and professions of gratitude is cynical; a stronger word might be used. The concentration of the Government of the Church in the Papacy is so complete that no alternative is open to Catholics who desire to remain Catholics; the dice are loaded, and can fall only in one way. The Supplique aux Evêques, the Memorandum of the Archbishop of Rouen on the German equivalent of the Associations Cultuelles, the acceptance, under protest indeed, but for practical purposes, of the law of 1905 by the plenary assembly of the bishops-all were unavailing. The last word was with Rome; it professed to confirm the wishes of the episcopate, which in fact it overbore; nor did the bishops venture either to expose the hypocrisy or to resist the decision; their hands and tongues were tied. In private only, and to those on whom reliance could be placed, did men speak their minds. 'C'est une véritable iniquité,' said an Academician whose services to the Church had been of the first order, speaking of the Encyclical Gravissimo; and Cardinal Mathieu, when asked whether there was any prospect of an improvement, replied Aucun; le Pape se porte bien.' Strenuous attempts have been made to represent the French policy of Pius X as successful. It was one of reformation, we are assured; it purged the Church of base metal; it released her energies and rekindled her zeal. This spiritual gain outweighed the material sacrifice by which it was purchased; and Nationalism, which has been strengthened by the war and is the force of the future, moves on increasingly Catholic lines. In England those who see a magic in Disestablishment and a heresy in Erastianism are apt to take these assurances at their surface value. But this is to project desire into reality; we believe easily what we wish to believe. There is still much religion in France; the profession of Catholicism has become the badge of a party which, if neither large nor influential, is certainly energetic; the situation was one which called for effort; and, where the means of making it were at the disposal of the bishops, an effort was made. That doubtful benefit to religion, la bonne presse, flourishes; in the great towns some-not all-of the churches are well attended; the heroism shown by so many priests and nuns in the war has happily weakened the baser sort of anti-clericalism; while the Union Sacrée' has made cooperation between men of different religious and political opinions possible, and we may hope that the ground on which this cooperation takes place will be enlarged. But M. Maurice Barrès''Grande Pitié des Églises de France' points to a mortal wound; the Church is bleeding to death from the blow inflicted upon her by the abolition of the Concordat, and her consequent separation, moral and material, from the national life. In favoured localities the voluntary system may be worked with a certain measure of success, but in the poorer districts and in the country generally the outlook is dark. How can the fabrics be maintained? How can even a minimum 'supply of clergy be supported? How can the necessary vocations to the priesthood be secured? To none of these questions can a satisfactory answer be given. Such of the churches as fall under the head of historical monuments are kept in repair at the public expense; but these are comparatively few in number. The caisse interdiocésaine is an attempt to meet the financial difficulty; but the position of the clergy is precarious; while the lack of candidates for ordination, which the war makes more acute than before, is an even greater cause of anxiety'c'est de ce côté que l'avenir est le plus sombre pour l'Église. All the signs-and they are not without their lesson for us in England-point in one direction; they show how easily national may degenerate into denominational religion, a Church into a sect The Catholic Revival, where it is more than an affectation, is to be found among men of literary and artistic rather than of scientific or practical ability, who, from temperamental or other personal reasons, have fallen out of the main stream of life. The inarticulate forces of conservatism find a voice and a rallying point in such persons; but the results of successive French elections show how desperate are their efforts and how empty their dreams. The movement represents a swing of the pendulum; 'un moment à attendre; la mer monte quand même.' It is not without its use as a corrective to the more vulgar forms of secularism. But it has no future; and it is probable that under the pressure of circumstances its representatives will pass over into other and not necessarily kindred camps. 'Rien ne parait moins solide que l'espoir, assez ouvertement caressé par de notables publicistes, d'utiliser la guerre au profit d'une réaction politico-religieuse. . . . L'indifférence des masses à l'égard de la vielle Foi va grandissant, et le catholicisme apparâit de plus en plus comme le culte d'une minorité qui tende à vivre en dehors au courant national, assez mécontente, mais surtout impuissante.' * Over Italian politics the Pope's outlook, up to a certain point, was sound. He did not expect a restoration of the temporal power as Pius IX or even Leo XIII had understood it. An Italian of the north, he had escaped what on this point is the cramping influence of the Curia; the time for this, he knew, was past. But, no less than his predecessors, he saw the world out of focus, and set himself against the incoming tide. His vision of an anti-democratic Italian monarchy, in alliance with which the Pontiff should exercise an effective supersovereignty under international guarantees, was as fantastic as Leo's dream of a Catholic Republic in France or Antonelli's of a European Legitimist reaction. 'Sunt haec aegri somnia'; things are not going, and will not go, that way. Liberalism, in the sense in which the word is used in Encyclicals-the sense, i.e., in which it stands for the subjection of authority, civil and religious alike, to reason-is a permanent element of European civilisation, a postulate of life and thought. Ecclesiastics are quick to seize small points and to grasp at immediate gains, but slow to discern large issues or to forecast the future; of all conditions (says Clarendon) they take the worst measure of men and of affairs. Hence the miscalculation which threw the Papacy into the arms of the Central Empires. Austria was the nearest approach to a Catholic Power left; Germany, with its 'Holy Emperor,' as Pius X in an access of Byzantine fervour described William II, embodied more than any other European State the principle of authority; here were the natural allies of the Church. There can be no better omen for the issue of the war than this direction of Papal policy, which, it seems, has survived its originator. For, if certainty is attainable in 'Jean Barois,' by Roger Martin Du Gard, p. 443. contingent matter, it is found in the political ineptitude of the modern Papacy; in the invariableness with which the influence of that great institution is thrown on what turns out to be the losing side. The assiduity with which the Pope courted Berlin may be measured by his relaxation of the Jehad against Modernism at its bidding. The Holy Roman Empire is in commission; but its shadow fell upon William II. He stood for the medieval German Cæsars; and the renewal of the alliance between the Church and the German Empire made it a matter of necessity to comply with his demands. What may be called the Modernism of the Left, partly perhaps because it was French, was rare in Germany; but there were limits beyond which it was not safe to press even Catholic professors, who retained the solid tradition of learning which distinguishes the German Universities. Difficulties arose at Bonn, Munich, Strassburg and even Vienna. The Pope's victories were Pyrrhic. The invective of the Borromean Encyclical (1910) against the Reformers and the Reformation excited German indignation; it was not published in Germany. The anti-modernist oath prescribed by the Constitution Sacrorum Antistitum (1910)* was resented by the German Theological Faculties, which, though suspect at Rome, were supported by their Governments; exemptions were granted-with a bad grace-and concessions made. Elsewhere this oath was taken with mental reservations, tacit or avowed, which, while they deprived it of its test value, put an intolerable strain on the conscience of the more educated clergy. The ethics of subscription are disputable; but never, probably, did a formula secure so little conformity at the price of so great a lowering of moral standards. A memorial addressed to the French bishops informed them that those concerned signed under compulsion, and regarded the oath as neither binding in conscience nor significant of interior assent. Hippolytus excused himself in the words, · ἡ γλῶσσ ̓ ὀμώμοχ, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος. The text of the oath, with that of the Decree Lamentabili, the Encyclical Pascendi (1907), and the principal acts and documents of the Pontificate, will be found in the last edition of Denzinger's Enchiridion (1911). This sophistry roused a storm of protest in the theatre at Athens. The standards of certain Churchmen are lower, it seems, than those of the Athenian stage. The reconstruction of the Curia-the congregations and tribunals which form the executive and judiciary of the Church-had long been called for. These bodies date from the 16th century; their machinery was antiquated, their procedure dilatory, their methods were open to abuse. I am sick of the heat and the intrigues,' wrote so strong an Ultramontane as Cardinal Manning from Rome (1877); and, 'Their pride will not let them say that the earth moves. And there will be no correction of all this. Therefore the Italians are at Rome; and Divine Providence will correct it— but "so as by fire." The reform instituted by the Constitution Sapienti Consilio (1908) simplified and facilitated the working of these bodies. It deprived the dogmatic and disciplinary Congregations of their judicial powers, which were transferred to the tribunals of the Rota and the Segnatura; the jurisdiction of Propaganda was confined to the foreign missions, mixed countries, such as England, being placed under the Bishops and Regulars; the important Consistorial Congregation was entrusted with the nomination of bishops and the supervision of episcopal administration. The functions of the Cancelleria and the Dataria became nominal; those of the Secretariate were extended. This department, which became the centre of the Government of the Church as a whole, was subdivided into three sections-those of Extraordinary and of Ordinary Affairs, with that of Briefs. Under the management of adroit agents it became an ecclesiastical Wolff Bureau, which controlled the religious and inspired the secular press. Its policy was without principle, scruple, or decency. But it was successful; few journals, even of the first rank, Italian or foreign, escaped its influence. But there was another side to it. It was base, and crudely base,' writes a clerical journalist of the conduct of 'Corrispondenza di Roma '; † Purcell, Life of Manning,' ii, 507, 584. Vol. 227.—No. 451. 2 K |