The Catholic Outlook in France

Extract

“As at other epochs in the history of the Church we face a world that has once again fallen into paganism.” These words of the Holy Father must have found an echo in the serious-minded of many countries, and in France we find them abundantly justified. In most of her institutions paganism is rife, in her literature, schools, theatres, cinemas and radio. One can discern it in her economic outlook and in the manners and customs of our contemporaries; and, most insidiously, it is penetrating the lives of an appreciable number of Christians, attached to the Church by sentiment and tradition but exposed to the worst forms of selfindulgence by their lukewarmness and lives of ease.

Rather than enumerate the various spheres where this neo-paganism is specially rampant, I will give you some recent statistics. Something like 10% of the French people are unbaptized, not a quarter fulfil their Easter duties, and not quite a fifth attend Mass regularly on Sunday. This sufficiently indicates the state of Catholicity in France to-day, the France of the Crusader, the France of Saint Louis.