“AT the present hour [October 31, 1870], among those of our fellow citizens who do not close their eyes to the light of the terrible lessons afflicting our nation, who hears us and who understands us? To be sure, it is not unusual to encounter men who confess, who deplore, who condemn and, finally, who wish to repair the faults and personal omissions of their lives, in keeping with the fulfillment of their religious duty. There is a sufficiently large enough number who even visualize in these harsh truths a chastisement and a remedy to the notions of pride, in the habits of greed, of luxury, of excessive sensualism and of naturalism which would invade nearly all social circumstances. But who is there that proceeds to think of and ask if this complete collapse of a great nation, would not have its cause in a great national sin; that is, if [sic] the temporary abandon where God permits us to not respond to the political systems of which He has given leave?
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“O France, more than fifty years have passed since the name of God, for the first time, has been taken out of thy constitution. Now, I implore thee today to show the fruits of this half-century experience. I lend an ear and I hear a confused murmur which bursts out in all places. O my country, I do not judge thee rashly, for I judge thee according to thy own words: Ex ore tuo te judico.[From your mouth you will be judged.] There is no more morality, no more justice; all is going, all is wasted away, all is admittedly gone from every corner of the country. There is the result, see there the progress obtained since we have been given over to excluding God.
“There is no more public morality, no more justice, you will say. These results astonish you; it should have been easy to predict. Isn’t this as a pagan saying has it, that it would be easier to build a city in the air than to have a society without God? Isn’t this what the Roman orator had said, that the stability of commerce and the greatest of virtues, which is justice, would be undermined along with loss of respect for a strong faith in the divinity? Hasn’t the Holy Ghost declared in most energetic language that wherever the impious rule, men can expect nothing other than their ruin: Regnantibus impiis, ruinae hominum!’ [When the wicked shall bear rule, the people shall mourn. (Prov. 29:2).]”
— Cardinal Pie (1815-1880), Bishop of Poitiers
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