" - EMI ARCANO DEL" I T is customary for a new Pope
to publish an Encyclical indicating the lines on which he proposes to act ; and so, as it were, to give the key to the distinctive character of his Pontificate. The delay of Pius XI. to do so gave rise to comment at Rome : but his answer to the question when the Encyclical might be expected was that, when he had something to say, he would say it. He has done so in a memorable document known, from its opening words, as Ubi arcano Dei. It is not in the genre of Papal pronouncements ; he speaks rather as a wise and good man than as a priest. His subject is the post-War world ; and the point of view from which he approaches it is broadly human. What he says might have been said by a statesman or a lay thinker ;, 'but no living statesman or lay thinker has said it"so well.' • "Nos nationalistes en oft été mecOntents " is the comment, ' of a distinguished Frenchman, who has little sympathy' with the Papacy: "le Pape n'ecrivait pas precisiment pour lee satisfaire." But, he continues, though one could. perhaps wish that the writer had seen the devastated French provinces with his own eyes, the excellence of his intentions and his sense of the responsibilities of his office are evident throughout. • A short summary of the Encyclical, which should be read in the Latin text—neither the English 'nor the French translation being satisfactory—will make its drift clear. The end of the Great War has not brought peace with -it ; and the efforts of politicians to deal with the situation created have aggravated rather than relieved it. Generally armaments are retained on a war footing ; and dissensions are rife not only between the conquerors and the conquered, but between the conquerors themselves. The danger of civil as well as, of foreign war is imminent ; in every nation class rivalries and antagonisms imperil public order and society itself. This sectional, or class, warfare poisons every department both of public and private life. On -the one side, we find tenacity in the accumulation and retention of wealth ; on the other, greed of acquisition : on both people think in terms of class, not of community ; the result being strikes and lock-outs, rioting and repres- sion, misery and discontent for all. Party degenerates into faction ; public good is sacrificed to private am- bition: conspiracies, assassinations, terrorism and open rebellion prevail. The absence of restraint is general : the family tie is weakened ; the marriage union relaxed ; employers and employed are regarded as natural enemies ; in all classes we find restlessness, discontent, unwilling- ness to work ; and, among the rich, a parade of wealth which accentuates the destitution of the poor. The effect on religion has been disastrous. Churches dese- crated during the war remain closed and seminaries empty ; the supply of clergy has fallen off, many, by the very horrors of the war, having been unhappily • turned from their sacred calling;' the Christian habit of life has to a great extent disappeared. The reason is that peace, though it has been signed between the belligerents, is written in documents, not in the hearts of men. Here the spirit of war still reigns, disguised under the cloak of patriotism. We forget that other nations besides our own have a right to live and prosper ; that men are members of one universal family ; and that advantages gained at the expense of others are, neither real nor lasting--vitrea laetitia fragiliter splendida, cui timeatur horribilius ne repents frangatur. (De Civit ate Dei. iv. 3.) Lastly, the Pope condemns the "modernism in morals "—i.e., in social and economic subject-matter, and in particular with regard to the function of civil authority, the rights of property, the respective claims of labour and capital—found even among the clergy, "deceived by a false appearance of truth and goodness " ; and speaks with peculiar affection of Italy, which "will never have to fear hurt from the Holy See." While, with regard to the Law of Guarantees—" not moved by any empty ambition for earthly sway, to which We should be ashamed to give so much as a thought, but mindful of Our inevitable death, and remembering the account which We shall have to render to the Divine Judge for Our office, We renew the protests which Our Predecessors made for the defence of the rights and dignity of the Apostolic See."
It is easy to make particular applications of the Pope's words to 'the murderous anarchy of Ireland ; to the French aggression,---je connais mon peupk ; si TIOUS sommes vainqfieurs flows ' smins insuppbrteibtes was tht prophetic saying of a great man of letters ; to the ruined Polish provinces. But the root of bitterness which has borne these evil fruits existed before the war, and was common to the nations : this_ was the difficulty which the Papacy had to face, and by which it is still con- fronted. To those who accept the Papal claims, its action—or inaction—during the crisis 1914-18 may present a problem. Those who do not, must admit that it was placed in an all but impossible position. The powers of a modern Pope are not those of a mediaeval Pontiff. Which of his informants was to be believed ? Probably none unreservedly. Brought to the test of fact, the infallible proved sufficiently fallible :— " Mankind is ignorant ; a man am I:
Count ignorance my sorrow, not my sin."
The Pope's language with regard to Italy is significant. Should the Mussolini coup d'etat hold its own, and receive the support of the Vatican, we may see strange things. Since the abolition of the Concordat, France has prac- tically become a missionary country, in which Catholicism is rapidly losing ground. More ominous still is the breakdown of religion in Ireland, where the Lenten Pastorals of the Bishops give the impression of an S.O.S. signal ; and Ireland stands not for Ireland only, but for the Irish race at home and overseas. Spain is decadent, and Spanish America no `more than nominally Catholic : that the Papacy should fall back on Italy is natural ; its best hope is there. The temper of the Italians is the reverse of fanatical : hut the Papacy is an important Italian asset, and neither the Vatican nor the Quirinal has ever lost, sight of this ; the door hat purposely been kept . ajar between the two. Their reconciliation would change the face of European politics.
It would not necessarily be for the better. Italians have an instinct for Real-Politik ; a strong Italy -might be as sabre-rattling a Power to-morrow as France is to-day. Nor is a revival of Catholicism in the Near East, probably in the shape of a Uniat Church, a possi- bility to be excluded. Necessity has no law ; and, intense as is the anti-Latinism of the Slav races, Eastern OrthOdo:xy is in a sorry plight It is improbable, but it is not inconceivable; ' that Italy may replace France, and the Slays the Irish, in the cast of the Catholic drama —a drama which may be less incapable of transformation than we suppose. In this case, would it continue to be Catholic, in the sense in which the word is now used ? "The speculative historian may be referred to M. Emile Faguet's Essay on Lamennais. It is difficult, it is very difficult, to say.
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