"Le Cardinal Lavigerie et la Presse" / "Cardinal Lavigerie and the Press"
The venerable Primate of Africa, in calling for the creation of a troupe of volunteers to subdue the Touaregs of the Sahara,would have said or written that "the civilized world must reduce volatile hostilities to impotence and assure the benefits of security and peace for half ruined oases."
According to the aforementioned newspaper, "this oratory style hides nothing but one desire: that of going to chastise the Black Muslim tribes to impose the Catholic religion upon them. Replacing one fanaticism for another, by borrowing the support of the army, that's what M. Lavigerie is dreaming about."
Such an accusation necessitates a categorical response. We were at the home of Cardinal Lavigerie's coadjutor, Mgr. Brincat, who is unfortunately not in Paris. But we found in the volume of Documents on the Foundation of the Anti-Slavery Organization, a letter that the Cardinal himself once wrote to the Editor-in-Chief of the paper République Française, a letter that entirely refutes those accusations:
---Dear Mr. Editor-in-Chief,
I have just been informed about an article that your paper published about my speech calling for the abolition of the slave trade.
On the occasion of this speech, the author of that article accused the Catholic Church "of never having condemned slavery."
He accused me "of calling for the end of Mohammedanism."
He accused me "of wanting to arm against Muslims the secular arm and to exterminate them under the flag of humanitarianism"!
I thought I must be dreaming to hear such infamy applied to me. I said no such thing. I would go further and say I was horrified. To hear such a thing in my conferences, one would have to transform an act of supreme pity, and the opposition to a historical fact, as evident in Africa as the light of day—that of Muslim slavery—into acts of the most odious fanaticism.
For those who have heard or read my speeches, they know it is not true; for the others, I have better things to do than to waste time, which is already so short, in reliving such polemical processes. But since these matters are among those about which I hope to leave no doubt, I appeal to your equity. Sir, I ask you to insert, where you previous published accusations, the following simple declarations:
1. The Catholic Church has condemned, through the voice of twenty Popes (most recently Leo XIII), as contrary to natural law, the hunting and selling of humans. Now, natural law leaving no exceptions, the Church thus condemns African slavery, which I want to see abolished, in all times and in all places, and practiced by whoever, whether they be pagan, Christian or Turk.
2. I have never in my long life "called for the end of" any person under the pretext of religion. I am not about to start doing so today, especially since the Church is under the odious persecution of atheist more and more each day. I have, in particular, for Muslims of good faith, as most all of them are, indeed, in our Africa, nothing but paternal sentiments. I am ready, not to "call for their end," but to serve them, as I have always done, if they need me to defend them, if they are attacked, to sacrifice myself for them, if necessary.
3. The only thing that I want to "exterminate" is the slavery that is making Africa bloodied and lost. All that I have asked in my speeches, for Muslim slave traders (atrocious brigands that they are), is for the removal of their weapons which they use to accomplish so many crimes, and to confine them in the countries which they come out of for their horrible expeditions.
These are my sentiments.
Whatever caused your article, I thank you for it, Sir, for having given me to opportunity to express them, one more time, in the presence of the Christian world.
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