France: On the occasion of taking the veil at Caussade
Rev. Fr. Jean-Jacques Marziac.
To those who doubt the importance of the religious habit, Rev. Fr. Jean-Jacques Marziac, superior of the Institute of Cooperators of Christ the King, recalled on the occasion of the taking of the veil by two nuns at Caussade (Tarn-et-Garonne), these words of Ferdinand Buisson, Freemasonic member of Parliament:
“I know the proverb that says, ‘the habit does not make the monk’,” declared this supporter of laicized education, on March 4, 1904, in the Chamber of Deputies. “But as for me, I believe that the habit does make the monk. It is indeed a sign, both for him and for others, a permanent symbol that he is set apart, the sign that he is not a man like all men. His habit is a strength, it is the strength and the hold of a master who never releases his slave. And our dream is to tear that prey back from him.
“When a man takes off the uniform of the environment in which he is enrolled, he will perforce find the freedom to belong to himself again, he will no longer have a rule that regulates, moment by moment, his whole life, he will no longer have a superior to whom he applies for orders for every act of his existence. (…) He will no longer be the man of the congregation; sooner or later, he will become the man of the family, the man of the city, the man of humanity.
“The secularized religious will have to begin earning his living like everyone else. We will expect no less now that he is free. (…) For a long time, perhaps, he will remain attached to his ideas, both religious and others. Far be it from us to complain. (…) Let him secularize himself on his own, with the help of life. Let us rely on nature to take back all its rights. (…) It is by freedom that we will win him back to freedom.”
After Vatican II, a multitude of priests and religious traded their cassocks and habits for mufti in the name of a ‘hidden apostolate’. Today Ferdinand Buisson has a zealous heir in the Minister for National Education, Vincent Peillon, who wrote a book about him: Une religion pour la République : la foi laïque de Ferdinand Buisson [A religion for the Republic: the secularized faith of Ferdinand Buisson] (Le Seuil, 2010). According to Peillon, secularism is “a principle of tolerance, certainly, but more than a positive philosophy, it is a religion.” Secularism is even “the religion of all religions, of all confessions, the universal religion.” And this minister, who wants to reintroduce secular ethics classes at the beginning of the 2015 school year, dreams of “building a religion that is not only more religious than the dominant Catholicism, but also is stronger and more attractive, more persuasive than Catholicism.” This is why he did not hesitate to request in a letter addressed to the directors of the Academy dated January 4, 2013, to “pressure youth in order to change mentalities.”
The Institute of Cooperators of Christ the King offers the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius at Maison St. Joseph, Le Treilhou, 82300 Caussade, tel. 05-63-93-00-88, fax 05-63-93-94-03.
(Source: Caussade – DICI no. 278, 05/07/13)
