05-15-2026, 06:27 AM
Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908
TWENTY-EIGHTH OBJECTION. BUT WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY ABOUT THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW?
Answer. Is it the massacre of St. Bartholomew, then, which prevents your living as you ought?
Are you afraid, that if you become a good Christian, you will be called on to massacre your neighbors if they do not serve God!
The massacre of St. Bartholomew was one of those deplorable excesses which the irritation of civil wars, the craft of politics, the frenzy of some fanatics, and the brutal manners of those times can alone explain.
Religion is very far, indeed, from approving all that is done in her name, and covered with her sacred mantle.
It is certain that her enemies have singularly distorted this terrible fact. They have represented it as the work of religion, while it was really only the work of fanaticism and hatred, which religion condemns.
They have represented it as the work of the priesthood, while in reality not a single priest took any part in it. There were even several, among others the Bishop of Lisieux, who saved as many of the Huguenots as they could, and interceded for them to the king Charles IX., etc.
If there is any one fact now established beyond all dispute, it is this, that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a political coup d'état, that religion was rather the pretext than the cause of it, and that the artful Catharine de Medicis, the mother of Charles IX., sought much more to get rid of a political party who was every day harassing and disquieting her government more and more, than to promote the glory of God.
It has pleased a poet of the Voltaire school to represent the Cardinal of Lorraine "blessing the poignards of the Catholics." Unfortunately the Cardinal of Lorraine was away in Rome at that very time, to be present at the election of the Pope Gregory XIII., the successor of Saint Pius V., who was just deceased.
But these gentlemen do not look so closely. "Lie, lie always," Voltaire ventured to write to his friends, "something will always stick."*
For the last three centuries the hatred of Protestants, and, at a later period, of the Voltairians, against the Church, has so adulterated history that it is very difficult to discover the truth.
Facts are arranged, added to, suppressed, highly colored, according to the prejudices of the writers. Crimes are imputed to the Church which she holds in utter abhorrence. The most odious accusations are cast upon religion. As a general rule, distrust the recital of historical facts, in which religion is made to play a ridiculous, or barbarous, or ignoble part. It is possible that they may be true; and in such a case, we must throw the whole blame on the weak or vicious nature of the man who has forgotten what he owed to his character of priest, bishop, or even of pope, perhaps, and who has done evil when it was his duty to do good; but it is also possible (and this is more frequently the case), that these facts are, if not pure invention, at least so much perverted and exaggerated, that one can, with justice, tax them with falsehood.
Nothing is easier than to attack the Church in this manner; but is it a legitimate mode of attack? Is it fair? Is it honest?
TWENTY-EIGHTH OBJECTION. BUT WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY ABOUT THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW?
Answer. Is it the massacre of St. Bartholomew, then, which prevents your living as you ought?
Are you afraid, that if you become a good Christian, you will be called on to massacre your neighbors if they do not serve God!
The massacre of St. Bartholomew was one of those deplorable excesses which the irritation of civil wars, the craft of politics, the frenzy of some fanatics, and the brutal manners of those times can alone explain.
Religion is very far, indeed, from approving all that is done in her name, and covered with her sacred mantle.
It is certain that her enemies have singularly distorted this terrible fact. They have represented it as the work of religion, while it was really only the work of fanaticism and hatred, which religion condemns.
They have represented it as the work of the priesthood, while in reality not a single priest took any part in it. There were even several, among others the Bishop of Lisieux, who saved as many of the Huguenots as they could, and interceded for them to the king Charles IX., etc.
If there is any one fact now established beyond all dispute, it is this, that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a political coup d'état, that religion was rather the pretext than the cause of it, and that the artful Catharine de Medicis, the mother of Charles IX., sought much more to get rid of a political party who was every day harassing and disquieting her government more and more, than to promote the glory of God.
It has pleased a poet of the Voltaire school to represent the Cardinal of Lorraine "blessing the poignards of the Catholics." Unfortunately the Cardinal of Lorraine was away in Rome at that very time, to be present at the election of the Pope Gregory XIII., the successor of Saint Pius V., who was just deceased.
But these gentlemen do not look so closely. "Lie, lie always," Voltaire ventured to write to his friends, "something will always stick."*
For the last three centuries the hatred of Protestants, and, at a later period, of the Voltairians, against the Church, has so adulterated history that it is very difficult to discover the truth.
Facts are arranged, added to, suppressed, highly colored, according to the prejudices of the writers. Crimes are imputed to the Church which she holds in utter abhorrence. The most odious accusations are cast upon religion. As a general rule, distrust the recital of historical facts, in which religion is made to play a ridiculous, or barbarous, or ignoble part. It is possible that they may be true; and in such a case, we must throw the whole blame on the weak or vicious nature of the man who has forgotten what he owed to his character of priest, bishop, or even of pope, perhaps, and who has done evil when it was his duty to do good; but it is also possible (and this is more frequently the case), that these facts are, if not pure invention, at least so much perverted and exaggerated, that one can, with justice, tax them with falsehood.
Nothing is easier than to attack the Church in this manner; but is it a legitimate mode of attack? Is it fair? Is it honest?
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre