July 3, 1905: France Finally Separates Church and State

Émile Loubet

July 3, 1905: The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of France's national legislature, passes a bill for the separation of church and state, 341 to 233. It becomes law in the nation's Third Republic, and remains so into its Fifth Republic.

This is bigger than it might appear to a 21st Century audience. It is often presumed that the French Revolution of 1789 to 1795 fully overturned the established order, known as the Ancien Régime. Certainly, there was a desire to overturn the Roman Catholic Church, as much as there was to overturn the royal House of Bourbon. Writer and philosopher Denis Diderot, who died a few years before the Revolution, is credited with saying, "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

But the Revolution fell into the Reign of Terror, and ultimately failed. The stated ideals of Liberté, égalité, fraternité -- liberty, equality and brotherhood --  were tossed aside for the dictatorship, and then the empire, of Napoleon Bonaparte.

This was followed by a conservative retrenchment, a new monarchy that teamed up with the Church to reassert the old values and turn back a few attempted revolutions, including the June Rebellion of 1832, the centerpiece of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. This was followed by the Second Empire, run by Napoleon's grandnephew, Emperor Napoleon III, before it fell in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. The Third Republic was subsequently founded.

The Dreyfus Affair that began in 1894 uncovered a considerable amount of anti-Semitism in France, particularly among the nation's Catholics. Finally, in 1905, President Émile Loubet wanted full separation. His popularity, having grown through his settling of the Dreyfus Affair and his diplomacy in building the Triple Entente with Britain and Russia, helped to pass it.

And so, 116 years after 1789, when France had its Revolution, and America's Bill of Rights enshrined freedom of religion into the First Amendment to its federal Constitution, France also had an official separation of church and state -- something that Canada took until 1982, with its Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to have; and that Britain still does not have, as it is officially tied to the Church of England. France has been a largely secular nation ever since, though Catholicism remains the leading religion.

Speaking of Canada: It has been noted that, due to its separation from France proper, the Canadian Province of Quebec, formerly known as New France, faced a tighter grip from the Church than did the "mother country." It would take until the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s for that grip to be broken.

This is not to say that the Catholic Church said, "Oh well, we lost this one. Let's move on." Hardly. On February 11, 1906, Pope Pius X wrote a papal open letter titled Vehementer Nos, which is Latin for "We strongly." Given that the Pope is, technically, the Church's monarch, he was speaking for the Church and using "the Royal We."

Pope Pius X

He wrote, "Our soul is full of sorrowful solicitude and Our heart overflows with grief... How, indeed, could it be otherwise, immediately after the promulgation of that law which, by sundering violently the old ties that linked your nation with the Apostolic See, creates for the Catholic Church in France a situation unworthy of her and ever to be lamented?"

He said the new law "must be deplored by all the right-minded." Why? Because it was "disastrous to society as it is to religion." He called it a "great calamity." He wrote, "That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error." And why is that? Because it was "a great injustice to God."

God's thoughts on the matter were not recorded by the media that existed at the time.

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July 3, 1905 was a Monday. Johnny Gibson was born. From my original hometown of Bloomfield, New Jersey, he was a runner who competed in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, although he did not win a medal. He later served as the longtime track & field coach at Seton Hall University, and lived to be 101 years old.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-0 at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan. Al Orth, a pitcher known as "The Curveless Wonder," pitched a 4-hit shutout. Willie Keeler went 3-for-4 with an RBI for the Highlanders, who became the New York Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-1 at National League Park (later renamed Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Boston Beaneaters, 2-1 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Superbas became the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1911, and the Boston team became the Braves in 1912.

* The Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, beat the Washington Senators, 6-2 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* And the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Naps (forerunners of the Indians and the Guardians), the Detroit Tigers, the St. Louis Browns, the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.

February 14, 1896: Theodor Herzl Publishes "Der Judenstaat"

February 14, 1896: Theodor Herzl publishes his pamphlet Der Judenstaat, meaning The Jewish State, in Leipzig, Germany.

Born on May 2, 1860 in Pest, in the Austrian Empire -- now the east bank of the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary -- Herzl had a brief legal career in the Austrian capital of Vienna. He became the Paris correspondent for the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Press (The New Free Press). Confronted with anti-Semitic events in Vienna, he reached the conclusion that anti-Jewish sentiment would make Jewish assimilation impossible, and that the only solution for Jews was the establishment of a Jewish state.

The term "Zionism" had been coined by Austrian journalist Nathan Birnbaum in 1890, to mean the struggle for a secure homeland for the Jewish people. Ironically, later in life, Birnbaum became an Orthodox Jew, and a fervent anti-Zionist. It would be Herzl who popularized the term.

In Der Judenstaat, Herzl elaborated his visions of a Jewish homeland. He envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state at some point during the coming 20th Century, thinking it the best way to avoid anti-Semitism in Europe. He encouraged Jews to purchase land in the land then known as Palestine, the historic homeland of the Jews, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. His ideas attracted international attention, and rapidly established him as a major figure in the Jewish world.

The book was published while the Dreyfus Affair was ongoing in France. So Herzl was being direct when he wrote:

The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries -- see, for instance, France -- so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level.

He concluded the book as follows:

Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again.

Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it.

We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes.

The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness.

And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.

Herzl planned to deliver his pamphlet as a speech to the Rothschild family, well-known throughout the world as bankers and among world's the best-known Jews, then based in Boulogne, France. But, though himself a Zionist, Baron Edmond de Rothschild rejected Herzl's plan, feeling that it threatened Jews in the Diaspora. He also thought it would put his own settlements in Palestine at risk.

In 1897, Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress at the Stadtcasino in Basel, Switzerland, and was elected president of the Zionist Organization. He began a series of diplomatic initiatives to build support for a Jewish state, appealing unsuccessfully to German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

He sought out seemingly friendly ears in the South American nation of Argentina and the African nation of Uganda -- which will sound ironic to people familiar with the former's welcome of Nazi war criminals after World War II and the latter's dictatorship of Idi Amin and his alliance with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Neither country was willing to listen.

On January 26, 1904, Herzl visited Rome, and met with Pope Pius X. The Pope received Herzl with respect, but declined to help. Herzl was soon diagnosed with a heart ailment, and died on July 3, only 44 years old. In Reichenau an der Rax, Austria. He was buried in Vienna.

Further Zionist attempts to negotiate with the Ottoman authorities failed, but with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, and the subsequent creation of Mandatory Palestine under the control of Britain, the Zionists gained success: Britain issued the Balfour Declaration that supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In 1948, the British Mandate of Palestine ran out, and the State of Israel was declared. Ever since, "Zionism" has meant the protection of what that country already had, and the repatriation of formerly Jewish lands nearby, which was satisfied with the Six-Day War of 1967. In 1949, Herzl's remains were taken to Israel, and reinterred on a location renamed Mount Herzl.

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February 14, 1896 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season, and basketball barely existed. But there was 1 notable hockey game played: The Winnipeg Victorias beat the Montreal Victorias, 2-0 at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, and won the Stanley Cup.