Papal Thunder

The aged Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Louis Ernest Dubois, rolled out excommunicatory thunders last week. He menaced that famed tragi-comic group of Roman Catholics who never cease their efforts to restore the French Royal House of Bourbon and who rally 'round an incorrigible news organ called L'Action Francaise (TIME, June 13, et seq.).

By order of Pope Pius XI, all the Archbishops and Bishops of France joined with Cardinal Dubois, last week, in signing an ordinance which will keep all persons affiliated with L'Action Franc,aise excommunicated until they renounce their affiliation.

This extremely severe discipline was meted out by the Supreme Pontiff in an effort to stop the famed editors of L'Action Franc,aise, Mr. Leon Daudet and Charles Maurras, from trading upon the prestige of Catholicism in order to gain Royalist supporters. This they have done by spreading a perverted doctrine, namely that Catholicism--which has so often upheld a stumbling royal house--should at this date espouse the lost cause of the Most Catholic House of Bourbon.

Such mad and quixotic propaganda is particularly obnoxious to the Holy See because it strains the proverbially good relations existing between shrewd, sleepy-eyed Foreign Minister Aristide Briand of the French Republic and suave, far-sighted Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, the Papal Secretary of State. These two statesmen were in perfect accord, some months ago, when L'Action Franc,aise and all other works of its editors were placed on the Catholic Index Expurgatorius. Still more were they in accord, last week, when the dread weapon of excommunication was drawn against the incorrigible Royalists.

Despatches from Paris told that the stand taken by the Papacy has already shorn Editors Daudet and Maurras of perhaps half their Roman Catholic supporters. For example, the smart, swagger group of young Royalist bravos who used to be known as Les Camelots du Roi, "The King's Newsboys," because they sold copies of L'Action Franc,aise have deserted in numbers approaching a stampede.

The more orthodox deserters have espoused a definitely antiRoyalist weekly La Vie Catholique and now hawk it in the old fashion, but style themselves by a new title, Les Pages du Pape, "The Pages of the Pope."

Over all these flighty, inconsequential doings Excommunicator Cardinal Dubois brooded with troubled dignity last week. He is a prelate in high favor with the rich Anglo-U. S. Catholics of Paris, and he won the general gratitude of Frenchmen during the War by tireless organizing of efficient charities. As a matter of personal taste and sympathy Cardinal Dubois is known to have a penchant for the Royalists, among whom he has numerous close friends. As Cardinal and Archbishop, however, his duty was clear, last week, and he obeyed the Pope's orders to excommunicate with promptness and despatch.