French Revolution Turns Radical

Outline:

A.  France during the early Revolution.  September Massacre.

B.  Revolutionary France turned on its juring clergy.  Destroys tower clocks, establishes a ten-day week, required married clergy

C.  Robespierre takes over:  the cult of the Supreme Being and the Reign of Terror

D.  The story of Chartreuse

E.  E. Y. Hales:  Yet amidst the persecution, the profligacy, and the prating of pompous official platitudes, the Faith still lay silent in the breasts of brave priests crowded into prisons or into boats, or hidden in the cellars or the cupboards of hospitable houses; in the hearts of those of heroic virtue who disguised themselves in order to pass amongst the condemned, following the very tumbrels with their words of comfort; in the bearing of some of those in exile who made a profound impression upon their hosts in Protestant countries; in the communities of nuns who adhered, throughout, amidst every hardship, to their devotions; amongst the faithful who contrived to find out the secret places where they could kneel behind the priest who was saying Mass.  If some of the Romanists were more preoccupied, in their exile, with the fate of the monarchy than with the fate of the Church, if some of their bishops were blind adherents of the ancien regime and if many of the Constitutional clergy dishonoured their calling, it is right that the sacrifice of the devoted, during a period of extreme trial, should be remembered, for without it the remarkable revival of the Church in France, in the following century, is unintelligible.

F. The life and times of Pope Pius VI.  Cragg:  Reason was to govern affairs, and the power of the State was to act as the servant of reason.