THE POLITICAL DRIFTING OF THE PAPACY: T is' . impossible to
watch the receet action .of the Ron-Ian Curia or to read letters like those , Vt. Paul Sabatier- hasi contributed to the Times without perceiving that thoSe who guide the Papacy are gravely endangering its future power as a great Conservative .force.- No ChUrclil—not even one which declares itself to be entrusted with the depbsitunk fidei, and therefore- above human reifsoit'=Can safely wage war. against the whole. body of its own "Intellectuals," and the Papacy is clearly. doing that. 'It crushes, or at all events disavows, its own ablest men-if they seem to hold any ideas Which it hai not itself sanctioned, even if those ideas are destructive of nothing but the verbal inspiration of Scripture, which (beg not in strict logic matter to the Roman- Church. To say" that it does matter is implicitly to question its own infallibility. Though Galileo was condemned, Roman Catholics believe that the world goes round the sun, and the ideas of the Intellectuals " slowly penetrate and, in a measure, dissolve that whole body of dogma upon which the Roman Church as an organisation has always depended. Nothing is destroyed, but everything is enfeebled. Just at the moment when this is going on and the contest becomes acute, one grave effect of the infallibility dogma becoines patent to mankind. The supreme teaching and directing power has been transferred from the whole body of the episcopate to the central Papacy, which thus transmuted into a Monarchy like other Monarchies, dreads every lively movement from below as the possible forerunner of organic change. The confidence of the Roman world in the Papacy as the supreme and necessarily ,im- partial tribunal is therefore diminished,—for every one knows, or thinks he knows, what the decision in every doubtful question will necessarily be. The Papacy has often fon-gilt human reason with- apparent- success and has seemed to be none the weaker, 'but' to fight the instinctive sense of human justice as it has appeared to do in 'many of its decisions in the conflict still ini pending between the French Church and the- civil- power is a much more serious matter. It enable& infidels to plead with effect that ' that 'cannot be originally divide which is obviously unjust. Even this, however; is not the most important of the weakening forces now at work against Rome: The tendency of Christian mankind is towards-democracy; and with democracy the Papacy seems to be losing patience. The Roman Court obviously prefers the regular rigid and royal organisation of society, and will pardon in the Protestant Hohenzollerus what is condemned in the Cabinet of France. The effect is Cleavage between the masses and clericalism, and the consequent spread in all the Latin countries, of. a fierce suspicion of Papal authority, which tends! to leave it, as it were, hanging in air without the means with which to -carry out its own decisions. The great screw revolves endlessly, but is so far out of the water that it neither driVes nor guides the ship.
We are not just now considering the religious effect of the present position of the Papacy—that is a very large and very doubtful subject—but its political effect. There Can be little doubt the Vatican can no longer keep its devotees out of the ranks either of Liberalism or of Socialism, and will, for example, even in the Latin countries forfeit its old control of the State systems of education: It cannot control, as M. Sabatier points out, even the municipal elections in Rome, and, as he might have pointed out., is defied in France even by the rural voters, who have so recently elected the Departmental Councils in a way which indicates full approval of the separation of Church and State. Its power over opinion, in • fact, is partly shattered, and in the modern organisation of the European world opinion, when strongly moved,-rules. The extent of its loss is still uncertain, for no one really knows the extent to which scepticism had previously spread ; but M. Sabatier is surely right when he classes among the forces of dis- integration the personal character of Pius X. He is probably one of the best Popes who ever occupied -that singular throne, but he is one of the most unsuccessful. Almost a saint, certainly a man whose virtues Protestants can honour as well as Catholics, he lacks the quali- fications which, in modern times constitute a grand bishop. He-is imperfectly educated, and does not, there- fore, quite understand either the nature 'or the Objects of the forces opposed to him. For example, he makes blunders in dealing with-Frenchmen Which his predecessor would have avoided as carefully as any diplomatist. He has, for instance, wounded the amour-propre of the. whole French episcopate, and Bishops feel amour propre as keenly as secular. politicians. He has, too, a personal cer- tainty of conviction whichtatberresembles that of a secbnd- rate English rector than that of a great ecclesiastic: and is-not only not cunning, but also not astute. ' " This," lie seems to- say always, •• is the obvious will of the Church Which I must be infallible in interpreting, and which, therefore, it is' my duty to press even when - wiser advisers-tell me that pressing is not opportune." If any grave crisis arises Pius X. will decide, dot according to the promptings of human -wisdom, or even according to the advice of ' the entire Roman world—which contains, remember; some of the subtlest as well as the most sincere intelleCts on earth—but in- accordance with the tradition-of 'the- Church, and with the supreme self= confidence which belief in his own infallibility must generate in any sovereign.
It is -a curious result, as historians find it at least, that a Pope of this hind should be at war rather with the Latin than with the Teuton or the Anglo-Saxon members of his Church. The Pope himgelf is delighted with the Germans,. and probably nttribUtes the half-independence of his American and Britiih deVotees to the incapacity of that family of minds quite to understand, or, at any rate, quite to like the peculiarities 'of the Roman cult. He loves, but is much inclined to chasten, all French Catholics, whether Bishops or laymen,-if they are disposed to argtie with-him, while he would punish, if he could,the -Italians and.Spaniards- who are betraying such a disposition to break up the clerical organisation, and, aboVe all, to deprive the Church of its pecuniary resources. The result of this is, inevitable, if the Papacy remains as at present under the eiclusive guidance of the Pope,—if, that is, no human wisdom can modify his decisions to shatter that great block of Roman obedience which is constituted by the Lain world, and extends, one should never forget, froM the frontier of the United States' to Tierra del Fuego, a vast and prosperous region' in which much of the future of humanity must by and by be developed, and within which the Church is the most active, and, on the whole, most efficient of Conservative forces. Of course it is possible to exaggerate the change. -Popes are always elderly men, ancceven this Pope may fall' into the hands of a counsellor who, holding opinions like his own, is yet an astute diplo- matist and a patient guide through morasses. But supposing nothing changed and this Pope who is made incompetent by the weight at once of his virtues and his ignorances, enjoys a long life, we should look for a great decline in the efficacy of the Papacy, and a great increase in those tenden cies which, even if their meaning is carefully concealed, make for national Churches as opposed to the ascendency of a central, power such as the Vatican has maintained for ages is essential to the unity of .the one and indivisible Church'. That central power is always by its very nature as well as by its history friendly to the changelessness which in politics we describe as Conservatism.
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