THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD
VOLUME XXIX
JANUARY TO JUNE, 1911
DUBLIN
BROWNE & NOLAN, LIMITED, NASSAU STREET
1911
Page 4
Yet, however painful to him the trend of affairs in Rome and in Italy, Pius X. pursues unflinchingly his schemes of reform. Many of the subjects dealt with in the recent
Motu proprios and decrees of the Holy Father were included in the matters that would have been submitted to the Vatican Council had it been allowed to continue its deliberations.
As it is unlikely that circumstances will permit the convocation of a general council for years, the Pope has judged it wise to proceed immediately with the more urgent questions of reform. During the past year his decrees and encyclicals deal with the new regulations for the visitation ad limina, and with the particulars of the relatio that is then required ; with the method of procedure in case of the retirement of parish priests; with the relations which the clergy should maintain towards co-
operative banks, savings banks, and other similar organizations; with the conditions for the reception of the Holy Eucharist by children ; and, finally, with the Modernist movement and the campaign of Le Sillon in France. These are only a few of the many important regulations issued by the Holy Father during the current year, but they are sufficient to prove that neither age nor anxiety has interfered with his vigour and activity.
Page 10
Some special misfortune seems to be hanging over the Catholics of France. Every effort which they make to organize their forces is certain to miscarry just at the
moment when it promised to be successful. Sometimes it is royalism is the trouble, at another republicanism or socialism. This time it is religion.
The Pope has felt it necessary to condemn Le Sillon. This movement was established about twelve years ago by Marc Sangnier, with the object of arousing the younger generation of Catholics to a sense of their duties as citizens and as Catholics. His programme was a programme of social reform. He meant to stir up the young men, lay and cleric, to take an interest in the working classes, and indirectly to win them back to the practice of the religion of their fathers. The idea was taken up with the greatest enthusiasm. Hardly a young priest or a young seminarian who was not a member of the Sillon movement ; the laymen were not less ardent in the work, and in a short time the society was spread throughout France.
At first, though many viewed it with suspicion, hardly anybody took the field against it. But latterly, owing to the way in which questions of religion and social reform were being mixed, owing to the fact that non-Catholics were admitted freely to the ‘ Greater Sillon ‘ — for there was a Greater Sillon and a Lesser Sillon — and owing to the claims of absolute independence that were put forward by the society, several of the Bishops spoke. out strongly against it, while others were equally strong in their approval of the movement.
The question, then, was obviously one which must be referred to Rome. Pius X., while praising the work and the intentions of the society and of the founder, insists
that it cannot continue as it is, and that it must be placed under the government of the Bishops in their respective dioceses.
Marc Sangnier, to his credit be it said, immediately submitted to the decision of the Church, and thus set an example which has been imitated loyally by his followers.
SOURCE
https://archive.org/stream/irishecclesiasti29dubluoft/irishecclesiasti29dubluoft_djvu.txt