1 APRIL 1966, Page 10

The Prophet of Anti-Gloom

By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS

* VATICAN POLITICS AT THE SECOND VATICAN

HE day of full Christian reunion is still far I distant. As the Archbishop of Canterbury's visit to the Pope made den, the differences be- tween the Roman Church and the Church of England are not merely differences of doctrine, but also differences of constitution. The Arch- bishop has no power to commit the Anglican Communion in any degree similar to that in which the Pope can commit the Catholic Church. The growth of the dialogue of courtesy is of immense importance. The first step towards agree- ment is the presence of a will to agree. Opportunely, Mr George Bull has written an account* of Pope John and the Vatican Council which is admirably useful, clear and unbiased. The differences of policy or theory between Pius XII and John XXIII have often been exaggerated. Mr Bull is able very fairly to give a number of quotations from Pius which seem to differ from what John was afterwards to advocate. But the truth is that Pius talked so much that it is possible to find in one place or another expressions of a wide variety of opinions from him. Certainly John never pre- tended that in his two great encyclicals, Pacem in Terris and Mater et Magistra, he said any- thing at all in contradiction of his predecessor. He thought of himself as walking in his foot- steps, and certainly,. as Mr Bull justly brings out, the greatness of John was not that of an original thinker but of a man who broke a sound-barrier. A man who had spent his life outside the Curia and in the company of non- Catholics and non-Christians, with his buoyant optimism and his mockery of 'the prophets of gloom,' he was able to get across to men and women of every race and creed and to persuade them of the warmth of his love for them as few, if any, in history have ever done.

So with the Council. No one knows clearly how far John foresaw exactly what the Council was going to achieve. It may well be, as some critics have suggested and as Mr Bull seems to agree, that John was the man to launch the Council, but that Paul VI was better equipped to manage the details of its business. But the primary importance of the Council has cer- tainly been educative. Plenty of people before the Council saw the necessity for reform and decentralisation. But the Curia was there at the centre of things. The individuals who wished for reform were scattered over the world. Each thought of himself .as a lone voice which had surprise that the great majority of the others agreed with him—that majorities of ten to one were in favour of every measure of reform.

AU this Mr Bull says very admirably. His sympathies are clearly in favour of decentralisa- tion, and his sympathies are very just, but I think that he oversimplifies the problem. It may be that one day we shall see some World Catholic. Assembly, elected by the laity, and when that day comes, it will be time enough to con- cern ourselves with its problems. But for the moment all that is proposed is a synod of bishops. It is a little confusing to discuss that proposal, as Mr Bull sometimes does, in terms of 'democracy.' From the point of view of a Catholic layman, it is no more democratic to be ruled by a lot of bishops than to be ruled by one bishop. Anyone acquainted with the delays of Roman bureaucracy must necessarily favour reforms which allow a greater power of decision to the local bishop. But it is by no means certain that such reforms of administrative detail either will or should weaken the power of the Pope to make decisions of principle. Both bishops and laity in countries that are threatened with perse- cution want the support of an authority that is beyond the reach of the persecutor, and even in more tranquil countries there are bishops and bishops. There are bishops to whose authority we would much sooner submit than we would to the distant bureaucracy of Rome. There are other bishops against whom we would thank God that there exists at Rome a certain check on their pretensions. We certainly want a less powerful Curia, but I do not know that that either will or should mean a less powerful Pope.

At the time of the First World War, Benedict XV (whom Mr Bull's proof-readers oddly allow to appear as Benedict XI, throwing in Pius IX as Pius XI for good measure while they are about it) spoke words which most people today would agree to be a great deal wiser than anything that was said by any of Europe's secular statesmen. But Benedict, if he was wiser than the secular statesmen, was also wiser than the national ecclesiastical leaders, who almost without excep- tion or murmur surrendered themselves to fatuous wagging of their various national flags.

The two issues of most general interest to the secular world at the moment are, as Mr Bull truly says, birth control and nuclear weapons. It can hardly be pretended that at the moment the Church is cutting a very impressive figure about birth control. Whatever the Pope may find it possible eventually to say, the combination of the claim to speak with the voice of God with an apparent inability to make up its mind what it is that it wants to say is not impressive. But on nuclear weapons, the record of Pius XII and John XXIII is surely much clearer either than that of local bishops, of the leaders of other religious denominations or of secular statesmen. It is Pius who has said, without equivo- cation, that weapons of destruction that are beyond human control must not be used in any circumstances. It is John who has said that in modern conditions a just war is hardly con- ceivable. It is Paul who has called on all men to make a reality of the World Authority. The main contribution of the world has merely been not to listen. Mr Bull—again a little curiously —speaks of 'the opposition of conservative circles in Italy' to the condemnation of nuclear weapons. Cardinal Ottaviani is generally thought of as the leading Curial Italian conservative and he has spoken out in favour of unqualified pacifism. It is the American bishops, the pro- tagonists of religious liberty, who have—rightly or wrongly—objected to the condemnation of nuclear weaisons.