Twelve Years in a Monastery/Chapter VII
CHAPTER VII
A YEAR AT LOUVAIN
Louvain University is the principal Roman Catholic University in the north of Europe. Nominally it is a centre of higher Catholic instruction for all the northern countries, including, until a recent date, the United States of America. However it is, in point of fact, little more than a national institution. The patriotic Germans naturally prefer their own vigorous, though less venerable, University of Innspruck. Britons and Americans have always been represented in its colleges very sparsely, for they have been usually attracted to the fountain head, to Rome, in their thirst for higher doctrine; now America has its great Washington University, and English Catholicism will, ere long, bring to an end its self-imposed banishment from Oxford and Cambridge. The recent efforts to form a Catholic colony at Cambridge have awakened the Jesuits to a counter demonstration of zeal at Oxford; in any case, the vague opposition of ecclesiastical authorities to the sending of Catholics to our great Universities has for some time been steadily on the wane. Ecclesiastics, of course, will still have to be sent abroad to develop in a purer atmosphere, and will continue to prefer Rome to Louvain; large numbers of them still receive their ordinary training in Spain or at Rome. Still Louvain could boast many nationalities amongst its 1,600 students.
The long struggle between Catholicism and Liberalism in Belgium has had the effect of marking off Louvain amongst its universities as distinctively Catholic. Distinguished by a long tradition of orthodoxy and many illustrious names, the clerical party concentrated themselves upon it, and determined to exclude the liberalising tendencies which had either mastered, or threatened to master, the other universities, Brussels, Ghent, &c. The control is exclusively clerical, both rector and vice-rector being high ecclesiastical dignitaries, and every orthodox family with a care for the orthodox training of its sons is expected to send them to Louvain.
It is a great error to suppose, however, that Louvain is, like the Roman institutions, merely a centre of clerical training; Belgian Catholicism is fallen much too low to realise so ambitious a dream. During the year which I spent there—1893-4—there were not more than fifty clerical students out of the 1,600; ecclesiastical studies were, therefore, working at a dead loss, for the theological staff was numerous and distinguished. The greater part of the students were in law and medicine, though there were also sections for engineering, brewery, and other technical branches. Moreover the university suffered from the presence of a rival clerical establishment in the same town—conducted, of course, by the Jesuits. The Jesuits, the 'Thundering legion' of the ecclesiastical army, have one weakness from a disciplinary point of view—they never co-operate; 'aut Cæsar aut nullus' is their motto whenever they commence operations in a new locality. And so at Louvain, after, it is said, a long and fruitless effort to secure the monopoly of the university itself, they have erected a splendid and efficient college, in which the lectures are thrown open to outsiders, and from which a brilliant student is occasionally sent to throw down his glove to the university, to defend thirty or forty theses against the united phalanx of veteran professors. The Dominicans have also a large international college in the town, and the American bishops a fourth, in which European volunteers for the American missions are trained. The rivalry which results, although it does occasionally overflow the channel of fraternal charity, helps to sustain the ebbing vitality of the Belgian Church, and turns its attention from the rapid growth of Rationalism and Socialism.
One difference between the Belgian and the English system is that few of the students live in the colleges, scattered at intervals over the town, which form the university. They are usually only lecture halls, and their attendant rooms and museums; the students live in the houses of the townspeople, for the town exists merely for the accommodation of the university. The vice-president keeps a record of all houses and the addresses of the students; still any student of Oxford or Cambridge will appreciate the probable value of such a liberty. A second and most important difference from English university life lies in the utter absence of athleticism. The Belgians were entirely averse to muscular exertion of any kind. I saw very little cycling, no cricket, no football, no rowing—nothing more active than skittles during the whole period, for ‘beer and skittles’ is much more than a figurative ideal to the Belgian. Their free time, and they are not at all a studious race, is mainly spent in the estaminets or beer houses, and, like German students, they consume enormous quantities of their national beverage and smoke unceasingly.
The ethical result of such a mode of life may be deduced from general physiological laws. The ‘rector magnificus’ is a very able and estimable man, but of a retiring and studious character; the vice-rector, Mgr. Cartuyvels, is, however, an active and zealous disciplinarian, and, by means of a wide system of espionage, he is tolerably acquainted with the condition of affairs. Still he is powerless to stem an inevitable tide, and indeed it is said that he is afraid to enforce his authority too sternly, lest he should drive more Catholics to the other Liberal universities. Of the two evils, heterodoxy or immorality, the Church naturally prefers the latter, though it is said that the religion of the students is not of much more value than their morality. I was informed by a Louvain priest that at least 500 out of the 1,500 did not attend Mass on Sundays; and, in the Church of Rome, attendance is obligatory and a test of communion. Like that of so many of our Hibernian neighbours, their faith is only brought to a practical issue in a riot over religious questions. Once the Liberals or the Socialists fill the streets with their anti-clerical cry, ‘À bas la calotte,’ the students are found to be Catholic to a man, for, as in an Oxford town-and-gown fight, they are vaguely supposed to be sustaining the honour of their ‘alma mater’; but, apart from such uncanonical, though not infrequent, ebullitions, their piety is of a painfully evanescent character.
The clerical students, who live as a rule in the colleges, are priests who have distinguished themselves in their ordinary theological course, and who have been forwarded by their respective bishops to graduate at the university. Few of them, indeed, reach the full term of a university career and secure the doctor’s cap in theology, philosophy, or canon law, for their bishops are compelled by financial and other pressure—frequently by the unsatisfactory results of their examinations—to withdraw them prematurely to the active work of the diocese. The successful student secures his licentiate at the end of the third year, and his bachelorship at the end of the fourth, when he ceases to follow the public lectures at the halls. He then spends two years in the study of his chosen subject, under the tutorial guidance of his late professor, writes a Latin treatise on any thesis he chooses, and finally in the great hall, in presence of a numerous audience, he secures his cap by defending a score of theses against the professors and any ecclesiastic who cares to object. As every religious order, and therefore every school of theology (as was explained in a preceding chapter), is formidably represented in the town, very lively scenes are sometimes witnessed in the discussion of the theses; in fact, certain controversies have had to be practically excluded from the list of debatable questions in order to avoid an undignified delay of the proceedings from the Jesuits and Dominicans in the gallery. The success of the student is, however, practically guaranteed by the mere fact of his presentation by a professor.
The programme of clerical study at the university is practically identical with that of the seminaries, which has been already described: philosophy and theology have the same treatises and the same main problems as in the ordinary course. But they are treated more profoundly at the university: only one treatise is taken each year, and each question is thoroughly exhausted and a large number of subsidiary questions are raised which were crushed out in the briefer elementary course. It is like passing from Huxley’s ‘Elements of Physiology’ to the more exhaustive work of Kirk or Carpenter on the same subject. Then the philosopher has the advantage of attending, with the medical students, scientific courses under men who are eminent in their respective sciences, and the student of theology and Scripture attends lectures in the Oriental languages under equally distinguished professors. In addition to these there are courses of Persian, Sanscrit, Chinese, &c., and courses of the higher literature of most European languages, and of Latin and Greek classics. There is, however, no degree corresponding to the English M.A., and literary studies suffer in consequence. All the clerical students are intended by their bishops to become professors in their seminaries, and, in addition to their degree in theology, they are directed to follow the particular course which will benefit them. Still a spirit of narrow utilitarianism pervades all ranks: the lay students have a definite profession in view and have no superfluous industry to devote to supererogatory studies, the priests think of little else besides their theology or philosophy. There are a few disinterested worshippers at the shrine of philosophy and letters, but their number is comparatively small. The course of Sanscrit and Chinese ascribed to the distinguished student of those (and many other) languages, Mgr. de Harlez, seems to have a mythical existence; Persian is never demanded, and even Arabic (though the professor is an Arabic scholar of the first rank) is rarely mentioned. Hebrew must be undertaken by aspirants for theological degrees, but Syriac has few devotees.
I was requested by my authorities to follow the course of Hebrew under M. Van Hoonacker. In the old province of Grey Friars in England there had always been a professorship of Hebrew, and a desire was felt in certain quarters to emulate the glory of our ancestors in that respect. Taking advantage of a temporary interruption of my course of philosophy, through a re-distribution of our studies, the offer of a year at Louvain was made to me. Weary with struggles against doubt and with premature ministerial activity, I eagerly accepted and made my way to the monastery of our order at Louvain. To the course of Hebrew agreed upon I merely added a course of Syriac (in virtue of which I fondly hoped to disturb my Anglican brethren over the Peschito version of the New Testament), an elementary course of Biblical criticism, and a higher course of scholastic philosophy; much to the disgust of my colleagues, who thought it an insult to their great university not to spend every hour of my available time in its lecture rooms.
The lectures on Hebrew and on Biblical criticism were both given by the young but very able professor M. Van Hoonacker, an efficient teacher and erudite scholar, who crossed swords (with more courage than success) with the great Kuenen. An abler professor of Hebrew we could not have had, and even in handling the delicate questions raised by the Higher Criticism he displayed much wealth of knowledge, and a generous acquaintance with the writings of his opponents, Wellhausen, Kuenen, &c., and much argumentative power. The subject marked on the programme was an introduction to the canon of Scripture; it was based upon the work of M. Loisy, and ran upon the traditional lines. But he quickly exhausted that subject and hastened to his favourite topic, the discussion, against Wellhausen, of the origin of the Jewish festivals. Of erudition he gave abundant proof and not a little ingenuity in the research and grouping of arguments, but it was obvious that few of the students had any large view of the general issues at stake. All scribbled furiously as the professor spoke (for we had no manual) and endeavoured to gather as much detailed information as would suffice for examination purposes.
In private intercourse I found him extremely kind and courteous, and he frequently spoke to me of the difficulty of his position as professor of Biblical criticism, when the Church left us without any clearly defined doctrine about the nature and extent of inspiration in face of modern rationalism; he did not appreciate the liberty of thought which the Church wisely grants until secular science has reached its high-water mark and it knows what it can decide with security. The Pope’s encyclical had not yet appeared, but I know that, as a theologian and an expert, he would not be affected by it in his inner thoughts.
The professor of Syriac (and also, in part, of Scripture) was a man of a very different type. He was a very old professor, Mgr. Lamy, an eminent Syriac scholar, though a poor teacher, and one whose opinions on Biblical questions had been fossilised years ago. Like M. Van Hoonacker, he took the first chapter of Genesis as a subject of translation, and devoted more time to his commentaries on the text than to its Syriac construction. The contrast was instructive: every Monday morning we had the Hebrew professor’s advanced and semi-rationalistic commentary, resolving the famous chapter into myths and allegories: the following morning, from the same pulpit, Mgr. Lamy religiously anathematised all we had heard, and gave the literal interpretation of fifty years ago. He was kind and earnest, but his method of teaching was so unfortunate that, after one lecture per week for nine months, we knew little more than the Syriac alphabet. Towards the end he startled us one day by commanding us to prepare for the next lecture a translation of a dozen lines of Syriac without vowel points. The incident is illustrative of the average Flemish character. We were three in number in the course, and it was my turn to read at the next lecture. However, my companions, fearful of their own turn, endeavoured to persuade me not to attempt such a preposterous task. By dint of great exertion I copied out the translation of the passage and brought it to lecture on the following Tuesday, when my companion, a Flemish priest, snatched the paper from my hand and tore it in pieces.
The third professor whose lectures I followed, Mgr. Mercier, was a gentleman of refined and sympathetic character and one of the ablest living exponents of Catholic philosophy. To a perfect knowledge of the scholastic philosophy he added a wide acquaintance with physical science (which can be rarely affirmed of the scholastic metaphysician) and a very fair estimate of modern rival schools of philosophy. Instead of wasting time on the absurd controversies of the mediæval schools he made a continuous effort to face the deep metaphysical criticism of the German and the English schools—with what success may be judged from his numerous writings on philosophical questions. During the year I attended, he took 'Criteriology' as his subject; he considered it the most important section of philosophy in these days when, after 2,000 years of faith, the neo-academic cry, 'What is truth?' has revived in such earnest.
Unfortunately the modern sophist finds little earnest and disinterested attention, even in universities: modern students of the great science are widely removed from the restless zeal of Athens or Alexandria or mediæval Paris. Mgr. Mercier is also burdened with an obligation to adhere to the teaching of Thomas of Aquin—the least critical, perhaps, of an age of rampant dogmatism—who is the present favourite at the Papal court. However, Rome keeps a jealous eye on Louvain philosophy since the outbreak of heterodoxy under the famous Ubaghs some thirty years ago. It is still under suspicion of Cartesianism in a mild form: M. Bossu is an ardent Cartesian, and Mgr. Mercier is not untainted, but the circumstance is only a matter of concern to Jesuits and other philosophical rivals.
I had much personal intercourse with Mgr. Mercier, and experienced much kindness from him. Like most of the Walloons, he is more refined and sensitive than the average Fleming. For Belgium is made up of two radically distinct and hostile races: the Southern half is occupied by a French speaking people (with a curious native Walloon language) whose characteristics are entirely French, and the Northern race, the Flemings, is decidedly Teutonic, very hospitable, painfully open and candid, but usually coarse, material, and unsympathetic. The two races are nearly as hostile as the French and Germans whom they respectively resemble (though, I think, neither French nor Germans admit the affinity—the Germans have a supreme contempt for the Flemings). Louvain—Leuven as it is rightly called—is in Flemish territory, and Mgr. Mercier, justly suspecting that I was not at my ease with my Teutonic brethren, offered to establish me in his own house, but my monastic regulations forbade it. Both through him and the other professors I have the kindest recollection of the university, from which, however, I was soon recalled.
A secondary object of my visit to Belgium was the opportunity it afforded of studying monastic life in all the tranquillity and fulness of development which it enjoys in a Catholic country. In England it was impossible to fulfil many of our obligations to the letter. It is a firm decree of a monastic order that the religious costume must never be laid aside: it is still decreed in English law that any person wearing a monastic habit in the public streets shall be imprisoned, and although the law has become a dead letter, experiment has shown the practice to be attended with grave inconveniences. The Franciscan constitutions strictly forbid collective or individual ownership, and even the mere physical contact of money: English law does not recognise the peculiar effects of a vow of poverty, and English railway companies and others are unwilling to accept a billet from a religious superior instead of the coin of the realm. But in a Roman Catholic country, at least in Belgium (for in France they are grievously tormented by the law), they have full liberty to translate their evangelical ideas into active life: I had heard that the Belgian province was a perfect model of monastic life, and, as I had vague dreams of helping F. David in his slowly maturing plan to reform our English houses, I desired to study it attentively.
It soon became apparent, however, that perfection, in their opinion, consisted very largely in a purely mechanical and lifeless discipline. Much stress was laid upon their exact observance of the letter of the constitutions, which we English friars conspicuously neglected. In most of the monasteries they arose at midnight for office, observed all the fasts diligently, would not touch a sou with a shovel, never laid aside their religious habit, and never interfered in secular business. They felt themselves, therefore, in a sufficiently high position to look down compassionately on our English province, and they were sincerely astonished when the late General of the Order, the shrewd and eminent F. Bernardine, quite failed to appreciate their excellent condition, on the occasion of a visit from Rome. In point of fact the province is infected with the idle, intriguing, and materialistic spirit which monasticism invariably develops when it is not under the constant pressure and supervision of heretics and unbelievers.
Their literal fulfilment of the vow of poverty in these unsympathetic times leads to curious complications. In the primitive innocence of the order (its first twenty years) the vow of poverty implied that all the houses, clothing, &c., that the friars used, remained the property of the donors; that money was on no account to be received for their labours; that all food was to be begged. In the course of time the paternal solicitude of the Pope helped them out of difficulties by declaring that whatever was given to the friars became his—the Pope’s—property. He also instructed them to appoint a layman as syndic to each of the monasteries, who should undertake (in the Pope’s name, not that of the friars—the distinction is one of theological life or death) the financial and legal matters which the letter of the rule forbade the friars to undertake; gradually, too, brothers of the third order, who make no vow of poverty, were introduced into the friaries as servants, and a superior could thus always have a treasurer at hand.
In England the friars never troubled either syndic or lay-brother. The superior of each monastery had his safe and bank account, no priest ever went out with an empty pocket, and the authorities made contracts (from which the Pope’s name is wisely excluded) and went to law like every nineteenth century Christian. In Belgium the modified scheme of holy poverty (which would have made Francis of Assisi die a still more premature death) is followed out faithfully. All food is sent in in kind by the surrounding peasantry except, usually, meat and beer, which are bought through the syndic: a lay-brother is constantly wandering about the country begging provisions for the friars, and the response is generous both in quantity and quality. The brown habit is sure to elicit sympathy—especially in the form of liquid, and even the railway officials accept a note from the friary when a ticket is necessary: I have travelled all over Belgium, visited Waterloo, &c., as comfortably as a tourist, without touching a centime from one end of the year to the other.
Their monasteries, too, bear the visible stamp of their voluntary poverty. Linen is never seen in them, on tables, or beds, or on the persons of the friars; and another point in which they imitate the holy apostle St. James is that they entirely deny themselves the luxury of a bath—for the reason which the pious French nun gave to the English girl who asked why she was not allowed to take a bath at the pensionnat: ‘Le bon Dieu vous verrait!’ Gas is not admitted; and, worst of all, they think it necessary to reproduce in their large monasteries the primitive sanitary arrangements of the neighbouring cottages. Our lavatory, too, was fitted up with archaic severity: a battered zinc trough ran along under a row of carefully assorted taps, into which the water had to be pumped every three minutes. There were no hand-basins, there was no hot water, neither comb nor brush, and only a tub of black soft soap was provided for our ablutions.
The fasts were rigorously observed, though, as it is a wide-spread custom both in France and Belgium not to breakfast before midday, most of the friars suffered little inconvenience. At the same time the feasts were celebrated with a proportionate zeal. On an ordinary feast-day, which occurs once or twice every month, the friars would sit for three hours or more, sipping their wine, talking, chaffing, quarrelling, long after the dinner had disappeared. Extraordinary feasts would be celebrated with the enthusiasm of school-boys: there would be banquets of a most sumptuous character with linen tablecloths, flowers, and myriads of glasses; wine in abundance and of excellent quality; music, instrumental and vocal; dramatic, humorous, and character sketches. In the larger convents, where there are about thirty priests and forty or fifty students, there was plenty of musical talent, and concerts would sometimes be prepared for weeks in advance in honour of a jubilee or similar festival; and every priest had his circle of ‘quasels’ — pious admirers and penitents of the gentler sex — who undertook the culinary honours of his festival.
The quantity of beer and of Bordeaux which they consume is enormous, yet I saw no excesses in that direction: their capacity, however, is astonishing, and there are few of them who do not kindle at the prospect of an extra pint of beer or of a bottle of red wine. The youngest novices take three pints of beer per day, for they take no tea in the afternoon, and soon learn to look out for every opportunity of an extra pint. Spirits are forbidden, though a few of the elders who have been on the English mission have developed a taste for whisky. They tell a curious story in connection with it in one of their monasteries. An English visitor had smuggled over a bottle for a lay-brother whom he had known in former years Late in the afternoon the lay-brother and one of his comrades were missing from the religious exercises. After a long search they were at length discovered in one of the workshops in a profound slumber, with the half empty bottle and all the materials of punch on a table beside them.
At Louvain they had been forced to build a special entrance to the monastery for the introduction of their beer, for an unsympathetic Liberal lived opposite the great gate and kept a malicious record of the quantity they consumed. One of the greatest concerns of a superior is his wine-cellar, for he knows well that his chance of re-election is closely connected with it: in fact, on one occasion, when I had asked why a certain young friar seemed to be a popular candidate for the highest position before an election, I was told with a smile that ‘his brother was a wine merchant.’ Wherever I went in Belgium, to monasteries, nunneries, or private houses, I found that teetotalism was regarded as a disease whose characteristic microbe was indigenous to the British Isles.
The first unfavourable impression I made upon my hosts was by my unintelligible refusal to drink. We arrived at Ghent for dinner, and after dinner (with the usual pint of strong ale) four of us sat down to five or six bottles of good claret: I drew the line at six glasses and at once attracted as much suspicion as a ‘water-bibber’ of ancient Greece or Rome. At three o’clock a second pint of strong ale had to be faced, and at seven a third; when wine reappeared after that I violently protested — and never recovered their good opinion. Thirst seems to be a national affliction, for even the peasant women sometimes have drinking matches (of coffee) at their village fairs, and the first or second prize has more than once fallen a victim to her cafeine intemperance. It is interesting to note that few of the friars preserve any mental vigour up to their sixtieth year, and that great numbers fall victims to apoplexy.
There are no congregations attached to the friaries, so that their work differs materially from that of English priests. In fact, their life is the typical monastic life, for, as has been explained, canon law prescribes that monastic houses should only be considered as auxiliaries of the regular clergy. The first result, however, is usually a conflict with the priest in whose parish the monks establish themselves, for they attract his parishioners to their services; and they rarely find much favour with the bishop of the diocese. They hear great numbers of confessions, principally of the surrounding peasantry, and have frequent ceremonies in their churches, but, as there are usually many of them, the work occupies little time. The only work of importance which they do is to preach special sermons and give missions in distant parishes, but even that is little in proportion to their vast numbers. One meets amongst them many earnest and devout men who are never idle for a moment, but the majority lead the most dull and inactive lives.
At Louvain there were nine priests and hardly sufficient work to occupy the time of four. There was one earnest exemplary friar who was constantly and usefully occupied; another, equally earnest but differing in method, would exhaust himself one fortnight and recuperate during the next; the remainder led a life of most unenviable inaction—some, under one pretext or another, did absolutely nothing from one end of the week to the other. They were no students—indeed, most of them were grossly ignorant, and their large library was practically unused. In summer they would lounge in the garden or bask at the windows of their cells until the bell rang out the next signal for some vapid religious exercise; in winter they would crowd round their stove and discuss the daily paper or some point of ritual or casuistry, eager as children for the slightest distraction.
Many of them, indeed, between idleness and eccentricity had developed most extraordinary manias. One of our priests, a venerable old friar whose only sacerdotal duties consisted in blessing babies and giving the peasantry recipes (in the form of prayers) for diseased cattle, had succeeded in getting himself appointed as assistant cook. Another friar devoted his time to the solution of the problem of perpetual motion; another had designed a cycle which was to outrun any in the market—if he could devise a brake capable of stopping it when in motion; another explained to me a system of the universe which he had constructed (from certain texts of Genesis) to the utter and final overthrow of materialism—he had explained it to several professors of science, who had admitted its force in silence, and I found myself in the same predicament. Some took to mending clocks, of which they had a number in their cells, others to painting, others to gardening, others to making collections of little pictures of the Virgin or St. Joseph or of miraculous statues. Few of them spent any large proportion of their time in what even a Catholic would consider the service of humanity.
The little knowledge they possessed was usually confined to liturgy and casuistry. Not being parish priests they had not the advantage of daily visits amongst the laity, which is the only refining influence and almost the only stimulus to education of a celibate clergy; and the little preaching and ministerial work they were entrusted with, lying almost exclusively amongst the poor, did not demand any serious thought or study. There are always a few ripe scholars amongst them—very few at the present time—but the majority profess to base their undisguised aversion for study on the letter and spirit of their constitutions and not without reason, though they forget that the age to which that rule was adapted has passed away for ever. There is no pressure upon them, yet their ordinary studies are conspicuously barren, and, though the Catholic university opens its halls gratis to them, it is with great reluctance that they allow one or two of their students to enter it: to graduate they regard as an unpardonable sin.
Their utter innocence of philosophy led them to take a dangerous interest in my welfare, and gave me a practical idea of the way in which Roger Bacons are victimised. Mgr. Mercier had sent me Paul Janet’s ‘Causes Finales’ to read, and whilst I was doing so one of the elder friars came to glance at the title of my book. He considered it for some moments perplexed, and at length exclaimed: ‘Tiens! la cause finale, c’est la mort!’ I offered no correction, and he departed to discuss the matter as usual. Then one of the younger friars recollected that he had read somewhere that Paul Janet was ‘chef de l’ecole spiritualiste’ in France, and, nobody knowing the difference between spiritism and spiritualism, it was agreed that I was busy in the questionable region of ‘spooks.’ When Mgr. Mercier went on to lend me the works of Schopenhauer (and they had looked up the name in the encyclopedia) there was a serious question of breaking off my intercourse with him and writing to England of my suspected tendencies. Happily I was in a position to treat them with supreme indifference, for I was neither their subject nor their guest: they were paid (by my Mass fees) for my maintenance—which cost them nothing—and even my books, clothing, bedding, &c., had to be paid for from England. Englishmen, in their eyes, are proverbially proud: I was assured from several reliable sources that I had been credited with an inordinate share of that British virtue.
At present they are making strenuous efforts to reorganise and improve their scheme of study: one or two earnest men are striving against the dead weight of materialism which is oppressing them, and possibly time will bring an improvement, though it can only be by a sacrifice in point of numbers which all are unwilling to make. The two points in which the glory of the fraternity is thought to consist are the maintenance of a perfect formal discipline and the increase of members. The Belgian friars are wrongly endeavouring to secure both points at once. They have built recently a large preparatory college which is always crowded with aspirants; but when I asked one of the Belgian friars, in an unguarded moment, whence the aspirants came, he answered with a shrug of his shoulders: ‘On y a ramassé la canaille des rues,’ and another explained that their training was deeply vitiated by espionnage and by an injudicious system of rewards and punishments. Whatever may be their future — and so long as socialism is kept in check they have every favourable condition — it is quite clear that any serious attempt to purify, to vitalise and spiritualise their fraternity will meet bitter opposition, and will, if successful, considerably reduce their numbers: no large body of men will ever again sincerely adopt an ascetical spirit in their common life. And the Belgian province will be healthier and happier for the remainder of its days if it can rid itself of all its malades imaginaires, lazy pietists, crass sensualists, and ambitious office-seekers.
Belgium is claimed to be a Roman Catholic country, and it may be interesting to discuss the extent and nature of its fidelity to Rome in the light of my inquiries and observations. I had many and intimate opportunities of studying it, and I availed myself of them carefully; not only because I took a speculative interest in the question, but on account of the frequent disparaging references I heard to my own heretical country. Moreover, when I noticed in the list of Peter’s-pence offerings that Belgium had collected for his Holiness only 200,000 lire, and England 1,200,000, I felt that there was occasion for careful inquiry.
Politics and religion are so confused in Belgium that the religious status of the country has been revealed roughly at every general election. For many years there has been a fierce struggle between Liberalism and Catholicism, in which the orthodox party has been frequently overpowered; and Liberalism, as is well known, is the anti-clerical, free-thought party. It is, roughly speaking, the bourgeoisie of Belgium (with a sprinkling of the higher and of the industrial class) permeated with Voltaireanism and modern rationalism: its motto was Gambetta’s ‘Le cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi,’ or as a Belgian mob puts it more forcibly ‘À bas la calotte!’ Not that it was at all a philosophical sect: it was purely active, but accepted the conclusions of the philosophers and the critics as honestly as the orthodox clung to the conclusions of the theologian. In any case it was bitterly opposed to the established religion and the dominion of the clergy on every issue. The aristocracy, for obvious reasons, indolently sided with the Church; the peasantry, on the whole, remained faithful out of brute stolidity and imperviousness to argument.
But during the last few years there has been a profound change in the field as Socialism gained power and character. Not very many years ago a young advocate at the Brussels Catholic conference declared himself a Christian Socialist, and was emphatically suppressed by the clerical and aristocratic members: now, if it were not for Christian Socialism, Rome would soon lose its hold of the peasantry. Socialism, avowedly anti-Christian as it is, has secured the industrial classes and is undoubtedly making progress amongst the peasantry. However, it cannot join forces with waning Liberalism, for it hates the bourgeoisie; and it has had the effect of arousing the monarchy and aristocracy to some sense of its danger. Thus the power of the Church remains as yet slightly in the ascendant: it can command little more than half the votes of the country. So much is clear from election results; but in a country which is fermenting with new ideas mere statistics teach very little of themselves. A new party which is hardly a generation old and which has had a marvellously rapid growth is presumed to have acquired a serious momentum: it consists almost entirely of converts, and the average convert is conscious of his opinions and zealous for them. The adherents to the old party may be still, to a great extent, in their traditional apathy, and only need their minds to be quickened in order to change position. And in Belgium, if we merely listen to the clerical party itself, such would seem to be the state of affairs.
It is much easier to test the real fidelity of nominal adherents of the Church of Rome than of those of any other sect or party in existence: it is the only sect that binds its members under pain of grievous sin to certain positive religious observances. Hence it is possible to gauge the depth and vitality of its influence over its statistical members without entering into the sanctuary of their consciences. And so the fact that one third of the students at the only Catholic university systematically neglect Mass has a profound significance. I once heard a dispute between a Premonstratensian monk, a Walloon, and a Franciscan, who was a Fleming, about the religious merits of their respective races; and to a stranger the choice between them seemed difficult. Confession was taken as a safe test, for annual confession is essential, and its integrity is equally demanded under pain of mortal sin. However the Walloon boasted that you could believe a Walloon in the confessional, but certainly not a Fleming. The Fleming admitted that it was true, but he added: ‘You can believe a Walloon when you get him, for he only comes to confess twice in his life, at his first communion and at death.’ They were both old missionaries, and their points were quite confirmed by the others present.
Moreover I had a more intimate experience of the country, which confirmed my low estimate of its Catholicism. During the Easter vacation I migrated to a small convent in the country, about ten miles south of Brussels. The superior of the convent obtained jurisdiction for me, and I did much service in the chapel of the Comtesse de Meeus, in our own great solid iron church at Argenteuil (well known to Waterloo visitors), and in the parish church at Ohain. We monks were forbidden under pain of suspension to assist the dying or to hear Easter confessions: I soon found that if we did not do so a great many people would manage to do without the sacraments. I assisted three dying persons: one was already unconscious and could only be anointed, and her friends were utterly indifferent about even that; another, a young man, had to be coaxed into making his confession, but refused point blank to receive communion and extreme unction from his parish priest, and died without them; the third visibly condescended to confess, saying that it was immaterial to him — he would if I wished. Many others came to confess, saying that they would either confess to me or not at all. Everywhere, even amongst professing Catholics, there was a strong anti-clerical feeling, though they made a curious exception in favour of monks.
And when I went down to assist at Ohain for the last day of the Easter confessions I found the little parish in a curious condition, even to my heretical experience. The curé smiled when I asked how many he expected for confession, and said that he had not the faintest idea. Theoretically he should have known how many had already made their Pâques, and how many parishioners he had: it was a simple sum of subtraction, but he was amused at my simplicity. It appeared that there were some hundreds who might or might not make their Pâques: in point of fact we had about a hundred more than the preceding year. He did not seem much concerned about the matter, said it was not an abnormal condition, and that it seemed irremediable. It was curious to note that a Protestant mission which had been founded in the neighbourhood for some time had only succeeded in buying two dilapidated ‘converts’ after heroic efforts. The Belgians, like the French, are Catholic or nothing.
What I observed was amply confirmed by the information which I sought on the subject. The people were indifferent, and even a large portion of the clergy were apathetic. Great Catholic demonstrations there were in abundance, but little importance can be attached to such manifestations. In the great procession of the Fête-Dieu at Louvain I knew there were hundreds taking part who were mere nominal Catholics; and other extraordinary religious displays, such as the procession of the miraculous statue at Hasselt, were largely supported by the Liberal municipality and hotel keepers from purely material motives. Little can, therefore, be inferred from statistics or from external pageantry. The fidelity of the people must be tested, as in France, by their obedience to the grave obligations of the Church. Under such a test the Catholicism of Belgium is not found to be very deep or substantial: one may confidently predict, although the wisdom of uniting religious and political issues may be called in question, a steady growth of the anti-clerical party.