PITTS X. AND HIS MINISTER.
MHE best friends of the Roman Church had hopes that 1 the Encyclical Pascendi Gregis was the high-water mark of the anti-Modernist policy of the present Pope. It was possible, at least, that what seemed to be the two main objects of that remarkable document would be pursued with very different degrees of energy. In the first two parts Modernism was attacked with considerable skill. The writers of the Encyclical had read the books they were answering, and, whatever might be thought of their success, their arguments represented not unfairly the opinions of the conservative section of the Roman Catholic world. The third part was animated by a very different spirit. All idea of convincing Modernists was thrown aside, and the reasoning with which the Encyclical opened degenerated into instructions how to rule the Christian society by a comprehensive system of espionage. Any one showing a love of novelty was to be excluded without compunction from every ecclesiastical office, and still more from Professorial Chairs in the Universities. This prohibition did not stop short at theology. The love of novelty was equally to be discouraged in history and archaeology. Roman Catholics were forbidden to attend lectures in civil Universities on subjects taught in Roman Catholic Institutions. No books or papers savouring of Modernism were to be read by seminarists or University students, even though they might be written by Roman Catholics not evilly disposed in themselves, and anxious to turn philosophy to the profit of the faith. Councils of Vigilance were to be established in every diocese, and the priests who composed them were directed to meet every two months in the presence of the Bishop to take prompt and efficacious measures for suppressing books or lectures showing any trace of the new heresy. It was conceivable, as we have said, that these provisions were inserted rather to satisfy Pius X. that something was being done to make his Encyclical effective than with any serious intention of carrying these wonderful regulations into practice. The authors Of the Encyclical—for that the Pope himself had any hand in it has never been supposed—must have known that to drive Modernism underground was only to make it more dangerous. And until now there was some reason to believe that the Pope's directions had been obeyed rather in the letter than in the spirit. Diocesan Committees, at all events in England, seemed. to find little occasion for the exercise of their new duties, and books which could hardly be supposed to come up to the new standard of orthodoxy appeared from time to time with the customary Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat. That this was the really wise policy in the circumstances was probably questioned by no intelligent Roman Catholic, and they might conceivably hope that the Pope would assume, without too minute inquiry, that his commands were being everywhere obeyed. Nor indeed is it Roman Catholics alone who cherish this wish. Their Church is too great a power to make even reasonable Protestants anxious to see it embarked on a hopeless crusade.
The latest news from Rome has greatly discouraged any hopes of this sort. The Pope, we read, has issued a motu proprio setting out the new measures by which effect is to be given to the directions of the Encyclical. That he should have gained wisdom during the three years which have intervened between the two documents was not to be expected. Even if the failure of his policy could be brought home to him, he would only see in it a call to greater vigour in executing it. It may be that he is disappointed at the small results which have followed upon his former utterance, and attributes its ill-success to the feebleness of the hands to which he entrusted the execution of his orders. This time he does not think it needful that these orders should harmonise with one another. Bishops and Rectors of Colleges are bidden to give all their attention to the creation of a clergy well prepared to fight against error ; and taken by itself there could not be a more sensible direction. But associated with this is a command that they shall not be allowed to know what the error they are to fight against is. Newspapers and periodicals—the channels through which the errors the Pope has in view are most commonly made public—are to form no part of their reading. They are not to be " distracted from their studies." Care must be taken that they shall know only one side of every controversy, and in this way be prepared to meet error, not on equal terms, but with all the advantage on the side to which they are opposed. That at some period of their career they will have to answer the arguments of their opponents seems to be dimly contemplated in the motu proprio, but the Pope is chiefly anxious that they should know nothing of them beforehand.
There is another feature, however, in the recent policy of the Vatican which is less easily accounted for. The methods adopted for suppressing Modernism are evidently of the Pope's own devising. They are those of an anxious parent who holds that the one chance for his children's religious belief is to keep them from knowing that any- body thinks differently. But why should Pius X. set himself so stoutly against the very mild form of Christian Socialism which finds expression in the French Sillon ? Neither his personal nor his ecclesiastical antecedents make this line natural to him. He is not a member of a great reactionary family, and when he was Patriarch of Venice his tastes and habits were those of the people. Why, then, does a humble attempt to give a democratic tone to French Roman Catholicism meet with this censure at his hands ? It is not explained by the supposed influence on a very simple nature of his position as Vicar of Christ. That position might equally have been used, as it was by Leo XIII., for a quite opposite purpose. Nor is it likely that Pius X. has that intimate knowledge of French affairs which might lead him to fear the remote consequences of coquetting with Socialism in a country where it assumes so markedly an Anti-Clerical form. A more probable explana- tion—given by M. Maurice Pernot in his book, "La Politique de Pie X.," and conveniently summarised in two recent articles in the Nation—is that this part of the Papal policy is the work of the Cardinal Secretary of State. From the moment that the Austrian veto put an end to Cardinal Rampolla's chances of election, the policy of the Vatican in French affairs underwent a complete change. Leo XIII. had tried to deal with facts as they really were, and in this way he had given very great offence to the most influential section of French Roman Catholics. The rally to the Republic, which he had consistently encouraged, was fatal to the designs of a party which argued that the more closely Republicanism became associated with irreligion, the more chance there would be of uniting all French Roman Catholics in opposition to it. The Royalists saw in this desire of the Pope to separate religion from politics only a proof of his incapacity to deal with the French people. They themselves knew better. They had watched the course of the Revolution, and had seen that, with a momentary exception in 184.8, it had been the consistent enemy of the Church. So long as Cardinal Rampolla directed the foreign policy of the Papacy these murmurs only found a voice in the innermost Royalist circles. They met with no favour at Rome, nor did they influence in any way the intercourse between the Vatican and the French Government. But when Cardinal Merry del Val became Secretary of State the hopes of the Royalists revived. Whether the new Minister is in his heart of their way of thinking is a point upon which people who know him seem to be uncertain. But the Royalist Party may have a value as an instrument for carrying out a policy which has other ends than their own. For the last seven years the object of the Vatican has been to separate French Roman Catholics from the political parties that really count. The Royalists aro- a political party, but they are not one that counts. If either they or the Imperialists had been fortunate enough to produce a Pretender, they might more than once have been a force to be reckoned with. But when both sections of the Monarchical reaction had to put up with General Boulanger as a representative their last chance was gone. Yet this very fact gave them a title to Cardinal Merry del Val's confidence. To identify French Roman Catholics with the Royalist Party was to take them outside French politics, to make them a separate people without interest in, or connexion with, their own countrymen. He was pre- pared to sacrifice every other consideration to the one object of making them look to Rome for the direction of Dvery thought and every action. No matter how plainly their better knowledge of their own countrymen may tell them that Cardinal Merry del Val is wrong, they have nothing to do but submit. Political extinction is the price they are expected to pay for the privilege of being Roman Catholics.
It seems impossible that this condition of things should be of long duration. With the example of Germany, where the Roman Catholic Centre has long been the most important among political organisations, and of England, where individual Roman Catholics hold places in Liberal and Unionist Cabinets and sit on opposite sides of the House of Commons, before them, they can hardly submit for ever to an exclusion which is notenforced upon their co-religionists in two neighbourinc, countries. Nor is it likely that the ideas which have been dominant at the Vatican during the pontificate of Pius X. will be equally dominant under a successor. The issues of Cardinal Merry del Val's counsels are of a kind to be known and read of all men, and when once their meaning is mastered even the Sacred College can hardly fail to interpret them aright.
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