the Sisters of Mercy: they are not departed at all


1881
monday, march 21

THE SISTERS
OF CHARITY IN PARIS

THE ANTI-CLERICAL MOVEMENT IN FRANCE IS NOT WHOLLY ANTI-RELIGIOUS,
NOR TO WHATEVER EXTENT IT IS REALLY ANTI-RELIGIOUS IS IT A REVOLT AGAINST RELIGION
OF THE SAME KIND AS THAT WHICH RAGED FURIOUSLY DURING THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION.

THE DISBELIEF OF ACCEPTED RELIGION IN CERTAIN CLASSES OF LIVING FRENCHMEN IS OLDER,
MORE INTELLECTUAL, AND CONSEWUENTLY MUCH MORE MODERATE, THAN THE HATRED OF IT WHICH
SUDDENLY SPRANG UP IN THE BREASTS OF THEIR ANCESTORS; AND THE MOVEMENTS TO WHICH IT GIVES
RISE ARE OF A MUCH LESS ECCENTRIC KIND.

THERE IS FAR GREATER IMPATIENCE
THAN HAD BEEN SUSPECTED TO EXIST OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE CLERGY OVER LIFE AND EDUCATION,
THERE IS A VERY GENERAL DETERMINATION TO ABRIDGE THIS AUTHORITY AND TO PREVENT ITS EVER
AGAIN OBTAINING ITS OLS PROPORTIONS; BUT THERE IS NOTHING OF THAT WILD EXCESSS OF REVENGE
WHICH BELONGS PROPERLY TO THE NEWLY-EMANCIPATED SLAVE.

IF THERE BE ANY FAINT REVIVAL OF THE OLD FEELING
WHICH PRODUCED THE DESECREATION OF CHURCHES , THE GUILLOTINING OF PRIESTS,
THE CULT OF THE GODDESS OF REASON, AND THE RITUAL OF THE SUPREME BEING,
IT IS RATHER IN PARIS THAN IN FRANCE, RATHER IN THE PARIS MUNICIPALITY
THAN IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.

THE DITHYRAMBS OF VICTOR HUGO CELEBRATE FRANCE;
AND PARIS AS THE QUINTESSENCE OF ALL THAT IS MOST FRENCH IN FRANCE;
BUT IT MOST BE OWNED THAT TO THE PROSAIC MIND THE CAPITAL CITY
SEEMS SOMETIMES TO CARICATURE THE COUNTRY.

IF THERE IS REALLY ANYWHERE IN FRANCE A DISPOSITION TO CONVERT ANTI-CHRISTIANITY
INTO A SUBSTANTIVE RELIGION, IT EXISTS AMONG THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILLORS
ELECTED BY THE UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE OF ALL PARIS WHO ARE THE LATEST TENANTS OF THE TUILERIES.

A Committee, under the direction of the Municipality, which has charge of the famous Hospitals of Paris
has just decided that the Sisters of Charity shall be forbidden to minister in them to the sick.

Up to this time the entire nursing in these hospitals has been confided to these sisters,
and none of their advantages has been more envied by the foreign observer or student.

The writers who support this measure of the Municipality accuse the Sisters of Charity of idleness
{which is probably a wholly untrue charge}, of ignorance {which may be justly imputed to a class which is mostly of very humble origin}, and of intolerance {which doubtless means the unquestioning faith
which goes with their calling}.

The true objection of the Municipality is almost certainly to the tribute and compliment to Roman Catholic Christianity which is implied in the exclusive employment of a class reared and organized by the Church in duties which task to the utmost the virtues of self-sacrifice.

There is no more ancient or universal opinion of obe sex concerning the proper functions of the other
than that which assigns to women the nursing of the sick.

For this purpose they have a physical advantage over men in their gentleness of movement and touch,
and a moral advantage of the highest inportance in their greater wealth of tenderness and pity.

But, on the other hand, the specific duty thus placed in their hands is one which in its nature is revolting
to sensitive nerves, and the natural repulsion to it has grown stronger with the progresss of medicine
and surgery.

The effort to subdue it often bears fruit in an acquired callousness, and thus we get that class of hired nurses of whom Mrs. Gamp was scarcely an overdone caricature.

It is, however, found as a fact that the repugnance of nature may be overcome, without sacrificing the moral tenderness, in women working under a sense of religious obligation; and he must be a very bitter fanatic who would deny to the Roman Catholic Church the credit of having early recognized this fact and having made it the basis of an extremely successful organization.

We need not enter on the question whether a better or equally good system of lay nursing could be established. Before ministrations so cheap, so efficient, and to every common eye so wholly innocent as thoser of the Sisters of Charity are dispensed with, the strongest case ought to be made out for their banishment from the hospitals; and the Municipality seem to have no reason to give for the step except a desire to solve the problem, which no doubt perplexes many minds nowadays, whether the virtues so long associated with Christianity can really be secured without a belief in the Christian creed.

Meantime a powerful opposition to the measure has shown itself in a seemingly unexpected quarter.

Sixty-three physicians and surgeons connected with the hospitals of Paris,
and including several of the luminaries of European science, have protested against it.

The manifest surprise expressed by the newspapers who defend the Municipality comes evidently
from the curiously close connection which is assumed in France to exist between the medical profession
and anti-clericalism.

The doctor is taken to be as naturally and inevitably an enemy of the faith as the priest is supposed
to be its champion; and this opposition of opinion actually shows itself over the greatest part
of the French provinces.

The most stronly anti-Clerical Deputies are the numerous doctors who sit in the Chamber,
and the Republican Committee of almost every arrondissement as a doctor for chairman.

It is the medical man and not the advocate who nowadays symbolizes advanced Liberalism in France,
and who would now be the first victim of the bayonets by which a military usurper
dissolved the Legislature.

But the protest of the medical profession in Paris against the expulsion of the Sisters of Charity
is signed with the names of many men who are known as strong Republicans,
who bear no love to priests, and who would probably not shrink from calling themselves Materialists.

The reasons they give are very strong, and have evidently been suggested by actual observation.

They appeal to their own experience as showing that no serious drawback attends the employment
of the sisters.

"They have always been found zealous, well disciplined, and of probity beyound dispute;"
&
"in many trying circumstances they have given proof of admirable self-devotion!"

So far, the hospital doctors mention qualities which might possibly be exhibited by lay nurses;
but they go on to say that they attach the greatest value to the
"impersonal character"
of the Sisters of Charity.

They are not so much individual nurses as parts of an institution;
and this, the medical men say, gives them the authority over the patients which is necessary
for the discharge of their duties.

It is added that their ministrations are highly appreciated by the patients,
"and, what is extremely important, they are regarded by the families of the sick
with extreme confidence!"

The Municipality of Paris is unconsciously giving help to Pope LEO XIII.

The peril of which the Pope is manifestly conscious,
and which is of the utmost seriousness in reality to the Church, is that the anti-clerical feeling in France
may take the shape of active hostility to classes other than those originally provoked it.

It first fastened on the regular clergy, with their exaggerations, usurpations, and their anti-republican political opinions; but the overthrow of the religious Orders has been so easy, complete, and popular
that politicians naturally ask themselves whether a good deal might not be got for the Republic
by completing the undertaking.

The authority of the Court of Rome is now being employed to avert the danger by dissociating
the secular clergy of the parishes from political partisanship or propagandism.

Nothing aids this movement of defence so much as extravagant attack on the strongest parts
of the ecclesiastical structure.

These lie near the foundation.

The country clergy have much in common with the Sisters of Charity.

They are not very highly instructed or very much enlightened;
but they are zealous and devoted;
with all drawbacks, they constantly minister to the sick and poor;
and, what is politically very important,
their services are
"highly appreciated"
by the peasantry.

THE PALL MALL GAZETTE
An Evening Newspaper and Review
No. 5015 - VOL. XXXIII
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 1881
Price Twopence.



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