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Title: War on Clericalism
Author: Léo Taxil
Date: April 10, 1880
Language: en
Topics: anti-clerical, war
Source: Retrieved on 24th September 2020 from https://www.marxists.org/subject/anarchism/taxil/war-clericalism.htm
Notes: Originally published in Plus de Cafards! Paris, Bibliotheque Anti-Clericale. Translated by Mitchell Abidor

Léo Taxil

War on Clericalism

Citizens:

A bishop who is blind both morally and physically which doesn’t prevent

him from preaching the virtues of the waters of Lourdes while not

himself using them (laughter); who inundates France with insulting

little pamphlets in which he attempts to soil the Republic, but which

doesn’t prevent him from going to that Republic’s cashier in his

position as canon of Saint Denis and guardian of the tombs of the kings

of France – though there are no more kings in France (renewed laughter)

– M. de Ségur, to not give his name, wrote an infamous work entitled:

“The Freemasons, What They Are, What They Do, What They Want.”

We in turn will study together this question: the Jesuits, what they

are, what they’ve done, what they plan to do.

This is a burning question of the moment.

To the applause of all of France the democratic government that leads us

just a few days ago ordered the dispersal of the Jesuits. It must be

recognized that this measure is insufficient, but it’s a first step,

it’s a first satisfaction given public opinion.

Be sure of this: others will follow.

For my part, though from a political point of view I differ a bit from

the men in power I have to recognize that as concerns the clerical

question the majority of the ministry does what it can.

We voters don’t have the right to reproach it for not doing much, for if

our ministers have the failing of only advancing after a thousand

hesitations, we for our part have had the no less great failing of

attaching to our rulers a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies which are no

doubt filled with good intentions but which are totally lacking in

energy (Bravo! That’s true!) You have seen this on various occasions,

notably a propos of the failed attempt to prosecute the men of May 16

and also a propos of the measure of appeasement and clemency that all

generous hearts demanded.

But let’s leave all this aside.

I have not come among you to put the Chamber on trial: that would mean

putting ourselves on trial, since it is we who elected the Chamber (A

voice: Alas!) What is more, I don’t think it wise in politics to pass

one’s time in recriminations about faits accomplis.

When voters have deputies they are not happy with they only have

themselves to attack. They should profit from the experience and if they

don’t feel their representatives are good they should find better ones.

All of this is simple and elementary.

The ministry must take into account that until now universal suffrage

has not been called upon to specifically pronounce itself on the

clerical question.

The upcoming elections will revolve around this and if , as I am firmly

convinced it will, the country shouts out with the voice of the ballot

boxes: Death to clericalism, the government must then decide to

exterminate the monster (Prolonged applause).

At this time the Jesuits have been called on to disperse and, as I said

in the beginning, that measure was received with joy by all Frenchmen.

Yes, by all Frenchmen, for the clericals, the only ones who cry out

against the ministry, are not Frenchmen (Bravos). They are bad citizens;

they are the same people who refuse our valiant and beautiful Paris the

title of capital. For them Rome is the capital: Rome, the most corrupt

city of the universe. Rome, which popes and bishops turned into the

clergy’s house of ill repute (Applause).

You no doubt have heard about the adventure of one of our generals. It

was during the occupation under the Second Republic. The general, who

commanded the French troops, remarked to a cardinal that his soldiers

were lacking in companions and asked him where certain ad hoc houses

could be found. The cardinal, who knew the city of the popes well,

answered, “But general, your soldiers don’t need to look for what you’re

asking about: all our houses are good for that. All your soldiers have

to do is enter any one of them” (Laughter).

This then is the capital of clericalism. Rome, the city of mire. Rome

the impure city par excellence; the city where all the Catholic rot and

refuse goes to drown (Bravos).

When a class of men like the clergy is gangrened from top to bottom;

when from the Borgia pope to the Ignorantine Brothers and country

priests who encumber the benches of the assizes courts: when a party has

become an immense cloacae of abominable obscenities it is right that it

finds Rome its fatherland. Rome is its fitting fatherland (Applause).

It is in Rome, incidentally, that the leader of the Jesuits, who are our

subject today, lives.

One day, it was August 15, 1534, a madman and scoundrel, a certain

Ignatius Loyola, gathered around him in Paris, in the underground chapel

of a convent in Montmartre, a handful of men worth no more than he.

These adventurers, these bandits of the faith, said: “We are unknown and

we want to fill the world with our name. We have neither power nor

credit and we want peoples and kings to obey us. We have neither money

nor possessions and we want to own all the world’s gold. We are rejected

by the fair sex who are repelled by our villainy and we want to suborn

with impunity women and young girls. We are evil-doers to whom the

gallows already reaches out its threatening arms and we want naive

populations to place the haloes of saints over our heads when we die.

“What must we do to accomplish all this?

“We must first organize ourselves into one band which, in the eyes of

the vulgar public, will aim at the sanctification of souls, but which

will secretly only work for material and universal domination.

“All means to achieve this will be good. Our goal justifies all of them:

theft, seduction, illegal arrest, murder, we will engage in all crimes.

And this band of rascals, debauchees, swindlers, thieves, and assassins

we will call The Society of Jesus.”(Salvo of applause)

These first affiliates of the band thought that hypocrisy was the mask

they needed to hide the crimes they contemplated. Under the misleading

appearance of virtue they hid their baseness and their revolting vices.

As you know, Jesuit has become the synonym for a hypocrite. (Laughter)

Above all they had to impose themselves on the masses in order to better

exploit them.

They had to cover each of their vices with a contrary virtue.

Proud, they took a vow of humility. Avid for domination and disposed to

revolt they took a vow of obedience. Lechers hunting for naïve women and

inexperienced girls they took a vow of chastity. Devoured by the thirst

for gold they took a vow of poverty.

Wretches capable of all crimes in the disguise of honest men: that is

what the Jesuits are.

What have they done until now?

Read their history. It is written in filth and blood. (Bravos)

Eight years after the creation of their band the Jesuits were already

the cause of disturbances in Paris. Twelve years later, that is only

twenty years after the oath in the cellars of Montmartre, the parlement

of Paris found it necessary for the first time to order the expulsion of

these scoundrels.

But the Jesuits weren’t men who would so easily renounce France, that

rich prey they coveted.

These beings are like bedbugs (Laughter). When they are hunted and they

feel they aren’t the stronger party they flatten themselves and slide

into the cracks in the walls. They disappear. People think they’re gone,

but this is a mistake. They are still more present in the house, it’s

just they are huddled in their holes, they’re hidden in the corner where

they can’t be reached. They patiently wait in the shadows the moment

when they can leave their hiding places without danger and once again

bite and drink the blood of their victims (Applause).

In 1554, at the time of their first expulsion, the Jesuits were not as

powerful as they are today. They had not yet populated the army and the

government with their creatures. The magistracy was not devoted to them.

On the contrary, they hunted them down (Bravos).

How did the Jesuits conduct themselves? They withdrew into themselves,

flattened themselves. And when they felt the storm had passed one of

them quietly left the convent that served as his asylum and in honeyed

tones protested his devotion to French royalty and, kissing the

monarch’s feet, solicited the revocation of the decree that banished the

band from our territory. The king of France was naïve enough to believe

Father Lainès. Oh credulous kings of France! Several of them would later

fall under the blades of the Jesuit assassins....

Once upon a time there were distinctions. Once upon a time the bishops

of France separated their cause from that of the Jesuits and didn’t want

to be confused with them. Once upon a time Cardinal Frédéric Borromée

drove the Jesuits from the college of Breda. Once upon a time the pope

solemnly pronounced the suppression of that accursed company.

Today everything has changed. The simple faithful, priests, bishops,

cardinals, and the sovereign pontiff are all the vassals of Loyola. It

is no longer Leon XIII who is leader of the Church, it’s the black pope.

The sectarians have reached the first of their goals: they have

gradually invaded all of catholicity. Everything that believes or claims

to believe in the Immaculate Conception belongs to them.

And now, at the very moment when they have confiscated to their profit

all ecclesiastical power; at the moment when they pretend to crown their

labors by subordinating the state to the church, since the church is

Gésu and is finally putting its hands on civil power, at this very

moment the Republic burst forth, causing a complete change in spirits.

And now the anti-clerical impulse of the nation is so strong that the

government is obliged to give it satisfaction, however small it might

be, while waiting for the great day of the general elections, the great

day of the final disembarrassing (Applause).

The Jesuits, that is the clericals, feel they have lost. They see the

tide rising every minute. They can count the hours and calculate the

precise second when they will be drowned.

They cry in fright to Chambord, a cry of despair. But if Chambord is

physically crippled, he is morally deaf (Laughter). Chambord can’t hear

them. Chambord is a prudent man who sees that he has other things to do

than to drown along with them. Henri V understands but one thing: if by

some miracle he were to climb the throne he would be caught between the

guillotine of Louis XVI and the dagger of Henri IV (Applause).

This, citizens, is the precise situation.

It is a good one for we republicans, but with one condition: we have

released the waters that will swallow up the Jesuits. It is necessary at

present that the inundation continue. The locks should not be closed

before all is done (Prolonged bravos).

The entire clergy has on its own lined up on the rock where the too

generous government had isolated the Jesuits. Too bad for the clergy! We

must respond to their threats by the suppression of the religious budget

(Yes! Yes! Bravo!)

The fight is no longer between the philosophes and the Jesuits, as in

the last century. It is between civil and ecclesiastical society.

And this is so true that in order to combat our enemies you don’t found

anti-Jesuit schools, you found secular schools. It’s not the parish

priest’s cassock you oppose to the Jesuit’s habit, it’s the school

teacher’s frock coat that you oppose to all cassocks (Applause).

My sentiments are thus in conformity with yours when I cry out: War on

clericalism! War on all forms of clericalism!

We have seen what the Jesuits are, what they have done and what they

want to do. We have seen what the clericals say: “We are all Jesuits.”

Our obligation is greater than ever.

In three months the Jesuits will be dispersed. It is necessary that on

October 14, 1881 the country vote in an anti-clerical Convention whose

mandate shall be the total extermination of the enemy (The speaker

descends from the tribune amidst the most enthusiastic universal

acclaim).