacre, condemns it. We have not space to accumulate references, but we will mention the Dublin Review (Oct. 1865), which nobody will suspect of half-and-half Catholicism. We only regret that Sir George Bowyer should have said that he could name “ many” of the clergy and laity who hold his opinion. Of course he could; for "there are none who do not hold it. Cardinal Wiseman, in one of his lectures, characterizes the massacre as murder : “ Murder,” he says, “ begot murder.” The Dublin Review speaks of it as “ that atrocious transaction and again, “ so foul a deed as the St. Bartholomew really “ was ” ; and the tract on the subject in the Catholic historical library, says, “ it was a horrible sin, which cried to “ Heaven for vengeance on its perpetrators.” To this judgment we will add another condemnation, that of Mgr

N ew Series. V ol, VIII. No. 201.