Br THE SAME AUTHOR:

THREE REFORMERS
LUTHER—DESCARTES—ROUSSEAU

PRAYER AND INTELLIGENCE
Translated by Algar Thorold

ART AND SCHOLASTICISM
Translated by J. F, Scanlan

AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
Translated by E. I. Watkin

THE THINGS THAT
ARE NOT CAESAR’S
br

JACQUES MARITAIN

J

TRANSLATION OP
‘PRIMAUTÉ DU SPIRITUEL'
MADE ΒΓ

J. F. SCANLAN

LONDON
SHEED & WARD
1932

First published November 1930
by Sheed & Ward
from 31 Paternoster Row, E.C.4
Second Impression December 1930
First Published in the Hart

Library, September 1932

Printed in Great Britain by
Maxell, Watson <$· Viney, Ltd.t London and Aylesbury.

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
This book was written on the occasion of a crisis
which seriously divided the Catholics of France,1 and
which, if it has not entirely abated at the present day
(for so long as a few of our brethren still refuse to
listen to the voice of the Church, it will be impossible
to say that all is well), has at any rate passed the
acute stage. But, as I observed in the Preface to the
French edition, what principally concerned me, my
essential object, was to illustrate certain principles
which I considered to be superior to time and cir­
cumstance and of universal validity, principles
affecting the relations between the spiritual and the
temporal which dominate the problems of culture and
will always have for the philosopher a privileged
interest.
A discerning reader, curious to discover the plan
of composition of the book, would not be mistaken in
supposing that the chapters into which it is divided
correspond simply to the division of time into past,
present and future, on the condition at any rate of under'L' standing by past, the supra-temporal principles which
protracted age-old controversies have induced the
’ Christian mind to evolve and determine and which
1 I have since published, in collaboration with a number of theolo­
gians and philosophers (MM. Lallement and Maquart, PP. Bernadot,
Doncœur anil Lajeunie), two books (Pourquoi Rome a parlé and Clair­
voyance de Rome) explaining in greater detail the intrinsic reasons for the
condemnation of the Action Française by Rome, which is to be con^.... sidered primarily as a condemnation of naturalism in politics. Cf.
more particularly the chapters, “ Morale et Politique,” and “ Nature et
.
Grâce,” in Clairvoyance de Rome.

4
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formerly took shape in historical forms that will never
be seen again ; by present, a passing moment which,
effectively present in 1927, has gone for good in 1930 ;
by future, the new historical forms, the new problems,
the new tasks, in accordance with which it may be
presumed that these same unchanging principles will
manifest themselves in the sphere of the changing.
This observation may be sufficient to dispose of
certain criticisms, ineffectual because springing from
a misconception, which are dictated by the notion
prevalent in some minds that to evolve an intemporal
substance of doctrine from a perishable past is to seek
to eternalise that very past and to treat history as so
much refuse. Professor Karl Winter1 recently accused
me, in a highly reputable Review of Public Law, of
formulating archaic theses, adding also that the
theology of laymen is always repudiated in the end by
theology itself, because it attempts to settle quarrels
that are not theological but sociological. Criticism
of this kind is an unfailing source ofjoy and consolation
to the author, considering that his object is precisely
to break with pedantry. There is a sort of professional
theology which is certainly not theology itself and
which follows scientific fashions slavishly enough, as a
rule after they have ceased to be fashionable ; affected
with an incurable myopia which I will not call his­
torical (for I am well aware that history is a precious
instrument in the hands of a theologian, on condition
that he makes use of it for thinking, not for dispensing
himself from thinking), but which may be called
historicist, such courageous Fachtheologie, I very well
1 Ernst Karl Winter, of Vienna, Kirche und Staat, Kritische Bemerkungen zu Jacques Maritains Lehre von der Potestas indirecta, in
Zeitschrift fur ofentliches Recht, Bd. IX, Heft I, i October, 1929.

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realise, considers that the Church has now no other
right than simply to station herself in sacristies, and
deems it unseemly that recourse should be had to
theological wisdom to enlighten us poor Christian
laity, busy with the affairs of the world, on problems
of culture and civilisation. This is precisely what the
writer’s feeling for intellectual hierarchies compels
him, as a philosopher, to do.
I am, however, pleased to take advantage of the
opportunity presented by this English edition to
explain myself a little more fully, and to point out
certain misconceptions which arise in the first place
from the omission to distinguish between the possession
of a power or a right (which depends on the essence
of things) and the historical exercise of that power or
right (which depends on circumstances and the
progress of civilisations).
I am convinced that as regards the substance of their
theological teaching on the relations between the
spiritual and the temporal, between Church and
State, the Popes of the Middle Ages and the Popes of
modern times are agreed ; and it is precisely this
common substance of doctrine which I have attempted
to put before the modern reader. He will, however,
do me the justice of believing that I am not so lacking
in historical sense as not to realise that the circum­
stances of time and civilisation in which they both live
have pretty well nothing in common. The Church,
therefore, in our day, in her relations with States, acts
according to modalities very different from those of the
Middle Ages. The error in this case wOuld be to
think that, because the contingent modalities of
practice vary, the doctrine determining the supreme
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spiritual standards of that same practice also similarly
varies. To maintain that the rights which the
Church claims for the spiritual power are merely a
transitory expression and adaptation of particular
juridical conceptions prevailing at different cultural
epochs, in such a way, for example, that the Church,
as M. Karl Winter thinks, would have invoked a
“ direct power ” when Romanesque or Gothic was the
fashion, an “ indirect power ” during the Baroque
period, and in our day a merely advisory and directive­
power in regard to the temporal, is a facile opinion which
for my own part—and I am no professional theolo­
gian—I consider as doing little credit to the stability
of theological science,1 and as absolutely devoid of
any genuinely tested historical foundation. I hope
to have shown in my book, summarily but yet con­
vincingly enough, that, in their teaching as Popes,
neither St. Gregory VII nor Boniface VIII ever
claimed “ direct power ” over the temporal (this theory
of the “ direct power ” is the invention of a few
“ extremist ” theologians in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries) ; that Bellarmine, the great
exponent of the “ indirect power ”—recently raised by
the Church to the rank of Doctor—intended only to
express and in fact only did express the traditional
doctrine of the Papacy ; and, finally, that if Leo XIII
made no explicit reference to the “ indirect power ”
(there is, nevertheless, a sufficiently obvious implicit
allusion to it to be seen in a passage 2 in the encyclical
Immortale Dei), he at any rate said nothing which
1 The proposition that “ Ecclesia vis inferendae potestatem non habet neque
potestatem ullam temporalem directam vel indirectam,” was, as is known,
condemned by Pius IX. Cf. note 48.
2 Cf. note 28.

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was not in perfect harmony with that doctrine. It
argues a very rudimentary logic and a most imperfect
scientific method to exclaim immediately that there
is a contradiction, without further consideration, when
one is confronted with two texts (like the bull Unam
Sanctam and the encyclical Immortale Dei), which,
written in very different historical circumstances and
illustrating different aspects of one same teaching, in
reality merely complement one another with an
interval of five centuries between. Anyone desirous
of further information on this point may refer to the
remarkable essay devoted to the “ indirect power ”
by M. Charles Journet.1
It is this continuity of doctrine which I was con­
cerned in the first place to establish and to emphasise,
and the object of the chapter on “ The Two Powers ”
was primarily doctrinal, its aim being to discover truths
valid at all times. But the question of ascertaining
whether the Church has by the nature of things a
certain right of action over the temporal, and the
question of ascertaining whether she makes use of such
a right at particular epochs, and how, are two entirely
different questions. The more important it seems
to me to rise above time to return a proper answer to
the former, the more important it seems to me to
burrow deep down into time, and the mutability there­
of, to return an answer to the latter. If evolutionists
may be properly scandalised by the refusal to admit
any but a homogeneous evolution by explicitation and
increase in growth of (genuine) knowledge of the
metaphysical or theological sort, disciples of the fixed1 La Pensée thomiste sur le pouvoir indirecte, Vie Intellectuelle, 15th
April, 192g. This paper will be separately published, with additions
and some alterations, in the series Questions disputées.

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type school may with equal propriety be scandalised
by the admission of only a heterogeneous evolution for
the contingent modalities of practice, or, if it be pre­
ferred, a series of revolutions due to the succession of
opposite historical climates. The error in that case
would be to think that, because the doctrine of the
Church never varies or the supreme standards of her
activity, the manner in which she adapts her activity
to particular cases and continues to carry out in time
the work of the Kingdom of God does not vary either.
So the public law of feudal times and the cultural
conceptions then prevailing impressed their likeness
upon the exercise made by the Church in the Middle
Ages of her “ indirect power ” over the temporal :
she had then a duty of maternal protection and educa­
tion to discharge, of such capital importance, so far as
Europe and the temporal kingdoms themselves were
concerned, that without ever adopting the doctrine of the
“ direct power f she made use of her “ indirect power ”
in such a way as might sometimes seem to suggest such a
doctrine ; nations had recourse naturally to her
arbitration, and she was still to be seen towards the
end of the fifteenth century dividing the world be­
tween two powers, imposing on each the duty of
preaching the Gospel. At the time when the Christian
States, having attained their majorities, immediately
began to turn into despotisms, the “ indirect power ”
of the Church was bound to act upon such States
according to quite different modalities, juridically
more precisely defined but practically less pliable and
incapable of avoiding more irremediable collisions.
In modern times, when the conception of the State has
attained its full “ laic ” stature, the exercise of this
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same “ indirect power ” appears simply in the form of
a counsel not proceeding so far as a formal order
compelling obedience, in other words, in the shape of
what some contemporary theologians and canonists
call potestas directiva (an idea which is sufficiently clear
so long as it is taken to refer to a modality of the
practical activity, but is much less clear if it refers to a
definite juridical entity *), and the use of it therefore
tends to diminish considerably. In short, I think that,
restricted to the modalities of practice, the thesis of
a progressive transformation linked to the general
evolution of civilisation has, in the reciprocal relations
of the ecclesiastical and the temporal powers, the
value of an evident fact, and I believe that it would
not be difficult to come to an understanding with Fr.
Bede Jarrett, O.P., on the interpretation to be given
to the progress of history from this point of view.2
The Church never had recourse to the exercise of
the “ indirect power,” even at the time of the struggle
between the Empire and the Papacy, without feeling
that she was wielding a dangerous weapon which
ran the risk of giving umbrage to the irritable sus­
ceptibility of the temporal authority and letting loose
a storm of angry passions, as was abundantly clear in
the age of Philip the Fair, when that first king of modern
times, with the help of his experts, I mean his lawyers,
raised against her what would nowadays be described
1 As M. l’Abbé Journet very pertinently observes (loc. cit., p. 666,
note i), the word potestas then becomes an improper description and
ceases to mean a jurisdiction. “ The régime of the directive power,
strictly understood,” writes Père de Groot, “ appears to be far from
consistent with the doctrine of the Syllabus, the decrees of the Popes,
and the general teaching of the Doctors of the Church” {Summa
apologetica de Ecclesia (lathclica, 1906, p. 451).
2 Cf. A History of Euiope, esp. chaps, iv—viii (Sliced & Ward).

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as a magnificently concerted press campaign. It was
under the constraint of the necessity of the times,
the social conditions of feudalism, and the fearful
menace which the imperial despotism held over the
liberty of the spiritual, that the Church was forced to
have such energetic recourse in the Middle Ages to the
exercise of such a right. I believe that in the new
era into which we have entered since the final liquida­
tion of the Holy Roman Empire, she will cease to exer­
cise it otherwise than in the form of counsels or directions,
which the nations will always expect from her supreme
moral authority. It should be carefully defined that
the “ indirect power ” is the right of intervention which
the spiritual power possesses over temporal things them­
selves from the strict point of view of moral and
spiritual interests, when superior interests of that kind
happen to be involved in the temporal event. This
power is not concerned in the least in the Action
Française affair 1—the Vatican has not ceased to say
so in the most explicit fashion, and so much is plainly
apparent from a consideration of the facts. The Pope
condemned the Action Française, not because it con­
stituted a certain political party, but because it im­
parted a certain teaching on the relations between
politics, morals, and religion which he considered
erroneous. The object of his intervention was the
prohibition of erroneous teaching threatening the integrity of
the Catholic faith and morals and the rectitude of the Catholic
mind : there we are faced with purely spiritual measures
directed in themselves, not against a temporal object in
itself over which the Church has exercised a power of
intervention from spiritual motives, but against an
Or in the present Maltese crisis.

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object itself spiritual—the teaching in question—coming
in itself within the jurisdiction, the peculiar and
exclusive jurisdiction, of the spiritual legislation.
That disturbances of the temporal sort may have
followed in consequence of such a measure entirely
spiritual in itself, that, for example, the political party
of which M. Maurras is the leader may have been there­
by put in a difficult position, is all very true, but,
whereas in the exercise of the “ indirect power the
measure taken by the legislator of itself affects the
temporal, although indirectly, in the present case, on
the contrary, the temporal is affected only accidentally,
in a manner entirely extrinsic to the intention of the
legislator and the very measure taken by him—in
short, by a mere material repercussion. Deny this
perfectly obvious distinction, upon the pretext that in
both cases those who suffer the blow are affected in
their temporal interests also, and you may as well
immediately give up the faculty of thinking, for the
distinction between the per se and the per accidens is
the fundamental activity of that faculty ; you may as
well say that, if the Church condemns a heretical
doctrine, an action which has an inevitable repercus­
sion on the sale of the books in which that doctrine is
set forth, she is taking a measure which is not so much
religious as commercial ; or that in proclaiming that
there is only one God, an action which has an inevit­
able repercussion on the manufacture of, and trade in,
idols, she is also performing not a religious but an
economic act ; or that the moralist, in forbidding
lying, intends to attack the national union of journal­
ists ; or that the mathematician, in pondering over
Zermelo’s axiom, proposes to burn a certain quantity
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of organic phosphorus in his cerebral matter. Here we
are faced with connections involving the very structure
of man and human life, and which the most purely
spiritual decisions can set in motion. The case of the
“ indirect power,” in which as a consequence of some
such connection the Church considers herself entitled
to act in the temporal itself ratione peccati, is merely
a particular case, the most extreme and the most shock­
ing to modern prejudice, of the much more general
laws which concern both the mutual relations ofthe tem­
poral and the spiritual and the inalienable liberty of the
latter. It is because it is in my view sound tactics “ to
take the bull by the horns,” and to grapple first with the
clearest and most difficult case, that I began by
establishing, in a first chapter, this theory of the
“ indirect power.” All that then remained was to
argue a fortiori. But the attentive examination of the
facts which the writing of the book entailed had
convinced me that the condemnation of the Action
Française, in spite of my first impression, was in no
way an exercise of the ‘'indirect power.” In addition,
to avoid the slightest risk of ambiguity, I have refrained
from mentioning again in subsequent chapters of the
book the expression “ indirect power.” And that not
only because in the particular case of the Action
Française it was in fact a question of something
utterly different, but also because in a general way I
believe that as a matter of fact, in the period of history
which we have just entered, the Church will refrain
from intervening in the temporal and making use of
her “ indirect power ” otherwise than in the form of a
direction or counsel, as was said above.
Is there any foundation for such an opinion ? There
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is in the first place one very remarkable positive fact, that
Leo XIII, while making, as has been seen, an implicit
allusion to the “ indirect power ” (he could hardly
avoid doing so, for such a doctrine forms part of the
common teaching of the Church), refrained from any
specific reference to it in the documents of fundamental
importance in which he deals with the Christian
constitution of States. Pius X, Benedict XV and Pius
XI, in dealing with the relations between Church and
State, maintained the same reserve. Such silence is
extremely significant, certainly not in regard to the
impertinent hypothesis of some repudiation of doc­
trine, but in regard to the practical decision no longer
to use in all its severity a right which has ceased to
correspond to the conditions of the times. In the
same order of ideas great attention ought to be paid to
the notion of Catholic action on which H.H. Pius XI
lays such vigorous stress. Such action is in itself
essentially apostolic and supra-political : it is not
unconcerned with things in the temporal and political
order, but it affects them, not by a process of authority
and jurisdiction, but by a vital and spiritual influence,
animating from within and impregnating with
Christian spirit the activities which concern them.
I have certainly not waited for the criticisms of
M. Karl Winter to make these observations.
Thereafter, and to come to intrinsic reasons, it is not
simply enough to observe that the exercise of a power
or right is useful only so far as it is consonant with the
dispositions of the common conscience, which in the
modern world is more and more jealous of the prero­
gatives and independence of the temporal authority :
it is necessary to go very much farther. If it is true
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that in its progress through time culture passes under
different constellations of dominant signs, it must be.
said that the historical sky or historical ideal under which
a modern Christendom is conceivable is absolutely
different from the historical sky or historical ideal of
mediaeval Christendom. The differences in question,
which it would take too long to analyse here, seem to
me to be grouped round one double central fact :
round the ideological fact that the ideal or myth of
“ the realisation of liberty ” has taken the place in
modern minds of the ideal or myth of “ force at the
service of God ”—and round the concrete fact that
civilisation in the Middle Ages imperiously implied
the unity of religion, whereas to-day it admits religious
division.1 It may so be realised that the peculiarities
(and the deficiencies) of mediaeval Christendom and
those of the new Christendom, a possibility in modern
times, are as it were in inverse relation to one another,
linked in the one case to the dominance of the sign of
force, in the other to that of the sign of liberty ; and it
may also be realised at the same time that the primacy
of Truth or the Church in civilisation, which could and
ought to have been achieved under the sky of the
Middle Ages by the rigorous exercise of all the rights
of the spiritual power, must, on the contrary, be
envisaged, under our historical sky, as a primacy of
confidence and respect secured by the moral authority
which a religiously divided world will come more and
more to acknowledge—that is at any rate my hope—
1 Some further observations on the problems affecting religion and
culture will be found in my pamphlet, Religion and Culture, to be pub­
lished by Messrs. Sheed w Ward as No. i of.the series “Essays in
Order,” which I hope to develop and complete in a subsequent essay
containing more concrete considerations.

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in the Catholic Church the teaching mistress and
leader of all other societies/’1 and her visible head.
That is the reason why I believe that, fully aware or
the historical regime in which humanity is now engaged,
the Church, whose dealings with men and history arc
as candid as the dealings of God, has decided with no
arriere-pensee to give such a regime of civilisation a
trial, and proposes henceforward to concern herself
with nothing but a merely moral influence over the
things of the temporal order.
Signor Mussolini, who has read Primauté du
Spirituel (he did me the honour of quoting the book
in one of his speeches), attempted one day to find an
argument against the Catholic Church in the doctrine
of the “ indirect power,” as though that doctrine
caused the shadow of Gregory VII or Innocent III
to hover over the anxious sovereignty of modern
States. If some Protestant writer on other shores
desired to imitate him with the object of provoking
a religious controversy, I would answer him that such
polemics are several centuries behind the time of
history and the Church, and as far as this book is con­
cerned are quite beside the question.
It is absurd for a writer to complain of being mis­
understood, for such a misfortune is, as a general rule,
his own fault : he needed only to explain his meaning
more intelligently. It is not improper, however, to
point out the awkward situation in which a philosopher
is placed. Once he undertakes to evolve out of the long
labour of speculation accomplished by his predecessors
1 ... In eo dignitatis gradu statuitur Ecclesia in quo a suo ipsius Auctore
collocata fuit, perfectae societatis, ceterarumque societatem magistrae [not
“ dominae ”] ac ducis ; . . . Pius XI, encyclical Ubi arcano Dei of the
23rd December, 1922.

b

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a supra-temporal substance of doctrine, and so to
oppose something eternal to the errors of the present
moment, it is believed that his intention is quite the
reverse to oppose something of the past to the present,
and to retrace his footsteps in time like Mr. Wells’s
machine. The individual then runs the risk of being
singularly misunderstood and, for my own part, I
conceive that I shall be branded for eternity with the
character of anti-modern, the title given to one of my
books in the secret desire to annoy my contemporaries.
I would here perform a great act of humility and
invoke the authority of an engineer in support of the
philosophia perennis. The activity of the technician is
governed just as much by the same laws as govern
human activity in general and may serve to illustrate
the working of those laws in a more particularly striking
way. I quote from the MS. used by F. W. Taylor
as a basis for his lecture on “ Success ” 1 : “ . . . Now
for the average man no invention can be looked upon
as a legitimate invention which is not an improvement
on mechanism or processes or appliances which are
already in existence, and which are successful. It is
thoroughly illegitimate for the average man to start
out to make a radically new machine, or method, or
process, new from the bottom up, or to do things most
of which have not already been done in the past.
Legitimate invention should be always preceded by a
complete study of the field to see what other people
have already done. Then some one or more defects
should be clearly recognised and analysed, and then
it is entirely legitimate for the engineer to use his
1 F. B. Copley: Frederick W. Taylor, vol. i, p. 77.
1923.

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ingenuity and his inventive faculty in remedying these
defects, and in adding his remedy to the existing
elements of the machine or the process which have
already been found to work well. Any other invention
than this should be looked upon as illegitimate, since
it is almost sure to waste the money of your employer,
as well as your own, and to result in partial, if not
complete, disaster.” If it be observed that in face of
metaphysical realities, so lofty and so arduous that
the jealousy of the gods, as Aristotle says, seems to
deny us access to them, every man is an average man,
the passage quoted will be considered a good and sound
apology for philosophical work in the sense in which I
understand it. Mr. Taylor begged his audience to
look forward with their inventions, not backwards :
that is the meaning of the motto—made famous by
the great restorer of the Thomist philosophy, Pope Leo
XIII—vetera novis augere.
To return to the object of this present work, I would
have it observed once more that, if the misconceptions
of certain critics have compelled me to insist in this
preface upon the exact significance of the first chapter,
it WOuld not do to restrict the scope of the book to that
^chapter : the third chapter is, as a matter of fact, the
most important.
It gives me pleasure that the book should be published
in English through the kindness of Messrs. Sheed
Ward, and Mr. T. F. Burns, whom I take this oppor­
tunity of thanking ; it seems to me that every considered
work upon the distinction between the spiritual and
the temporal, between the things that are God’s and
the things that are Caesar’s, is apt to dissipate prejudices
fostered in certain minds by a deplorable ignorance
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with regard to the Pope, as a “ foreign sovereign.”
The Pope is not a foreign sovereign : he is the visible
head of the mystical body, essentially supra-temporal,
supra-political, supra-national, supra-cultural, of which
Christ is the invisible head : he is, for the supreme
control of doctrine and the government of that Body,
the visibility, as it were, of Christ on this earth. His
kingdom is not of this world, and, if he docs possess a
temporal sovereignty, it is as the minimum of body
required precisely to assure the full liberty of the
spiritual sovereignty peculiar to him ; if he is sovereign
of the Vatican City, it is precisely so that he shall be
neither Italian nor American, neither French nor
Chinese, so that he shall lose all human nationality, as
Christ was destitute of all human personality, to
belong exclusively to God.
September 1930.

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In presuming to discuss in this Essay questions
simultaneously involving politics and religion, I
would not have it thought that I have any intention
of trespassing upon the domain of the teaching
Church, for that would be absurd, or of abandoning
the plane of philosophy for the contingencies of
practical action, from which it is more than ever my
desire to hold aloof. Certain essential principles,
however, seem to have been lost sight of by many
people, and it is of the first importance that they be
recalled. I shall tell the truth or what appears to me
such without regard for any other consideration.
Credidi, propter quod locutus sum.
One single observation of our Lord is sufficient
to settle everything and to denote the significance of
the age we are about to enter. Seek first the kingdom
of God and His justice and the rest shall be added
unto you.
We do, however, need multiple explanations, and
they must be based upon theology. We must, there­
fore, begin with an exposition of principles borrowed
from that science.
Despite this forced loan from the theologians, the
present Essay is still the work of a philosopher observ­
ing contemporary events from his own point of view.
The crisis lately traversed by the Catholic, members of
the Action Française party and the decision taken by
the Holy See in their regard arc referred to at some
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length, but the problem discussed has a very much
wider application. This book makes no claim to be
an exhaustive study of that past crisis : it is concerned
only with one aspect of it, which the author considers
as of the greatest practical importance for the general
interests of our culture and so, without failing in the
respect due in that case to the purely doctrinal magis­
tracy of the Church and her direct power over the
spiritual, he has devoted his attention to the most
acutely debated point in the whole conflict : the
relation between the spiritual and the temporal,
between doctrine and politics. Omitting or merely
glancing at many useful considerations, we can the
more easily rise to a point of view above particular
cases and demonstrate certain essential principles
concerning the present state of civilisation, the
providential directions of the Church and the general
primacy of the spiritual, principles which interest us
above everything else.
The author would here take leave to adopt the last
words of his master Thomas Aquinas. He hopes that
he has written nothing offensive to divine Truth.
Should he have done so, it was through ignorance,
and he does not persist in his intention : should
anything herein be ill-expressed, he leaves the whole
to the correction of the Holy Roman Church.
25IA May, 1927, ίΛβ Feast of St. Gregory VII.

xxii

CONTENTS
FAGB

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION .
PREFACE

·

·

v

IO THE FRENCH EDITION ...

-

XXÎ

.

INTRODUCTION

XXV

I. THE TWO POWERS

......

I

1. The Spiritual Power and the Temporal
Power.
2. The Spiritual Sovereignty of Christ and the
Church and the Indirect Power.
3. The Extent of the Indirect Power.
4. Christian Obedience.
5. The Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope.
44

Π. A CRISIS OF THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

1. The Condemnation of the Action Française.
2. Joan of Arc or Philip the Fair.
.

HI. OUR FIRST DUTY TO GOD

.

.

.

.

.121

78

1. Supremacy of the Church.
2. Primacy of the Spiritual.
3. Ί he Pre-eminence of Contemplation.
APPENDICES

I.

.

.

p

On the Theory of the “ Direct ” Power in
Temporalibus
.
.
.
.
.121

xxiii

* «« a «r w

CONTENTS

appendices—continued

2. Politics and I deology ..... 125
3. The Doctrine of the “ Indirect Power ” and
the Doctrine of the Two Swords
.
. 127
4. The Three Meanings of the Word “ Democ­
racy ”
.
.
.
.
.
.
131
5. On Liberalism
.
.
.
.
.
133
6. Democratic Naturalism and Anti-Democratic
Naturalism
.
.
.
.
.
151
7. Three Forms of Nationalism
·
·
· !53
8. On China ....··· L56
China : Lecture delivered by His Lordship
Bishop de Guébriant
.
·
·
.162
g. On Russian Orthodoxy
·
·
·
· *75
NOTES

xxiv

INTRODUCTION
Imperilled by a degraded civilisation which
abandons man to the indétermination of matter, the
mind must defend itself at all costs, assert its rights
and its essential superiority. It is itself responsible
for the evil. It attempted to hold truth captive,
affected to disregard what surpasses the level of
reason and, finally, reason itself. It is punished by
the flesh for having sought to emancipate itself—by
denying their existence—from the supreme realities
which are to be assessed by the measure of God, not
man. The control of the senses by reason and of
reason itself by God is the essential condition of order
and peace in the human being, and this can only be
achieved through faith and supernatural love. The
first subordination depends in practice upon the
second. Adam shattered both : Christ re-established
them by His grace and the gifts of His spirit. The
error of the modern world and the modern mind
consists in the claim to ensure the domination of nature
by reason while at the same time refusing the domina­
tion of reason by supernature.
The scale of values has been thereby reversed ; the
mind to-day is suffering the painful consequences—
and the State as well. For the attribute “ political
animal ” being, like the attribute “ animal endowed
with reason ” whence it derives, essentially character­
istic of the human being, the metaphysical history of
man as a political animal—or society for that matter
XXV

INTRODUCTI ON

—must necessarily follow the same course, with iden­
tical incidents of fortune, as the history of man as a
rational animal—or the mind. The expulsion of
the element of spirit and grace from intellectual and
social life, that is to say, from what is specifically
human, is the secret cause of the supremacy of matter
which men find so burdensome and oppressive
to-day.
This supremacy of matter must be resisted not only
by the assertion of the rights of the mind and the
reason but also by the asseveration of the supremacy
of divine grace and the primacy of the spiritual.
Intermediary solutions now fade into the back­
ground. Man appears henceforth divided between
the two extremes of the flesh and the spirit in the sense
given to the phrase by St. Paul—a pure infra-human
materialism and a divine super-human life ; the
conflict would seem to be characteristic of the age into
which humanity is about to enter. Reason must
submit to the God which is spirit, if we are not to
perish, and to the whole spiritual order established
by Him. Our whole life must be orientated to that
liberty of the spirit which is only to be obtained,
through and in the truth, by the fullness of love.
It is in the “ indirect power ” of the Church of Christ
over the temporal domain that the primacy of the
spiritual finds its most concrete realisation in the
most apparent, vivid and significant manner. The
first chapter is devoted to a consideration of this
question.
A second chapter examines from the point of view
of this same primacy the crisis lately traversed by a
number of Catholics in France.
xxvi

introduction

An attempt has been made in the third chapter to
ascertain some of the main lines of conduct suggested
to our reflection and for our action, in the present
state of the world, by the principle of the primacy of
the spiritual considered in all its extent.

xxvi i

I

THE TWO
I.

THE

SPIRITUAL
TEMPORAL

POWERS
POWER

AND

THE

POWER

I. Nothing is more important for the freedom of
souls and the good of mankind than properly to dis­
tinguish between these two powers : nothing, in the
language of the day, has so great a cultural value. It is
common knowledge that the distinction is the achieve­
ment of the Christian centuries and their glory.
The pagan City, which claimed to be the absolute
whole of the human being, absorbed the spiritual
in the temporal power and at the same time apotheosised the State. Its ultimate worship of the Emperors
was the sure consequence of an infallible internal
logic. “ Even the Christian Emperors and Con­
stantine, the first of them, did not immediately
repudiate certain symbols of divine honour, such as
the building of temples and the celebration of games
in their honour. The iconoclasts destroyed the images
of Christ and the Saints at Byzantium, but respected
the images of the Emperor. It was not until the fourth
century that the Emperor Gratian gave up using the
title of Pontifex Maximus. And to avoid running down
the whole subsequent course of history, it will be
sufficient to observe that by the blasphemous beast
‘ come up out of the sea 5 and the other beast ‘ come
up out of the earth,’ ‘ that did great signs,’ both
B

I

THE THINGS THAT ARE NOT G A F S Λ R ’ S
securing the adoration denied to the Lamb, the
Apocalypse intends to symbolise the profaning and
usurping civilisation of all times and all countries ' [ i].!
The Lord Christ said : Render there) ore to Caesar
the things that are Caesar's : and io God, the Rings that are
God's. He thereby distinguished the two powers
and so doing emancipated the souls of men.
2. Every act of ours may, according to different
formal aspects, be referred at one and the same time
to the particular good of ourselves or our neighbour
as an individual, to the common good of the family
or the State and to the transcendent common good
of the whole universe, that is to say, to God Himself.
Hence three hierarchised ordinations concerning
respectively the “ monastic ” in Aristotle’s phrase or
private ethics, the “ economic ” 2 or politics, both
branches of social ethics—and morals or general ethics
dominating and enveloping the whole [2].
The State being the most perfect natural com­
munity (that is to say, the most capable of being selfsufficient) which mankind can form in this world,
it is of supreme importance to draw the distinction
and define the relations of subordination between
politics, which are ordered to the whole of the ter­
restrial State as to their proximate and specific end,
and ethics which are ordered to the divine trans­
cendent whole. The subordination of politics to
ethics is absolute and even infinite, being based on the
subordination of ends ; for the good of the State is
not God Himself, and remains far, far inferior to the
1 The figures refer to the notes at the end of the book.
2 In the Aristotelian sense of the science of the good conduct of the
family or domestic society.

2

THE

TWO

PO WER?

supreme beatitude of man. ‘'The suboidination is
such—it is indeed infinite—that the strongest cxpicssions employed to indicate it will always be exceeded
by the reality. The Ancients, cvea Aristotle iiimsclf,
did not fully realise it [3], because tiie> did not
perceive with sufficient clarity that the supteme good
of human life is God Himself. Christianity was
needed to make that fully clear ; anti when the gilt
of understanding, whose specific, function it is, shows
the Christian that everything which is not God is
annihilated before God—quidquid Deus non est nihil est,
et pro nihilo computari debet [4]—it shows him also that
the end of politics is nothing in comparison with the
end of ethics ” [5].
The Ancients were no more successful in emanci­
pating the free act from the tics which bind it to this
world. Christianity was needed for the full realisation
that the free act, considered purely in its freedom and
in the secret node wherein the moral universe is born,
is bound by no tic to the world or consequently to the
State which is parcel of the world, but solely to God,
the primary free agent, and the created will, the second
free agent ; so that the secrets of the heart by their
very nature escape the natural glance of the angels,
and yet to the angels the w hole spectacle of this world
is due [6]. Neither the Prince of this world nor any
prince of the nations can know anything of the spiritual
heaven concealed in the recesses of our being and
containing the kingdom of God, regnum Dei intra
vos est : Christ alone can penetrate it by His priestcraft
—and after Him, by the Sacrament of Penance
which entitles them to know such secrets, the priests
of the New Law, covered with the Blood of Christ.
3

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

Although formally considered as part of the State, every
act of his can be referred to the common good of the
State,1 man, considered in the absolutely peculiar and
incommunicable quality of his liberty and as ordered directly
to God as to his eternal end, himself enjoying therefore
the dignity of a whole (to a more eminent degree than
the entire physical universe, because God is much
more intimately the end of a soul than of the whole
universe of bodies), under this formal aspect escapes
inclusion in the political ordination : Homo non
ordinatur ad communitatem politicam secundum se totum
et secundum omnia suad

3. But in that order of eternal life the individual
is no more self-sufficient—even less—than in the tem­
poral. By the very fact of being ordered to the
beatific vision, he is parcel of a superior whole, of a
State which is a much more perfect unit than the
terrestrial State (inasmuch as it is one single mysterious
body living with the supernatural life which it receives
from Christ), and to which every member is much
more closely bound than he is to the terrestrial State,
for we need the terrestrial State for the normal develop­
ment of our nature, not for participation in the essence
of humanity itself, whereas none can be made to share,
through sanctifying grace, in the divine nature without
belonging either visibly or invisibly (sive re sive voto)
to the Church ; the angels are members of it no less
than men [7], and when we have finally become gods
by vision— ego dixi : dii estis—we belong to it more
than ever, because it is essential for it to make us
1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., ii—ii, 58, 5.
3 Ibid., i-ii, 21, 4, ad 3.

4

THE

TWO

POWERS

enter the company, through the life of grace, of the
Blessed Trinity Itself. That State is truly divine, but
no less truly human, and therefore visible, the con­
tinuation of the Incarnation in our midst—parts of it
have been impressed in baptism on this earth with the
seal of effective incorporation and all men are created
for incorporation in it—its invisible head is Jesus Christ,
its visible head he who was charged by Christ to feed
His sheep ; it is in the world—without being of the
world and because it is not of the world—the scat of
the spiritual power which directs it towards its end
and of which the Pope, as Vicar of God, is the supreme
depository.
Each of us, therefore, belongs to two States—a
terrestrial State whose end is the common temporal
good, anebthe universal State of the Church whose end
is eternal life. “ There are two peoples in one same
enclosure, one same human multitude, and these two
peoples give occasion for two distinct lives, two
principates and a dual juridical system ” [8]. Towards
the end of the fifth century, Pope Gelasius wrote that
“ there are two things by which this world is chiefly
governed : the sacred authority of the pontiffs and
the power of kings ” [9]. In the nineteenth century
Leo XIII said likewise : “ God has divided between
the ecclesiastical and the civil power the task of pro­
curing the well-being of the human race. He has
appointed the former to divine, the latter to human
things. Each of them is supreme in its own sphere
(utraque potestas est, in genere suo, maxima.) ; each is
enclosed within perfectly defined boundaries, de­
limited in exact conformity with its nature and principle.
Each is therefore circumscribed within a sphere in
5

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAr’s

which it can act and move in virtue of its own peculiar
laws ” [io].
It is only too clear, however, that these two distinct
powers are not on the same plane. One is above the
other. The terrestrial State, being a moral whole, as
such owes duties to God [n]. In its own sphere it is
subject to the universal temporal sovereignty of Christ
[12] ; for Christ, as Man, received from God dominion
“ over the works of His hands ” and “ all things have
been subjected under His feet,” 1 and it is from Him
that kings and the heads of States and every human
power derive their authority ; the State, as such, is
bound to observe His Law and the precepts of His
morality. As a moral and religious agent, it is,
therefore, itself part of the Church. “ The Emperor is
in the Church, not above it,” said St. Ambrose [13].
The State, therefore, is indeed sovereign in its own
domain, but its domain is subordinate, so that its
sovereignty can be neither absolute nor universal.
There is only one universal absolute sovereignty,
the sovereignty of the Creator. The sovereignty of
the Church, universal through the whole range of
salvation, is clearly more extensive and elevated than
that of the State. To distinguish between the temporal
and the spiritual is simultaneously to affirm the
subordination of the former to the latter. Do not
the divine words which are the root of the distinction
indicate also the subordination ? Render, therefore,
to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the
things that are God’s : were the things that arc
Caesar’s not God’s things before they became
Caesar’s ? [14].
St. Paul, Hebrews ii. 8.

6

THE
II.

TWO

P C) W E R S

THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGNTY OF
AND THE CHURCH AND THE

CHRIST

INDIRECT

P O WER

4. The universal kingship of Christ has a dual
nature : it is both spiritual and temporal. But it is
“ above aB spiritual and mainly concerned with
spiritual things.” 1 It is this spiritual kingship of Christ,
founded upon His capital grace [15], which here ('alls
for consideration. In that sphere Christ is not only
the interior principle of our supernatural life- the
special province, as has been observed, of His priest­
hood [16]—unceasingly communicating to us the
grace earned by His Passion which God also infuses
into us by the conjoined instrument of His humanity,
the most holy movements of His mind and heart ;
He possesses also a supreme power of government over
the whole spiritual domain, the special province of
His kingship, in virtue of which He leads His people
of souls to eternal life, enacts laws, pronounces judge­
ments, sees to the carrying out of His orders, estab­
lishes His kingdom by triumphing over sin and death.
He is the head of the Body of the Church. “ The
head,” says St. Thomas, “ exercises a double influence
over the limbs ; an interior influence, for the head
transmits the power of movement and sensation to the
limbs, and an influence of exterior government, for the
head directs man in his exterior acts by the sight and
the other senses of which it is the scat.” 2
To these two influences the dual power of order and
jurisdiction transmitted to the Church may be related
[17] : the former, involving the economy of the sacra1 Pius XI, Encyclical Quai Primas.
3 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., iii, 8, 6.

7

THE THINGS THAT ARE NOT CAESAR’S
monts, being in the first place a participation in the
priesthood of Christ (men are here mere instruments,
for “ the interior influence of grace can proceed from
Christ alone Whose humanity, combined with divinity,
possesses the virtue of justifying ”) 1 ; the latter,
involving the direction of the mystic Body by the
teaching of doctrine and laws, being a communication
of His spiritual kingship (men are here responsible,
albeit subordinate agents, for “ the influence which
Christ exercises through His exterior government c an
be communicated to others : these others arc the
heads of the Church . . . they are heads because they
take the place of Christ ”).2
So “ in the person of Peter, the other apostles and
their successors, the Church received directly from God,
through our Lord Jesus Christ, the task of leading
souls, by the light of revealed dogma and Christian
morals, to eternal life. Her power corresponds to
her divine mission and embraces all who have received
the character given in baptism and everything
necessary or useful to lead them to their last end.
“ In spiritual things, such power is direct. Spiritual
things are the province of faith and morals, of salva­
tion, in which the Church exercises her infallible
magistracy by teaching the supernatural and natural
truths of faith, the precepts and counsels contained in
the deposit of divine revelation of which she is the
custodian.
“ It is her function on that score to interpret the
teaching of revelation with regard to the use of material
things, to say what things should be rendered to
1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., iii, 8, 6,
8 /iid.
8

THE

TWO

POWERS

Caesar and what are owing to God. This direct
power is also clearly responsible for the administration
of the sacraments, which arc the channels of grace,
the religious discipline not only of clerks but also of
laymen considered as of the faithful, the regulation of
theological studies, religious instruction in schools and
everything which bears a sacred character or is neces­
sary to divine worship, such as churches in which the
Holy Sacrifice is offered. . . .
“ The consequence is that the Church has an indirect
power over temporal things” [18].

5. What is so described 1 is the power possessed by
the Church over the temporal not as such, but as
affecting the spiritual order of salvation—not because
of the temporal good itself to be procured but rather
with a view to the denunciation or avoidance of sin, the
preservation of the good of souls and the maintenance of the
liberty of the Church. Here it is not a question, as in the
theory of the direct power over the temporal main­
tained by certain theologians in the Middle Ages,1
2 of
a power distinct from the spiritual power, it is the
spiritual power itself, the spiritual sword drawn against
the things of the world because of the eternal interests
at stake. And that sword is not kept in the sheath.
In Christ, this power of intervening in the temporal
with a view not to the temporal itself, but to the
spiritual, “ is part and parcel of the spiritual kingship,
1 The expression indirect power is open to misconception. It might
lead to the belief that the right in cjuestion affects the temporal only
by way of repercussion from the measures taken with regard to the
spiritual. This is not so. This right directly affects the temporal
itself, but only because of the spiritual.
2 Cf. Appendix I.

9

j
j
■

;
:

THE THINGS THAT ARE NO T C A I. S A R ’ S

for it is at its service and, in a manner of speaking,
its instrument. Ubi est unum propter alterum, Aristotle
had already observed, ibi tantum unum esse videtur.
“ And the older theologians were justified in describ­
ing such a power as instrumental. Christus secundum
quod homo, writes Bannez, habuit instrumentaient potestatem
dominii universalis circa omnia temporalia.” 1
In the Church of Christ such a power is a partit ipation in the spiritual kingship of Christ. Peter has it
for the simple reason that Christ transmitted it to bim
as His representative on earth with the keys of the
kingdom of Heaven. “ What is the Church ? ”
asked Bossuet. “ The Church is Jesus Christ, but
Jesus Christ diffused and communicated ” [19].
Because the indirect power over the temporal is
merely the spiritual power itself applied to temporal
things on account of the spiritual interests involved,
the principles governing the acts properly so called of
the indirect power are also applicable and a fortiori
valid in the reactions which measures taken in virtue
of the direct power (doctrinal or disciplinary) over the
spiritual may, in certain cases, have in the temporal
sphere.
We will therefore attempt to establish in the first place
the doctrine of the indirect power, the prototype for
reference in such questions, it being well understood
that the same doctrine is also applicable, and with
stronger reasons, to such reactions as the temporal
may suffer from measures in themselves exclusively
spiritual. The same problem is involved, of the
1 Cf. C. V. Héris, Revue des sciences phil. et théol., July 1926. This
instrumental power proceeds from the spiritual kingship of Christ
and is quite a different thing from His temporal kingship.

IO

THE

TWO

P O WERS

general subordination of human things to die divine
things of which the Church is the custodian.
The terrestrial State is itself compelled by an inner
necessity to postulate such a superior light in the City
of God. It is in fact ordered to a temporal Ciimmon
good which is not of a material kind only, but also and
mainly moral : the humanly good life (the virtuous
life) [20] of the multitude assembled in a social body,
communicatio in bene vivendo [21]. Now an upright
moral life in this world assumes that man is ordered to
his last end, a supernatural end attainable only through
Christ ; the good of the State must, therefore, be
ordered to that same supernatural last end which
is the end of every individual man ; civil society must
pursue the common temporal end so far as it enables
man to obtain eternal life [22] ; politics themselves,
to be what they ought, insist that the spiritual be
predominant, that the order with eternal salvation
for its object predominate over the order designed to
secure merely the good things of this world ; the State
is not truly served if God is not served first. The rule
of conduct governing individual and social life being
unable to dispense with the supernatural order, and
complete political wisdom, strictly speaking, depending
on theology,1 the Prince, if he is to perform his func­
tions properly, must himself be learned in that science
and take counsel from those who have charge of it.
So St. Louis consulted St. Thomas. “ The King,”
wrote the latter, “ ought to procure the good life for
the multitude in this world so far as it is likely to secure
beatitude in Heaven ; he must therefore prescribe
the things which conduce to such happiness and as far
1 Gf. Appendix II.
II

THE THINGS THAT Are NOT GA ES AR’s

as possible proscribe their opposites. And the way to
true beatitude and the obstacles thereto arc known by
the divine law, the teaching of which is the province
of the priestly ministry ” [23].
The order of agents, however, corresponds to the
order of ends. If the end of the terrestrial govern­
ment is subordinate to the end of the spiritual
government, the latter must have power oxer the
former, must be able to direct it by its counsel and,
if the interest of souls so require, control it by its
orders [24].
The Church has thus a right of authority ox er the
political or the temporal itself, not because of political
things, but because of the spiritual principle involved.
One sword is under the other : not to be oppressed in its
own sphere, but to be controlled and directed by the
upper sword as regards the latter’s own sphere. The
special interventions of the spiritual in temporal
matters are motivated by one object only, the avoidance
or repression of sin. “ Let nobody therefore imagine,”
wrote Innocent III to the bishops of France in 1204,
“ that We claim to meddle with or seek to diminish
the jurisdiction of the illustrious king of the Franks
any more than he desires or ought to hinder Ours. . . .
We do not claim to judge of the fee, for the judgement
thereof is his province . . . but to sit in judgement
upon sin, which We are undoubtedly entitled to
censure. We have the power, and it is also Our duty,
to visit Our censure on any person whomsoever. . . .
Non enim intendimus judicare de feudo, sed decernere de
peccato ” [25]. Similarly it is the ratio peccati xvhich
is alleged by Innocent IV against Frederick II and by
Boniface VIII against Philip the Fair ; the ratio
12

THE

TWO

POWERS

peccati is the essential justification for the interventions
of the Church in temporal affairs.

6. This doctrine is unchangeable, ft may have
been presented under different aspects : it has not
altered in essentials throughout the centuries. What
was described in the Middle Ages as the doctrine of the
two swords—at all events in the sense in which it was
understood by St. Bernard and St. Thomas Aquinas 1
as in pontifical documents—is essentially identical
with what has been described since Bcllarmine [26J and
Suarez [27] as the doctrine of the indirect power—·
at all events if the latter be taken without attenuation.
Anyone paying sufficient attention to the substance of
things underlying the various incidents of history will
perceive that one same teaching is imparted by
Boniface VIII in the Bull Unam Sanclam and by Leo
XIII in the Encyclical Immortale Dei ; and for a com­
plete idea of the indirect power, both these great
documents should be simultaneously borne in mind.
There are in effect two complementary aspects
in the doctrine of the indirect power. On the one
hand it assumes the distinction of the two powers
and the sovereignty of the civil power in its own
sphere ; Leo XIII lays special stress upon it, but is
still careful to point out that the authority of the
Church extends to temporal things only so far as they
come into relation with whatever affects the salvation
of souls and the worship of God [28]. Moreover,
as the Church makes a special intervention on that
score only in a case where the things of civil sove­
reignty happen to affect the peculiar object of the
1 Cf. Appendix III.

IS

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CA E SA R 1 S

sacred sphere in some particular way, the rouit js
that so long as its subordinate but autonomous province
affects the good of souls only to the very general extent
to which the existence of a temporal order may
usefully serve that good, civil sovereignty is free io
attend to its own business without having to obey [29].
On the other hand, this same doctrine of the indirect
power asserts the general subordination of the temporal
to the spiritual and consequently the right of the
spiritual power to impose restrictions, wherever neces­
sary because of some connection with the good of
souls, on the sovereignty of the civil power. Boniface
VIII lays special stress upon it : “ Oportet autem
gladium esse sub gladio et temporalem auctoritatem spirituali
subjici potestati ” [30], but is still careful to point out
that the temporal sovereignty remains none the less
real [31]. It is one of the most pernicious of modern
illusions to think that there can be no sovereignty,
liberty or independence which is not absolute. If
such were the case, no man would be free or a king
unless he were God.
To demonstrate this subordination of the temporal
to the spiritual, which he compares to the subordin­
ation of the body to the soul [32], St. Thomas, as we
have seen, bases himself on the subordination of ends
[33], which requires that the authority which impels
towards the ultimate end shall be able to control by
its teaching or counsel or, if need be, by its orders,
authorities which impel towards the intermediate end,
and that kings be subject to the Supreme Pontiff
under the law of Christ. It should be carefully
observed that from this point of view the indirect
power is considered in a very universal way as including
H

THE

TWO

POWERS

not only particular interventions of the Church by
counsel or express orders ratione pcccati, but also the
governing influence she exercises o\ er temporal
things by her general teaching and the education she
gives the nations. A temporal sovereignty' so Jormcd
in spirit, a truly Christian slate, would proceed of
its own accord to Christian ends and the special
interventions of the Church, whose maternal care
unceasingly envelops the nations, would be merely
additional to such a spontaneous movement for the
purpose of completing and perfecting it. So, in
normal conditions of civilisation, that is to say, if
nations and governments were what they ought to be,
the indirect power would find as it were its natural
expression simply in their instinctive docility to the
law of the Gospel and the general teaching of the
Church and also, when the Church thought fit, to
her counsel in any particular case. It is true that men
are rarely what they ought to be, and coercive measures,
however exceptional, are in fact sometimes necessary.
The indirect power then extends as far as the primacy
of the spiritual requires ; for the Church is not dis­
armed, her right is effective and efficient.
Such a right is not confined merely to the spiritual
in the temporal : because of the spiritual and its
relation to the temporal, it embraces also the temporal
itself, it can quash and annul laws promulgated by a
State, it can extend to deposing kings and emperors,
if the danger to which they expose souls is too great,
and set their subjects free from their oath of allegiance.
For “ a man can lose his right of sovereignty,” says
St. Thomas [34], “ by decree of justice as much for
a crime against the Faith as for any other fault. . . .
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A baptised Sovereign, who abjures the Faith, runs the
risk of causing a great corruption of the f aith among
his subjects. . . . Once he is excommunicated by
decree of justice for having broken with die Faith,
his subjects are freed from his sovereignty and their
oath of allegiance ” [35]. To be surprised that this
should be the case, a man must have lost the sense of
reality and live only among appearances and words.
The Church could cease to assert her right only if
she ceased to be conscious of the divine good which
it is her mission to dispense to mankind. We should be
grateful to St. Gregory VII, to Innocent III, to Gregory
IX, to Boniface VIII, for having given this unhappy
world the strongest testimony of the rights and power
of the Spirit. Canossa will always remain the con­
solation of free minds. “ We fear no threats,” said
St. Thomas à Becket, the legate of Pope Alexander III,
to Henry II of England, “ because the Court from
which we come is accustomed to give orders to emper­
ors and kings ” [36].
Whatever the fashionable theological opinions of
the time may have been, it is the power of the spiritual
sword applied as such to political affairs, in other words
the “ indirect power over the temporal,” which is the
foundation and explanation of the authoritative acts
of those great Popes with regard to emperors and kings
[37]· Their intervention was determined according as
it was required by the rights of God, the liberty of the
Church and the salvation of souls [38]. It was in
virtue of the indirect power that St. Gregory VII
asked : “ Can any man doubt that the priests of
Christ are as the fathers and tutors of kings and
princes and all the faithful ? ” [39]—and Innocent III
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declared : “ It was His will that We should sit above
princes and pass judgement upon them” [40].
Feudal law and mcdiæval public law merely provided
the indirect power with certain means—suitable to a
given historical state [41] and to the needs of terribly
troubled times—of being exercised for the salvation
of Christian civilisation. If the methods of applying
such a power vary in the course of the ages, it remains
in substance unchanged and persists in the hands of
the Church as an absolutely normal right, required by
the very nature of things, a right the exercise of which
could cease only if God abandoned the world to itself,
that is to say to perdition.
Formerly, when the political régime of the nations
involved heads which were truly sovereign, it was above
all they who were as a general rule affected by the
indirect power [42]. At the present day it is not
unusual for it to affect even simple citizens or groups of
citizens. Pius X placed this beyond doubt in con­
demning as modernist the following propositions :
“ Every Catholic, because he is at the same time a
citizen, has the right and the duty, disregarding the
authority of the Church and heedless of her wishes,
counsel and demands, in defiance even of her rebukes,
to pursue the public good in any way he thinks best.
To prescribe a line of conduct for the citizen on any
pretext whatever is an abuse of the ecclesiastical power
which it is a duty to resist with all one’s strength.” 1

7. It makes a Frenchman blush to think that
Gallican governments long compelled [43] the cpis1 Encyclical Pascendi, Denzinger-Bannwart’s Enchiridion Symbolo­
rum, etc., 2092. The references throughout are to the i6th and 17th
edition, Freiburg, 1928.

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copate to suppress the lessons in the breviary relating
to St. Gregory VII, because that Pope deposed the
Emperor Henry IV. Strictly speaking, to refuge the
spiritual power the right to intervene in politics is to
deny the existence of an independent spiritual power.
It is, in fact, to assert that moral v.ducs affecting
political acts depend upon the temporal power alone
and so to transfer to the temporal power pro tanto
jurisdiction over things spiritual [441. As often as the
temporal refuses the spiritual its right o\cr the
temporal, the temporal pro tanto encroac hes upon the
spiritual. “ The king,” wrote Fénelon in his notes,
“is in practice more head of the Church than the
Pope in France. Liberties vis-à-vis the Pope, servi­
tude vis-à-vis the King ” [45]· Three centuries
earlier, the apologists of Philip the Fair, on the pretext
of asserting the independence of the State and the
patriotic obligations of the Church, “ in reality
clamoured for the subjection of the Church to the
State and the right of the State to use, control, and
regulate the moral and social force represented by
the Church. The ultimate end they pursued was
the public and national interest which, they contended,
it was the function of the State alone to administer
with a despotism beyond the reach of any law ” [46].
Again, considering the matter the other way round,
there is no spiritual act but translates itself in some
way, either by itself or its more or less remote conse­
quences, into the exterior and temporal order, so that
driven to the extreme, the absolute autonomy of the
temporal would end by subjecting—through the
temporal aspect which human acts afl'ect—the whole
of the spiritual to the temporal. For this reason the
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pretext of such autonomy may suffice to give an appear­
ance of legality to the most savage persecutions.
The regalian formula “ complete independence of the
temporal ” reeks of deceit and death, like the formula
of the “ inviolability of the lay laws ” which has
succeeded it at the present day.
That unwarrantable “ clerical interferences ” may
occur in the temporal sphere nobody would be so
foolish as to deny. Malum ul in pluribus in specie humana
is a statistical law as true of the clergy as of the laity,
and every man entrusted with any power over
other men may be tempted to abuse it. But it is a
humiliating thing for the intellect and essentially
pernicious to deny a right in order to get rid of a
practical inconvenience. On the other hand, the fact
is that such interferences are in most cases made not by
superiors acting within the limits of their functions,
still less by the Church herself acting in the person
of the Supreme Pontiff, but by ecclesiastics exceeding
the limits of their legitimate authority. Nemo militans
Deo implicat se negotiis saecularibus1 ; it is devoutly
to be wished that the clergy refrain from the business
of the world, that priests abstain from politics in their
parishes, that bishops concern themselves little with
changes of government, that the laity be spared the
spectacle of priests and religious consumed with a
burning passion for a party—democratic, nationalist
or racial—and adopting its prejudices and hatreds.
Such contaminations of the spiritual by the temporal
have nothing in common with the right of the spiritual
over the temporal for the avoidance of sin and are
even quite the reverse.
1 St. Paul, 2 Timothy ii. 4.

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Let it be added that the abuses mentioned seem as
a general rule to have been most prevalent where the
power of the Pope was weakest and regadan principles
most vigorous : in the time of the concordats more
than in the Middle Ages. And the reason is not far to
seek, because they proceed in the first place from a sort
of particularism which yokes the authority of religion
to the service of certain social groups or certain human
interests. It is in the universality of the Church and
divine interests that the remedy for this c\ il is to be
found. The power of the Pope is the strongest
guarantee the nations can have against it. By the
very fact of his being vigilant in the sphere of
politics itself to protect the interests of the spiritual, he
is also their strongest bulwark against every other
abuse : “ The truth is that in anything salutary to
the general good in a State, in anything useful to
protect the people against the licence of princes careless
of its good, in anything which might prevent the unjust
encroachments of the State on the commons or the
family, in anything involving honour, human person­
ality and the maintenance of the equality before the
law of every citizen, the Catholic Church has ever
taken the initiative, bestowed her patronage on all
such things and conferred upon them her protection.”
1

It is instructive to consider the pride of States and
mortal kings persistent in their determination through­
out four centuries to reject the tutelage of the spiritual
power [47] and to claim an absolute sovereignty, only
to end by fatal necessity (it is not matter which holds
States together but the spirit) in revolutionary and
' Leo XIll, Encyclical Immortale Dei.

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democratic crises and in our day in the largest diminu­
tions of sovereignty from below—I mean by the very
development and tyranny of the economic, the law of
material “ progress ” making modern States less and
less capable of being self-sufficient units, less and less
of a “ perfect society,” at a time when their national
particularism in the moral order is carried to the
furthest extreme.
Be the claims of sovereigns and nations as they may,
the Church, for her part, has not ceased to proclaim
her imprescriptible right to intervene in temporal
matters ratione peccati. This is not a mere opinion, but a
“ theologically certain ” truth, formally taught by the
doctrinal magistracy of the Church [48].
III. THE EXTENT OF THE INDIRECT POWER

8. The formal object of the indirect power is perfectly
delimited : it is the ratio peccati, the moral element
affecting the spiritual good and the life of the Church
which happens to be involved in the temporal. The
subject matter of the power is everything in exterior and
temporal things which may admit of that formal
reason, in other words has a moral value, concerns the
moral activity of the human being [49]. This is
practically unlimited : any temporal arrangement,
any kind of temporal activity may, if the ratio peccati is
sufficiently seriously implicated, necessitate the exercise
of the indirect power.
There are in the concrete no morally indifferent
human acts. Some acts, considered in themselves
and from the point of view of the object, are doubtless
neither good nor bad : but nobody performs them
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unless for a given end and in certain given circum­
stances. They are on that account then good or bad
in fact, have necessarily a moral value Γ50]. There­
fore as each of us is citizen of two States, the terrestrial
State and the City of God, so each of our acts is a point
liable to be affected by an at all events pottntial
relation to the common good of the tenestrial State
and a relation to the common spiritual good of the
City of the Saints, the supreme and sovereign custodian
of moral values. If an act, in itself of an individual or
domestic kind, affects in a sufficiently important way
the good of the terrestrial State, the legislator may
subject it to the dispositions of the civil law. So also
if an act, in itself of a temporal kind, affects in a
sufficiently serious way the good of the City of God—
no longer a temporal, but a spiritual good—the
spiritual power may subject it to its ordinances.
When it so intervenes in regard to things dependent
in themselves on the civil authority or the activity of
the citizen, it may then be said to intervene in temporal
matters “ connected with ” the general good of souls
[51]. It must be thoroughly realised here that the
relation to the common good of the Church may
depend not only on the nature of the object, but also
on the contingent historic conditions, the ends pursued
and the circumstances involved. Things which are
not bad of their kind may so become accidentally
vitiated and thereby constitute a danger to souls ;
consider, for example, kingship falling into the hands
of a heretic or pervert or the activity of the partisans
of some political ideal which, although lawful in itself,
may tend to make them lose sight of truth or detach
them from the order of charity. Any sort of temporal
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work—not only a public decree or legislative enact­
ment [52], the raising of taxes, the declaration of war
or a treaty of peace, but also the activity of a professional
or syndical or political group, the exercise of some
particular civic right [53]—may come into special
connection with the good of souls, once it becomes for
instance the occasion of some spiritual aberration or
happens to affect sufficiently seriously the rights and
liberty of the Church or the orientation of the faithful
towards eternal salvation.

9. Who is to be the judge of such a connection and
the gravity of the spiritual interests involved ? Clearly
the Church alone. “ The Church must judge not
simply according to the laws of her jurisprudence, but
first and foremost, let it be carefully observed, accord­
ing to what is required of her maternal responsibility,
which is limitless. . . . Every instinct of the Christian
reason, so far from tending to confuse the two powers,
human and divine, rather inclines to make no distinc­
tion between the maternal office of the Church and her
suzerainty, to make one the foundation and the measure
of the other, to stop the Church’s right of intervention
only at limits imposed by herself, to acknowledge
her character of arbiter and counseller, not only
beneficent but also necessary, and, let it be said,
sovereign and unlimited in practice.
“ For the Christian relates the public sovereign
right of the Church to the four inviolable prerogatives
which attest her divine origin and constitution.
Unity necessarily gathers round her and brings within
her fold all nations and states. Sanctity preserves
her from both the errors and the assaults of man-made
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laws. Catholicity exempts her from every national
servitude. Apostoli city is the seal of her priesthood
and the bulwark of her jurisdiction. These divine
guarantees have an element, if not of the specifically
infinite, at any rate of the unlimited in their applica­
tion ” [54]. And it is for the Church alone, for the
Pope alone to determine, hic et nunc, in every particular
case, the extent of such application : to judge on what
occasions and in what circumstances what temporal
matter calls for the exercise of the indirect power on
the ground of its relation to the life of souls and
their last supernatural end. For “ only the teaching
Church is qualified to judge of the relation between
temporal things and the last supernatural end to which
it is her duty to lead us ” [55]. Here we stand at the
parting of the ways where every human conception of
the Church, however elevated, proves inadequate.
I can understand that so extensive a power should
scandalise unbelievers and heretics. But it is not
necessary, it would even be absurd for those who do
not and those who do know what the Church is to
form the same idea of what her rights are. That
Catholics should be scandalised or disquieted is what
is abnormal and disquieting.
Moreover, if we consider things in their proper
proportions in time, we shall perceive, as Joseph de
Maistre observed, that the Popes have very rarely
used the formidable sanctions given them by the
indirect power. What earthly power, possessing such
a right, would use it as a rule with such moderation ?
The Church is not anxious to put our strength of
soul to the test ; she knows that perpetual worrying is
always a danger even to governments : she exercises
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her authority in temporal matters only in cases of
urgent necessity—which also shows that all the more
importance is to be attached to such interventions.
I would add that it is for the prudence of the Church
alone to determine, according to circumstances and
the gravity of every particular case, the weight of
importance her intervention should assume in the
very rich and subtle scale which ranges from a mere
request or suggestion or recommendation to a formal
order and the most definitive juridical proceedings :
in modern terminology, to give the exercise of her
indirect power a directive or imperative character, the
value of a mere counsel or a positive command.
IV.

CHRISTIAN

OBEDIENCE

io. The virtue of obedience is an exalted virtue,
eminently reasonable ; it is not in the least servile
or blind, but requires on the contrary the greatest
freedom of spirit and the strongest discernment. If
a superior, even a lawful superior, exceeds the limits
of his jurisdiction or gives an order opposed to the
command of a more exalted superior, he need not be
obeyed. With such exceptions, we must obey the
powers under which we are constituted, because they
derive their authority from God, even though they
exercise it improperly. Christian obedience is more­
over an infused moral virtue ; it is incomprehensible
if it be not related to absolutely supernatural motives.
Through the whole range of created hierarchies its
obedience is rendered to God, it understands that the
order and counsel received depend from that obscure
government of Providence which makes use of human
infirmities to serve some greater good.
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In the case of a direction or a counsel as in the case
of an express order—given by a lawful superior acting
within the scope of his lawful authority—the virtue
of obedience should come into play : but in different
ways, broadly in the former, narrowly in the latter
case. As there is, in fact, a correspondence between
agent and patient, so there ought to be a correspond­
ence between the manner in which the superior
gradates the exercise of his authority and the manner
in which the inferior gradates his docility.

ii. If it is of the essence of a counsel not to require
strict obedience and if, therefore, the inferior may have
valid reasons for not executing materially whatever
the superior more or less instantly suggests to or requires
from him, there is, nevertheless, even so, a provi­
dential direction in the action of the superior which
an intelligent obedience can distinguish and retain.
This is a particularly complex and shifting domain,
as always when prudence has to submit human
contingencies to its regulations, which vary in every
case. The essential then is the practical firmness of the
filial dispositions of the will. There are filial acts of
initiative and opposition which, so far from offending
obedience, rather on the contrary presuppose it and
are possible only through it, for they imply the profound
docility of a mind rightly convinced that it is not
disobedient and genuinely disposed to compliance if
the authority (assuming always a lawful authority
keeping within the bounds of its jurisdiction) trans­
formed the counsel into a formal order. As a certain
chill and excessively cautious fear, such as the fear
with which Bossuet taxed Descartes in regard to the
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Church, in reality borders close on disobedience, being
a lifeless obedience, so liberty of feelings and confidence
betoken a living, filial obedience.
Invited to take proceedings with his regal authority
against people whose quarrels with their bishops
involved questions of merely temporal interest, St.
Louis, in refusing such requests, had no idea of setting
up as a principle a superiority of his jurisdiction over
that of the episcopate ; he merely wanted to be
certain, for the tranquillity of his conscience, that his
coercive measures would be just and in the first
instance laughingly to evade “ in his common sense,”
as Joinville says, claims he had some reason for thinking
ill-founded. It is true that with regard to the Pope, the
highest superior of all and judge without appeal,
greater docility is required : for a number of prelates
do not constitute the Church and do not bind the
Church, as the judges of Rouen have clearly proved ;
whereas the Pope is the authentic voice of the Church.
Nevertheless, even as regards the Pope, intervening
with a request or a counsel, St. Louis could display,
without offence to the virtue of obedience, the liberty
of a son [56]. If he refused the request of Gregory IX
and Innocent IV to make war on Frederick II, first
excommunicated and then deposed, his understanding
with the Pope was in no way impaired ; he protected
him at the Council of Lyons, placed himself at the
Pope’s disposal in an endeavour to effect a reconcilia­
tion between him and the Emperor and in the end
violently threatened the latter that he would take the
field against him [57]. It must however be observed
that once the Pope expressly alleges as a reason for
his intervention dangers which with our connivance
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might imperil the good of souls, the integrity of
Catholic doctrine or devotion, the case would then
assume a special gravity and require from us particu­
larly effective and particularly prompt evidence of
obedience.
It is for the Christian intelligence, the spirit of
faith, the gift of counsel, to distinguish the providential
directions referred to and to appreciate in every case
the extent, importance and urgency of the docility
required.
The absence of a filial impulse towards the Vicar
of Christ, the fact of whittling away the counsel
received to the utmost possible (there have been many
cases of the sort in the last fifty years) will indicate
precisely the absence or diminution of the spirit of faith.
I have already recalled elsewhere the teaching on this
point of Père Clérissac. “ He declared that it was
always possible, even when no express command inter­
vened, to distinguish the pure spiritual line according
to which the direction imposed from above became
incumbent upon the virtue of obedience. He added
that such exceeding deference for authority required
also the nicest discernment, according to the degrees
and kinds of subordination and mandate, for it related
to a living and free docility of the practical judgement,
not to a servile and mechanical performance. In
spite of his attachment to his monarchical convictions,
he deeply regretted that French Catholics should
have been so disobedient, as he said, to Pope Leo ΧΠΙ,
and he blamed indifferently one party for not having
shown sufficient obedience and the other for having

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have adduced of such failures to obey in spirit and
truth the will of the Pope ” [58].

I

12. If, such being the case, the Church gives not
merely a counsel or direction, but a categorical order,
then it is clear that we owe her obedience, not only
in the spirit but also in the letter of the order received ;
it is a fault not to obey strictly.
What sort of fault ? As far as the direct power of
the Church over spiritual things is concerned, we
commit a fault against faith 1 in not conforming our
judgement to an infallible doctrinal decision, whether
it proceed from a definition or solemn condemnation
ex cathedra or the ordinary and universal magistracy
of the Church [59] ; we commit a sin of doctrinal
temerity, a fault against the obedience due to the
Church so far as interior assent itself is concerned, in
refusing either a doctrinal instruction imparted by the
Pope with the general assistance of the Holy Ghost,
but not involving any infallible decision, or a noninfallible doctrinal decision determining the better
opinion in any particular matter connected with the
Faith [60] ; we also commit a fault against obedience
in resisting an order given by the Church in virtue
of its direct power in the sphere of spiritual government
and discipline [61]. Lastly, we commit a fault against
obedience, a fault against the justice and the filial
piety which bind us to the Church in resisting an order
given by the Church in virtue of her indirect power over
the temporal [62]. The mystic Body of Christ forms a
1 A truth (in doctrine or of fact) may be infallibly proposed either as
of revelation, or merely as connected with revealed dogma. The obstinate
refusal to give one’s adhesion is a fault against faith which the Church
in the former case describes as heresy.

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perfect society, that is to say an absolutely selfsufficient community lacking none of the elements
which together constitute social life ; a perfect society
presupposes an authority to which obedience is dec
in conscience, even where that authority is fallible.
The Pope can, no doubt, change his mind when the
subject matter is fallible and contingent. One Pope'
can undo the work of a predecessor. So that a filial
obedience is bound to submit, under pain of fault, to
the command once given and under pain of imper­
fect conformity to the spiritual line which the Christian
intelligence can discern in the command or the mere
counsel—but it is nevertheless legitimate, if one has
good reasons therefor, to try to induce the Pope to
change his decision, as a son may in the case of his
father, the father in this case being the supreme
authority on earth.
Once the order is issued, however, there is no option
but to obey.
We should always remember that there is normally
a presumption of right in favour of the superior and
that nothing is so unreasonable, in the event of being
oneself called upon to obey, as to go and ransack history
for a collection of precedents of mistakes made by
authority. That kind of zeal docs not argue enlighten­
ment. Nevertheless a precise theory of obedience
ought to define the obligations below which, in default
of a more generous virtue, it is strictly speaking im­
possible to go. Although as a general rule it is rash
to express even an interior speculative judgement
contrary to the judgement of the supreme superior, who
is more enlightened than any one else and has the
general interests of the Church in mind, nevertheless
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conformity of the speculative judgement is not required,
even with respect to an order irom the Pope, at all
events so long as the Pope is not speaking ex cathedra
or does not have recourse to measures such as cncyclicals, for example, ox* the doctrinal decrees oi the Moly
Office which oblige our interior assent [63]. But
even when it is possible for the speculative judgement
to remain in suspense, the practical judgement and the
will ought to conform to the order given. “ Even
unjust censures arc to be received with respect,”
said Gregory the Great, ‘k for in resisting them, we
run the risk, by our very pride of disobedience, of
giving rise to the fault which until then was non­
existent ” [64].
It is of the highest importance in this connection to
understand the peculiar character of the obedience
due to a reality which, like the Church of Christ, itself
constitutes a supernatural mystery ; the Church is not
only a visible and apparent reality but also an object of
faith, not a system of administrative cog-wheels but
the Body of Christ whose living unity, incomparably
more elevated and stronger than anything in this
world we describe as moral personality, is guaranteed
by the action of the Holy Ghost. If the men who
visibly exercise authority therein act as responsible
agents,1 liable as such to human error (except in cases
involving infallibility), they nevertheless act as agents
subordinate to the government of Jesus Christ, the
invisible Head of the whole body. Not only do the
practical errors of judgement and any other mistakes
they may make become incorporated, as foreseen and
permitted, in that divine government of the Church,
1 Cf. ρρ. 7-8.

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but also, even so, at any rate where the decisions of the
supreme visible chief are concerned, the wisdom of the
Spirit of Christ makes the universal Church tend
positively, through all the hesitations and infirmities
of her humanity, to ends which are always just and
good. The faithful heart is well aware that, in the
mystic Body of Christ, the shortcomings of human
nature still serve the most holy action of God, which
never fails to attain its goal.
I do not hereby intend to palliate such weaknesses
or abuses as have occurred in the course of time. I
would, on the contrary, rather emphasise them, but
whatever displeasure they may have given God,
whatever providential sanctions they may have earned,
they have never diverted the Church from her end.
The assistance of the Holy Ghost guarantees her not only
a simple and as it were negative privilege of inerrancy
in matters of faith (a privilege which ought to be
regarded on the contrary as the consequence of the
most active and elevated intellectual gift) [65], but
also a positive direction, an irresistible progressive
movement which derives profit from everything,
shortcomings and errors no less than feats of strength
and virtues, and which, even when the subject matter
is fallible, subordinates every decision of the supreme
authority to a divinely just and true intention [66].
Our speculative judgement can and ought always to
adhere in faith to that intention of the Holy Ghost,
even though it be imperceptible to our eyes of flesh.
And this very fact makes the conformity of the practical
judgement and the will incomparably easier in regard
to the Church and the Pope than in regard to any
other authority [67].
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13. Leaving merely theoretical considerations for
the contemplation of facts, such conformity of the
practical judgement is all the easier because, in reality,
as a general rule, an impartial examination of the
particular circumstances compels the admission that
the decisions of the pontifical government appear in
the majority of cases on the whole more just and far
better founded than that of any other. As regards the
censures—even the non-infalliblc censures—with which
the Popes, for the defence of Catholic doctrine or spirit,
have visited certain great currents of thought, they
have always condemned evils which were only too
real. Nevertheless, with the exception of cases of
infallible definition, where the prudential contingencies
of practical opportunities were concerned, errors and
deficiencies inseparable from human government
have not always been avoided. “ The power which
has never abused its strength does not exist,” wrote
Joseph de Maistre, observing, also, that in fact the
history of the Papacy, considered as a whole, has an
incomparably better record than any other human
principality and gives “ the mind of every intelligent
observer the impression of a power palpably receiving
assistance.” “ It is not a question of whether the
Popes were men or if they never made mistakes ” [68],
either spontaneously or because they were badly
or insufficiently informed. Any historian can pass any
judgement he likes on any of their acts, his judgement
lacks authority and is invalid. Once they gave orders,
they had to be obeyed. Saints such as St. Irenaeus
and St. Catharine of Siena might address violent
remonstrances to them. They none the less obeyed
[69]. Placed on the pinnacle of spiritual sovereignty,
»
33

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THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

they depend on no created authority. For the good
or evil use they make of their power, they arc respon­
sible to God alone : to Him alone they are account­
able for whatever practical errors or abuses they may
commit ; according to the magnificent analogy
drawn by the old theologians, “ the spiritual man
judgeth all things : and he himself is judged of no
man.”1 “ Therefore, if terrestrial authority goes
astray, it will be judged by the spiritual authority.
If the lower spiritual authority goes astray, it will be
judged by the higher spiritual authority, and if the
supreme spiritual authority goes astray, it can be
judged by God alone and not by man ” [70]. He who,
as regards the State, stands on the summit of spiritu­
ality, is not amenable to the judgement of any man.
“Take care,” said St. Catharine of Siena to Gregory XI,
“ that I do not have to complain about you to Jesus
crucified. There is no one else I can complain to,
for you have no superior on earth.”
To allege on any particular occasion when the Pope
exercises his indirect power that he is transgressing the
limits of his lawful authority and then to pretend, as an
excuse for non-obedience, an abuse of authority in the
juridical sense of the term is an absurdity, for the
reason that a power is concerned whose sphere of
activity does not admit of any predetermined limits and
the extent of the application of which it is for the Pope
alone to determine in any particular case. It is
sufficient that the Pope should consider that a suffici­
ently serious spiritual interest is involved in any
temporal arrangement for an intervention by him in
1 St. Paul, i Corinthians ii. 15.
face VIII in the Bull Unam sanctam.

34

This text is quoted by Boni­

THE

TWO

POWERS

regard thereto to be legitimate. The same rule clearly
applies, and a fortiori, to reactions on the temporal of
a measure itself falling within the province of the
direct power (doctrinal and disciplinary) over the
spiritual.
To apply the teaching of St. Thomas with regard to
obedience to human laws [71], resistance would appear
to be permissible in two cases only : (a) in the event of
a Pope taking steps plainly subversive of the common
good of the Church and (Z>) in the event of his ordering
the commission of a sin, the performance of an intrinsi­
cally evil act, in which case disobedience would not
merely be permissible but even necessary. Such
cases, however, have never occurred in the govern­
ment of the Church by its visible Head acting as such.
If among many good and saintly Popes there have been
some few bad, they have never set up their own faults
as laws of the Church or perverted those laws to their
own advantage. Never, in addressing the Church
with the express intention of binding the faithful, have
they ordered evil to be done. If a Pope, acting as a
private person or issuing an order to some individual,
may occasionally place a soul in a situation to commit
sin, the Vicar of Christ, acting as Head of the Church,
is nevertheless by divine right the certain guide of human
life [72] ; it is impossible—for the gates of Hell would
then prevail—for any of his universal disciplinary
decrees [73] ever to enjoin anything contrary to what
is morally good [74] ; theologians, no doubt, do
not admit the same impossibility in the case of decisions
lacking the validity of universal law ; to have the
right, however, not to obey one of them, it must
appear immediately, self-evidently and incontestably
35

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THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

opposed to the law of God,1 and the instances they
adduce are all entirely theoretical acts of monstrous
wickedness : of a Pope refusing to grant an ecclesiastical
benefice except against payment in gold, transforming
St. Peter’s in Rome into a palace for his relations,
ordering the treasure of the Church to be distributed
among them and so forth. ... In fact, God has never
permitted the conscience of the Faithful to be divided
between a commandment of His and a formal obliga­
tion imposed by the Pope in virtue of his apostolic
authority ; even when practical errors, ill considered
or inopportune actions may creep in, the Church is
still protected against everything which would be
radically contrary to her mission.
One would therefore be running grave risk of
condemning oneself, by showing that one entertained
very hazardous opinions concerning the Church and
1 Cf. in this connection the answers given by Bellarmine to the
“ seven madmen of Venice,” as he described the seven theologians
who claimed to justify the resistance of the Senate of Venice to a brief
of Paul V. On the 17th April, 1606, Paul V—for legitimate reasons—
had laid Venice under an interdict. “ The Senate of Venice refused
to admit the Pope’s brief and had a public protest billed against what
it had the temerity to call a void and null document ; then, in order
to allay the agitation of minds, it appointed a committee of theologians
with instructions to prove the justice of these steps and the illegality
of the interdict” (Couderc, le Vénérable Cardinal Bellarmin, 1893, vol. i,
p. no). Bellarmine replied to the memorial of these theologians in
two Riposte in which he gives a practical commentary of his De Summo
Pontifice (Fèvre, vol. viii). “ If the sin is evident,” he wrote, “ there is
no duty to obey and it is idle to examine things which are self-evident :
if the sin is doubtful, obedience is a duty and one can refer to the judge­
ment of a superior ; a subject is not thereby exposed to the risk of
sin : because God commands him to obey his superior, so that, if there
be any sin in such obedience, the superior will bear the blame and the
subject take the merit.” Fra Paolo Sarpi, who was chiefly responsible
for the memorial, had written that, before obeying any order received
even from the Supreme Pontiff, Christians ought first to consider
whether the order was proper, lawful and binding. Bellarmine replied
that that was a heretical opinion, because it condemned and declared

3θ

THE

TWO

POWERS

the Pope, if one were to allege such pretexts as a
reason for disobeying a categorical order of the Church
or the Pope. If the Pope, for the defence of Catholic
doctrine or the integrity of the Christian spirit, issued
a decree calling upon some school of thought or
political party to reform itself—to allege that he is
ordering the commission of a sin, because such a party
cannot reform itself without ceasing to exist and the
country will be “ assassinated ” if it ceases to exist,
would not only be proceeding to an unheard of
reversal of values, by making the stalus quo of a party
in practice a good superior to the good of souls and the
Church ; it would also involve making the most
serious decision possible depend upon a non-existent
principle and having recourse to the right of resistance
in the very case in which such a right did not come
blameworthy the simple unquestioning obedience commended by all
the Fathers and the Holy Ghost Himself. To question a command
not clearly involving a sin is reprehended by the Fathers, because
anyone who submits the command to his own scrutiny thereby appoints
himself the judge of his superior and St. James says : “ if thou judge the
law, thou art not a doer of the law but a judge.” “ This is the twelfth
proposition in the tract of the seven theologians and it is heretical. . . .
For simple unquestioning obedience of the order is commended by
all the holy Fathers and by the Holy Spirit Himself, Ps. xvii
at the
hearing of the ear, they have obeyed me,” i.e. as soon as they heard, they
obeyed at once without further question. But Fr. Paul’s proposition . . .
condemns the same obedience as evil and makes the obedient guilty of sin.
But the questioning of a command which does not clearly involve a sin
is reprehended by the Fathers, because anyone questioning the precept
appoints himself judge of his superior ” and Bellarmine then quotes St.
James (cf. Auctarium Bellarminum, ed. Le Bachelet, No. 87, § 2, p. 588).
Bellarmine, in his second answer, repeats that a mere probability
is not enough to warrant disobedience and recalls the general rule laid
down by St. Augustine that the subject is bound to obey not only when
he is sure that the superior is ordering him nothing against God, but
also when he is not certain if he is ordering him something against
God, because in case of doubt it is his4duty to follow the judgement
of the superior and not his own (Riposta ad un libretto, etc. Fèvre,
vol. viii, p. 64).

37

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

into play : for would anyone dare to suggest that such
a series of equations is immediately evident and un­
deniably possible ? Even to such as do not perceive
its indubitable falsity, it cannot but appear as em­
inently debatable. Now as Bellarmine, recalling
St. Augustine, reminds us, to question an order
received which does not clearly involve a sin is to
constitute the subject judge of the superior ; one
would be entitled to refuse obedience to the Pope
only if his command appeared clearly and beyond all
shadow of doubt contrary to the law of God. “ A
mere probability is not enough. The subject is bound
to obey, not only when he is sure that the superior
is not ordering him something contrary to God, but
also when he is not certain that he is ordering him
something contrary to God, because in case of doubt
he must follow the judgement of the superior and not
his own judgement. . . . He does not then run the risk
of committing sin, because God has ordered him to
obey his superior, so that if there be anything wrong
in such obedience, the fault is the fault of the superior
and the merit the merit of the subject.” 1
14. Obedience always does harm to something ;
it is a sacrifice. Instead of going to fetch Placid and
walking on the waters, Maurus might have retorted
to St. Benedict that to throw oneself into the water
without being able to swim was to sin against the duty
of self-preservation, which is a natural right. There
would always be good reasons for disobedience on that
score and every sacrifice would appear as a sin. In
reality to suffer some detriment to oneself or to what one
1 Cf. the preceding note.

3θ

THE

TWO

POWERS

loves for a superior good is not sinful, but meritorious.
If the superior commands an act forbidden by God,
obedience in that case would be a sin. But it is not
a sin against the duties which we owe ourselves to obey
our country when it asks us to risk our life for it.
Similarly it is no sin to risk any terrestrial good whatever,
however eminent, to obey the Church. For the good
to which the Church is ordered and in virtue of which
the Pope commands is eternal life. There is no
greater good. Duty to the State or their country
has as a rule been alleged by nations and kings as a
pretext for rebellion against the power of the Church.
But one’s country is not above God, the good of the
human State is not above the good of the divine State.
The Church, that is to say Christ, takes precedence
of our country in the hierarchy of our love [75].
Besides, as a matter of fact, if we love one above the
other, we need have no fear that God will ask us to
choose between them. Such a sacrifice has never
been required except and through its own fault from
the Jewish people, which unconsciously achieved it
and so doing ruined itself for the redemption of the
world.
May it not sometimes happen, however, that in
giving an order for the protection of the spiritual,
the Pope may, in certain cases, gravely compromise
temporal interests which ought to be dear to us ?
To proceed at once to the extreme, let us suppose such
a case. Well then, if we think so, we can make
representations to the Pope exposing the gravity of
the circumstances and try to induce him to change his
decision. But we must obey.
No private person, no temporal authority, prince
39

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

or emperor, is appointed judge of the universal good,
is entitled to have his private judgement prevail in the
government of things over the order issued by the
Head of the Church on account of spiritual interests.
And if the Pope does not change his mind, if grave
temporal interests are really thereby endangered, we
must still obey, although we may contrive, by every
honourable means compatible with obedience, to
protect such interests. And have recourse to God.
It is the only recourse then possible.
In fact, I hasten to add, things will never reach such
an extremity. Why ? Because in obeying a superior
in the exercise of his lawful authority—even supposing
that the act ordered, without being itself bad, runs
the risk of injuring by its consequences very sacred
interests—we are obeying God. God permits it for
the superior ends of His special providence which
is in the highest degree universal. The palpable
and immediate inconveniences then resulting from
obedience are the condition of some future good,
assuring in their most real significance, by some
unpredictable reversal, the grave interests in question ;
for the Providence of man can and ought only to judge
according to such knowledge as it can possess, whereas
the Providence of God judges according to the secrets
concealed within it, according to the real state,
imperceptible to our eyes, of human forces and minds,
lastly but not least, by taking account of the fortuitous
which depends on that Providence alone. If the
interests in question are as just and sacred as they are
thought to be, it will surely take care of them. This
doctrine may seem harsh, because it puts the invisible
before the visible. For anyone who believes in God
40

■Jj

THE

TWO

POWERS

and the supernatural order, it is more certain than a
mathematical demonstration.
It is not based upon the general justice of Providence
only, but also, as far as one’s country in particular is
concerned, on the very nature of the political commun­
ity and its good. For all things in the universe are
ordered. And the terrestrial State being ordered by
nature, as we have seen, to the moral good of the human
being, and therefore necessarily ordered in fact to
eternal life as to its last end and to the good of the
divine State, it is a metaphysical impossibility for the
terrestrial State to attain its peculiar end and true
prosperity in opposition to the good of the Church.
Yet it believed that it could. The history of the modern
world is the history of that illusion. The results arc
before our eyes.
The preceding hypothesis was therefore illegitimate.
In fact, obedience to the orders of the Church can
never compromise to any permanent and profound
extent temporal interests which ought to be dear to
us, more particularly the interests of the State. It
can injure only certain momentary aspects and above
all our conception of those interests. For we constantly
tend to confuse the public good with the way in which
we want to ensure it. But nobody has the right to
identify his private cause with the cause and common
good of the countiy.
V.

THE

TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY
THE POPE

OF

15. The temporal sovereignty of the Pope is a
different thing from his indirect power over the tem­
41

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

poral, but it follows from the same principles, that is to
say from the primacy of the spiritual over the temporal
and the connection between the two.
It is absolutely necessary that the spiritual sove­
reignty, that is to say the supreme sovereignty, shall
be perfectly free and independent : that the person
invested with it therefore be subject to no temporal
power or any State. But no other means has yet
been or ever will be devised of not being subject unless
to be sovereign. The Pope, therefore, must absolutely
be a temporal sovereign [76], because of his spiritual
sovereignty. This temporal sovereignty is attached
to his person : he is a royal person, the most eminent of
all. The Papal States and the kingship he formerly
wielded over them were at once the symbol and the
guarantee of that sovereignty : the Vatican City is
so now.
The Pope, as a temporal sovereign, has a diplomatic
service as formerly he had an army. He has a
temporal policy which is directed, no doubt, in the
character he impresses upon it, to the preservation of
spiritual interests, but which, of itself, remains distinct
from his indirect power, his right to intervene at any
point in the temporal sphere by a counsel or a command
because of those same interests. And as his army
once conformed to military custom and sometimes
even waged war, so his diplomatic service conforms to
the customs and methods of the chancellories, without
thereby requiring—although the most respectful defer­
ence is naturally due to it—the obedience of the
nations.
So at the same time as in the plenitude of his
universal spiritual sovereignty, which makes him
42

V

THE

TWO

POWERS

everywhere at home, he acts as supreme judge directly
over the spiritual and indirectly over the temporal
because of spiritual interests, the Pope exercises in the
world, in virtue of his temporal sovereignty, a purely
political activity ordered to the spiritual good of
Christendom but of a merely diplomatic kind.
It is important to distinguish between this merely
political action, which leaves us free agents, and
orders issued in virtue of the direct or indirect power,
which would have us obedient.

43

A

II
A
I.

CRISIS OF THE CATHOLIC
SPIRIT

THE

CONDEMNATION OF
FRANÇAISE

THE

ACTION

16. A grave crisis involving some of the essential
principles of religion and the most pressing problems of
the day occurred a few years ago among the Catholics
of France with reference to the Action Française and
the warnings issued in regard to it by the Holy See.
The movement was subsequently condemned. In a
pamphlet published at the beginning of the crisis, I
proposed to examine the political thought of Maurras,
indicating both the partial truths implicit in it and the
dangers it involved. The pamphlet concluded with an
appeal to filial obedience which alone in a crisis, the
gravity of which was everywhere realised, could
prevent more stringent sanctions [77J.
Subsequent events have greatly modified and en­
larged the significance of the crisis in quite a different
sense from what might have been desired ; the con­
clusions imposed on the debate by the course of events
now need to be recorded. It is the business of
ecclesiastical authority to explain the motives and the
grounds of the condemnations it decrees and I do not
propose to trespass upon its domain. In reverting to a
painful incident, my intention is merely to discern
its meaning and moral and above all to anticipate some
44

CRISIS

OF

THE

CATHOLIC

SPIRIT

of the conditions of the positive work which remains to
be done.
I repeat here what I said in the pamphlet above
mentioned ; urged by overwhelming moral evidence,
I intervene simply in order to testify to the truth, by
setting forth the considered opinion of an impartial
onlooker ; I speak only for myself. I may be permitted
to express the hope that the reader will consent to
forget for a moment the bitterness engendered by a
recent past and all controversy on matters of detail so
that the question may be considered in a universal
aspect. If I could obtain from some that “ silence in
Heaven about the space of half an hour ” mentioned
in the Apocalypse, I should consider myself fortunate.
I am well aware that neither the violence of passionate
discussions nor the apathy which allows wounds to go
septic of themselves is capable of providing any remedy
for evils latent in the conflict and constituting a danger
to the souls of individuals and the welfare of my
country and that they are only to be cured by light ;
I would collaborate above all to the best of my poor
ability with the interior work of such as are resolved to
raise themselves by an effort of the mind above time.
I can only think of Charles Maurras with sorrow.
Devoured with a passion for order and the supreme
laws of authority, he was then to be seen at the head of
Catholics, who defied the orders of their spiritual Chief
and lay under the ban of the supreme authority which
in his heart he never ceased to revere, although the
secret of its essential nature and its inspiration escape
him. The affection I bear that indomitable soul
makes me realise the full tragedy of his destiny.
But the love I bear the Vicar of the crucified God
45

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

makes me also realise the depth of his personal, his
paternal suffering. He has charge of the whole
world. If he strikes, it is for the good of souls, to heal
the wounds of Christ’s flock. In the awful solitude
which raises him above all men, all the sorrows of
Christendom are echoed in him ; he acts as the faithful
shepherd, he risks himself for love of us, goaded by
the consciousness of his responsibilities. Of the
multitude of Christians moved by every kind of human
sentiment, how many give a thought to the sorrows of
the Pope, to the great anguish ever vigilant on the
top of the towers of the Church ?

17. The Church, no doubt, intended to intervene
in the present quarrel in virtue simply of her doctrinal
magistracy and to censure authoritatively certain
errors, a system of ideas described by the Pope as
“ political, doctrinal and practical modernism ” 1 ;
such intervention was within the province of her
direct power over the spiritual and the protection of
the spiritual was the determining factor in the disci­
plinary measures so taken. At the same time, how­
ever—and precisely because the party thereby affected
devoted itself mainly to political activity and played
an important part in the political life of its country—
the connection between the spiritual and the temporal
became involved. This caused many people great
distress. The object of this book is not to examine the
doctrines of the Action Française, but to recall with
reference to recent events the laws governing the
1 Cf. the Letter of Pope Pius XI to Cardinal Andrieu of the 5 th
January, 1927. The condemnation of a certain number of works by
Charles Maurras also falls within the jurisdiction of the direct (doctrinal
and disciplinary) power.

46

•

A

CRISIS

OF

THE

CATHOLIC

SPIRIT

primacy of the spiritual, and it will therefore be con­
fined to that aspect of the problem. Considered from
that point of view, what was the problem raised by, the
core of the difficulty in, the condemnation of the
Action Française ?
The condemnation of the Action Française, a politi­
cal, not a religious party, was in fact a blow struck at
the temporal order ; but its motive and formal
object were to ward off’ dangers of a spiritual order 1
which the Church, by the voice of the Pope, declared
to be latent in that group. There was a repercussion
of doctrinal and disciplinary measures on the temporal
domain, less directly affected and certainly less
seriously than when the Pope deposed an emperor or a
king. The condemnation was decreed on account of
spiritual interests of which the Pope is the sole supreme
judge. It is clear that the only possible attitude for
the Catholic conscience to adopt was obedience at the
cost of whatever sacrifices.
I do not say that such obedience was easy for many of
those who belonged to the Action Française. To
deny or belittle the amount of suffering or the severity
of the ordeal thereby imposed upon them would be
most unjust. Its supporters had given their adhesion
to that political school for reasonable and disinterested
motives, the defence of their country against a corro­
sive anarchy begotten of the party system and the
restoration of a political and national order which
seemed to involve even the good of souls. Some had
even done so with the sole object of serving the Church
1 “ A danger both to the integrity of faith and morals and to the
Catholic education of youth.” Pope Pius XI, Consistorial address of
the aoth December, 1926.

47

THE THINGS THAT ARE NOT CAESAR’S

in what they considered the most effective way and
they had offered the leaders of the Action Française
an ardent devotion and on occasion an admirable
spirit of self-sacrifice. In difficult circumstances they
had loyally and effectively served the cause of religion.
They were frequently told that they were, and they
sometimes described themselves as, the best Catholics
in France. In a few months they saw themselves
surrounded with suspicion. Not only were there
charitable souls then found, as there always are in such
cases, to pour vinegar into their wounds in all dis­
interestedness, but they hardly understood the motives
behind the suspicion surrounding them. The terms
of certain accusations, at all events in the beginning of
the affair, seemed to accuse them of crimes of which
they felt innocent.
What is important in an ordeal is the manner in
which it is borne. A trial—by definition—is sent to
test the characters of men.
God, Who tempts nobody beyond his strength, may
suddenly call upon any Christian to act like a hero.
He then grants proportionate graces. Hundreds and
hundreds of poor Chinese peasants at the time of the
Boxer persecutions were suddenly faced with the choice
between martyrdom and apostasy ; they chose martyr­
dom. There was no question of martyrdom in the
present case : merely a sacrifice and an act of humility.
Obedience might have been tinged with heroism in
the case of such as were ignorant of the reasons deter­
mining the pontifical intervention, but the oppor­
tunity of proving one’s love does not occur every day.
It must also be observed that the action taken by the
Church was in this case less severe in the beginning
48

A

CRISIS

OF

THE

CATHOLIC

SPIRIT

than in others ; the Church proceeded by successive
steps with intervals of delay which the spirit of
obedience could have turned to account.
“ It has been said,” wrote Père Clérissac [78],
“ that we must be able to suffer not only on behalf of
the Church, but also at the hands of the Church. If
there be any truth in the observation, it is that we
sometimes need to be hardly dealt with, to be kept in
the shade, in silence, with every appearance of dis­
grace, because we have not perhaps derived sufficient
holy profit from the favours and advances of the
Church at other times.” He added that it must
“ never be admitted that we can possibly suffer at
the hands of the Church otherwise than at the hands
of God.”
The question then arises : Was it a servile and passive
obedience which was required in the case under
consideration ? Not in the least ; but a supernatural
obedience, that is to say a filial obedience to the
visible Head of the Body of Christ, and an intelligent
obedience with the intelligence which derives from
the spirit of faith [79]. The rules, gradations and
obligations of such obedience have been recalled in
the expose of doctrine contained in the first chapter
of this book.
Obedience did not imply that to give the Pope every
guarantee he might require for the preservation of
Catholic doctrine and the Catholic spirit (he being
the sole judge of the extent of such guarantee) was
thereby to abdicate legitimate freedom in the re­
maining purely political sphere and to be obliged in
conscience to conform to every temporal direction of
pontifical diplomacy, whose suggestions it is always as
E
49

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

absurd to despise as it is shameful to calumniate its
objects, motives being naturally subject to the ordinary
contingencies of the play of political forces.
Obedience did not oblige, as has been alleged, “ to
call white what was seen to be black ” ; did not
oblige to subscribe, as to formulae binding the mind of
every single person, to every proposition contained in
Cardinal Andrieu’s two letters. What it essentially
required was conformity of the practical judgement
and conduct to the orders received from the Sovereign
Pontiff. And it also presupposed—and this is the
specific characteristic of supernatural obedience to the
Church—the conviction that, even infallible things, and
whatever the human element may be in the exterior
presentation of things, a pure ray of the spirit which is
all justice and all truth is transmitted in every act of
the Pope when he issues a command as Head of the
Church, in other words in every act of the Universal
Church, even though at the first glance we are unable
to perceive so much as a gleam. Humility then
quickly discovers in the interior light of God the
recondite reasons for what at first, in the exterior light
of human events, may have been felt to be insufficiently
founded.
Obedience was not a surrender to the designs of any
particular opponent without authority, but simply to
the will of the Pope acting in the plenitude of his
powers. There always have been and there ever will
be human rivalries whose importance as regards the
divine elements prevailing in the conduct of the
Church will always be exaggerated. Loyal hearts
were distressed because they confused the order of the
Church and the Pope with the hopes of certain political
5°

A

CRISIS

OF

THE

CATHOLIC

SPIRIT

enemies eager to exploit the situation. Such distress
betokened great short-sightedness.
Because the truth of the practical judgement must
be considered in relation to the integrity of the will or
love, an impulse of the heart often simplifies the most
complicated human problems. If you love the Church,
you love the Pope, not in an abstract, ineffective w'ay,
but practically, as the living image of Christ in our
midst. If you love the Pope, you arc under no tempta­
tion to misprize him, you trust him, you traverse in a
step all human intermediaries to make yourself one
with the apostolic intentions ; “ If you love the
Pope,” said Pius X, “ you do not stop to debate what
he counsels or requires, to discover the extent of the
strict duty of obedience and determine the limits of
its obligation. If you love the Pope, you do not
object that he has not spoken sufficiently clearly, as
though he were obliged to repeat directly into the ear
of everyone the desire he has so often clearly expressed,
not only in speech but also in letters and other public
documents ; you do not cast doubt upon his orders on
the facile pretext of the wilfully disobedient that they
do not proceed directly from him, but from his en­
tourage ; you do not try to circumscribe the area in
which he may and ought to exercise his authority, you
do not oppose the authority of other persons, however
learned, whose opinion differs from the Pope’s against
the authority of the Pope . . .” [80]. Pius XI prays
for France daily and offers his Masses for France. He
intervened with regard to the Action Française only
after convincing himself, by a personal examination,
that the care of many souls made it his strict duty.
His conscience as chief pastor is at stake in the quarrel.

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If we bear all this in mind, there is less chance of our
practical judgement going astray.
There arc times when all the voices of our neighbours
lie, noisily telling us non ea quae Dei sunt, sed ea quae
hominum. The soul is then alone and Christ instructs it
from within, repelling such voices as emanating from
the devil, even though they proceed from the lips of
ecclesiastical teachers and theologians. “ You are
suffering injustice,” the voices cried. All the more
reason for obedience, obedience being precisely the way
in which to have the justice of God on your side.
“ They want to kill you,” the voices cried. All the
more reason for obedience ; obedience disarms wrath
and the common Father of all does not kill children
who throw themselves into his arms. The Pope, in
fact, had not condemned the Action Française move­
ment because it was monarchist or national ; he had,
on the contrary, made an express reservation of freedom
for Catholics to choose any particular form of govern­
ment they liked and try to establish it by every honour­
able means [81]. In this, as in every similar case,
the Church intervened merely in order to preserve the
spiritual good and was fully determined to maintain,
if the required guarantees were forthcoming, the
legitimate political independence of the faithful which
is not merely theoretical or platonic, because it is
defined and may one day find itself subject to restric­
tions of varying gravity, but remains practical and
effective. It was not the duty of the Church to
indicate to the Action Française Catholics how they
should continue to exercise such political freedom,
while accommodating themselves to the guarantees
required of them, nor was it the duty of the Pope to
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discover a means of preserving whatever good there
was in the movement. It is hardly conceivable that a
party which aspired to the direction of French politics
should not have had sufficient elasticity and ingcnuitv
to devise solutions capable of according its own political
activity with all that obedience required. Besides, it
is common knowledge that whoever fights the Church
ends by being defeated. Such an encounter should
have been avoided at all costs by anyone desirous of
preserving the work which had been undertaken.
Obedience might perhaps have secured a mitigation of
sentence. Disobedience made the aggravation of it
inevitable. In any event, from the supernatural point
of view of the spirit of faith as from the simple point of
view of political prudence, it seemed that only a great
impulse of confident and generous obedience (not
excluding the filial exposition of what was considered
proper and desirable, but requiring a heart submitting
unreservedly and hoping against hope) could restore
the situation in such a crisis. It is a great theme for
meditation in thinking of the prestige the Action
Française had the opportunity of acquiring, if it had
realised such things, to reflect that God permitted that
it should not realise them.
In fact, after the protestation of faith by its directors
and Catholic student members, the Action Française
assumed a correct and silent attitude—savouring
rather of immobility under the blow than alacrity to
examine itself ; then a violent campaign of controversy
began in the press, and qualified proposals were made
as between equal powers (it had already presented a
justification couched in the most exalted terms in the
letter addressed by Charles Maurras to the Sovereign
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Pontiff,1 but with nothing which recalled the Domine,
quid me vis facere of St. Paul to Christ) ; when the
condemnation finally arrived,* it resolved on open
opposition to the authority of the Church,3 and
polemical methods which speedily involved its being
placed on the Index?

18. The Action Française had so encountered on its
path the stone which saves or causes stumbling ; it
was faced with a choice in which the supernatural
spirit ought clearly to have been predominant. The
choice made was erroneous. It is the less surprising, if
we bear in mind the principle that a community, as
such, can never do more than its leader. In the present
case the leader, being himself an infidel, felt bound in
conscience to refuse. At the gravest moment of its
destiny, the political community of the Action Fran­
çaise so found itself deprived of those supreme decisions
which the leader alone can take in his solitude before
God. It was left to itself and, however deeply religious
the feelings of many of its members considered as
individuals may have been, as a community it had no
more exalted spring of action than the spirit it derived
from its leader.
We are here in the core of the drama. We see why
the Church has always regarded it as a very fearful
1 Letter dated the 12th October, 1926, first published on the 20th
February, 1927.
2 Official note of the Osservatore Romano, 15th December, 1926 ;
Consistorial address Misericordia Domini, 20th December, 1926.
3 Non possumus, Action Française of the 24th December, 1926.
4 Decree of the Holy Office condemning certain works of Charles
Maurras and the newspaper L’Action Française dated the 29th January,
1914, and the 29th December, 1926. The personal intervention of the
Supreme Pontiff gives this decree a special gravity. (Cf. Lucien
Choupin, Valeur des décisions doctrinales et disciplinaires du Saint-Siige, ord
ed.» Paris, 1928.)

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danger that a Christian nation should be governed by
an infidel king. The Church has been violently and
bitterly required to give the reasons for her severity
towards the Action Française. One was enough and
in my opinion remains the most profound ; the
Action Française was a party which associated many
Catholics, more particularly a considerable number of
young men, in a political community (political I
say, not religious or philosophical), placed as such
under the absolute intellectual direction of an infidel
leader. This was an entirely different thing from a
mere collaboration with non-Catholics. It raised the
question of the head. However scrupulously careful
Charles Maurras may have been not to communicate
his own philosophical and religious ideas to his friends
and disciples—it is important to bear him this
testimony and indeed their faithful devotion or return
to the practice of their religion was a special source of
joy and pride to him—a more subtle danger remained.
Not only was there a risk of the error becoming wide­
spread in spite of everything, through imponderable
influences, in that secluded sphere of philosophical or
religious conceptions ; but also and above all, in the
very sphere of the science and practice of the good
government of the State—if it be true that a proper
and complete idea of the State and civil authority
necessarily acknowledges as their first principle the law
of God as the Author of the natural order and the
rights of the Redeemer 1 ; if it be consequently true
that a complete political science is not only philosophi­
cal but also theological and that the only good system
of politics is purely and simply a Christian system *—
1 Cf. Leo XIII’s Encyclical, Immortale Dei.

55

3 Cf. Appendix II.

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it was to be feared that in a political community under
the guidance of an infidel head, the defects of the latter
might contaminate the body of the community in such
a way as to distort the Christian sense and a non­
Catholic or semi-Catholic way of estimating the things
of the State be insensibly and unconsciously developed
in that political body. Something much more subtle
than a mere doctrinal error is here involved—a state of
mind. The Church, “ which has in an eminent degree
the grace which St. Paul describes as the discerning
of spirits ” [82], perceives in such a case, as though by
some maternal instinct, the presence of a state of mind
which is not that of her Master and then reacts against
it with the sort of passionate anxiety which inspires
mothers in fighting against an obscure, diffuse danger.
Mothers then require their children the more imperi­
ously to trust them, as they perceive them to be the
less capable of themselves understanding, while they
continue to be dominated by such a state of mind, the
reasons provoking such anxiety.
It was not, however, difficult in itself to discern the
dangers which the Church was anxious to oppose and
which sprang from what may be called political
naturalism [83] ; (for this reason anyone who had the
will might have realised, after the first moments of
surprise, the deep-seated reasons for the pontifical
intervention). The appreciation of the gravity and
imminence of such dangers might have excited dis­
cussion. It was for the Pope alone to form an authorita­
tive judgement of the peril as of the sufficiency or
insufficiency of the means proposed for warding it off.
What in fact was the degree of gravity ? The
judgement thereupon of the supreme head, the
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provisor universalis, was much more severe than that of
many Catholics fighting in the plain and necessarily
considering things from more personal points of view.
Nothing was to manifest more clearly the state of
affairs than events themselves ; they were destined, as
Pius XI sadly said, “ to reveal the thoughts of many
minds.” For my own part, I had considered that the
risks of error to which attention was drawn could
easily have been avoided. I was mistaken. Leaving
out of the question many things which may be ex­
plained by reactions of pain or anger—such reac­
tions are not permanent—there are features in the
conduct adopted by the members of a political body
as of a common personality, which indicate the dis­
positions engendered by the spirit animating the whole.
In this particular it must be confessed the deception
was great. We were offered the spectacle of many
Catholics deliberately choosing open disobedience
despite the obligations of justice and charity 1 which
bind us to the Body of Christ and supreme unity,
because they considered themselves unjustly con­
demned by the sovereign authority and believing
every sort of invention concerning the intentions of
the Sovereign Pontiff [84]. When the Pope declared
in the most explicit personal terms [85] that his con­
demnation was for spiritual reasons, they had no
hesitation in giving him the lie and declaring that he
was in reality actuated by political considerations.
1 Every division in the Church, St. Thomas teaches, is a sin against
charity, because it is charity which constitutes unity. “ And so the
sin of schism is by itself a particular (special) sin, because its object
is to make a separation from unity which is constituted by charity ;
charity not only binds one person to another by a spiritual bond of
love, but the whole Church also in the union of the spirit” {Sum.
Theol., ii-ii, 39, 1).

57

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They were heard to protest in all sincerity that they
were good Catholics, entirely subject to the Church in
faith and morals, and yet they refused to submit to
the Church when, speaking as the supreme judge of
the interests of faith and morals, she indirectly con­
demned a political movement1 ; they declared that
the Pope, in intervening as head of the Church to
forbid them to read a newspaper or be members of a
political organisation, was ordering them to commit a
sin against their country, “ to murder their mother,”
without so much as noticing that it was a sin against
their mother, the Church of Christ, to entertain such
thoughts about her. To consider the question more
deeply : would the scandal which many souls suffered
when they believed, on seeing the Action Française
condemned, that the cause of Catholicism itself and
its spiritual values were compromised, have occurred,
if a certain utterly rational conception of the Church,
considered in the supererogatory benefits she confers
upon us and as the custodian of social order and the
Latin civilisation such as Maurras conceives them to
be, had not in practice predominated in their minds
over the supernatural adhesion by faith to what the
Church essentially is : the mystic Body of Christ ?
Would the drama of conscience which tortured them
have been so cruel, if they had not judged the Church,
by standards of utterly human prudence, as a power of
this world whose supposed conflict with the mother
country then became insoluble ?
Nor did they realise that it was entertaining a very
1 A practical denial in the particular circumstances of the right
of the spiritual power to intervene in the temporal in order to protect
a spiritual good.

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poor opinion of France, her natural resources and
providential destiny, to think that any political party,
however useful it might be deemed, was the country’s
last chance of salvation, or its only means of salvation, was,
in a word, essential to its life as an indispensable means.
I would add that if the way in which, for weeks on
end, the Action Française represented its condemnation as dictated to the Church by a policy opposed to
French interests, resulted in aggravating the burden
on many consciences already in the circumstances
sufficiently sorely tried, the problem was nevertheless
greatly simplified by the very attitude of such as
invoked “ French loyalty ” to defy the papal commands, without realising—it is their only excuse—the
infinite dangers involved in such foolish defiance.
Even the national interest was perfectly clear : noth­
ing, at the time, could have done France greater harm
than to have exposed it, through disobedience to the
supreme authority, to a schism between Catholics and
to have excited national passions against the spiritual
power.
Philosophers should not attempt to evade the
invidiosi veri mentioned by Dante.
They are painful
but they must not therefore be left out of consideration.
They reveal the extent of the real gravity of the danger
of naturalism before referred to ; in such an excep­
tional case, one so tragically significant as a conflict
with the Church, were habits of rash judgement and
violence to serve for guide in conduct rather than the
virtues of justice and charity ? Was the Church her­
self to be judged as a natural reality and not as an
invisible supernatural reality, the object of theological
faith ? Was national interest (identified with the views
59

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of one political party) to be taken as the supreme
practical rule for the appreciation of things, even of
such things as involved religion and the spiritual ?
Was political empiricism to be absolute and no account
taken of the essential subordination of the political
good itself to God and Christ and the Church of
Christ ? The facts themselves gave the answer. It all
showed how those who, unconsciously reviving old
Jansenist difficulties, profess to obey only if they can
give the interior adhesion of their speculative minds to
the reasons dictating the orders received—do in fact
happen to give such an adhesion of mind. If a certain
naturalist appreciation of things is, in various degrees,
the common fault of a great many Christians to-day,
such a fault is a great deal more pernicious when it
affects, as the event has shown only too clearly, the
very spirit of a party endowed with such a vigorous
and obstinate moral and intellectual personality as the
Action Française and is accompanied by a stubborn
indocility in regard to the Church. There are sore
trials which men may dread because of some particular
good which they pursue and they may even seek to
avert them, although they must nevertheless acknowledge them to be justified. Justificata in semetipsa.
The further time removes men’s minds from the
contingent circumstances surrounding the condemnation and every subsidiary consideration, so that they
may be able to consider it in its substance and pure
intrinsic reasons, as is only fair, the more apparent will
such justice become. It will then be realised that it
was not exterior and practical obedience only but the
conformity of the speculative judgement also to the pontifical decisions considered in themselves which here
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answered to the truth of things. It will also be realised
how the evils indicated could have been remedied.
It must not be forgotten that the severe warnings were
transformed into a formal prohibition of the news­
paper only because of the latter’s practical attitude and
non.~f.lial resistance. Rome insists upon submission,
but is ever careful not to close the door on the possi­
bility of pacification. In any event nobody was
required to sacrifice the least of any cherished truths ;
all that was required of him w'as to reject errors and
defects and to re-establish all things in the high light of
faith.
Writers whose minds arc swift to take alarm and
appear to be very easily shocked indeed are appre­
hensive, they say, of a divorce between the Church and
the mind [86]. This refrain has often been heard
before, more especially when liberalism and modernism
were the fashion. And to no purpose, for the spirit
knows its own country. At the time of the Syllabus, a
host of intelligent people, that is to say considering
themselves to be such, condemned the Pope’s con­
demnations and opined that, by opposing “ progressive
forces ” which the Church ought to have conciliated,
he was leading religion to ruin. Time has passed
and the justice and opportunity of Pius IX’s action
become only the more apparent with every passing
day [37]·
“ Every deliberate deed goes either to the right or
the left, to the side of good and God or to the side of
evil, just as on the mountain top, where the watershed
is, every drop of water goes to the right or the left
towards opposite rivers and seas.
“ In the spiritual sphere, the watershed is known
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above all by those who have received the gift of
discerning spirits, by the supreme pastor in particular,
whose task it is to be a guide to souls in the way of
salvation. It is for him, more than anyone, to discern
good grain from chaff, to preserve everything worth
preserving and make all things work together for the
supernatural good of such as seek God in the sincerity
of their hearts and are truly desirous of loving Him
above all things” [88].

19. There is every indication that we are faced with
a grave religious crisis which has not yet ceased to
agitate men’s minds. On the one hand, the school of
thought which now stands condemned appeared to
have taken deep root in important areas of French
Catholicism ; it had enlisted much sympathy among
the clergy and even constituted in many places one of
the strongest bulwarks for the defence of religion. On
the other hand, by one of those numerous paradoxes
to be observed in the state of contemporary France,
paradoxes which never cease to surprise even such
observers as are most familiar with the intrinsic value of
ideas and movements, the Action Française, although
not a single one of its members was in Parliament,
influenced many minds with the prestige of a quasi­
public authority and led opinion. It is now to be
feared that certain milieux whose Catholicism was
more of a fighting force than an inner life may be
affected with a mistrust of spiritual authority and that a
redistribution of political forces may ensue which will
facilitate an anti-clerical offensive. Should they then
have to suffer, Catholics will at any rate realise that
nobody will be able to confuse their cause with that of
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any political party and their testimony to the Faith
will be free of any human alloy.
Such is the first and most proximate benefit which
will emerge from the crisis ; the absolute refusal
opposed by the Church to whatever would enfeoff
religion to a political party of whatever sort appears
more clearly than ever.
The temptation to link religion to some political
party “ of the left ” is considerable for men eager to
secure positive results (to secure them with unreason­
able precipitation), because the evils and injustices of
the prevailing social system, against which the spirit of
the Gospel inclines us to fight, are also the—at any
rate most apparent—object of the protests in which the
tendencies “ of the left ” find their raison d'etre. The
temptation to link religion to some political party “ of
the right ” is considerable for men of principles (when
their principles are not sufficiently exalted), especially
in times of disorder, because such parties are then as it
were the memory of, and the permanent claim to
restore, a state of public order which has disappeared.
It is also important to realise fully that if it is just and
required by the law of God that there be union and
collaboration between the Church and the public
authority which is the incarnation, so to speak, of the
common good of the nation, such a privilege ceases to
exist for the partisans of the political ideal of that same
authority when, as a result of some upheaval or other,
it has fallen from power ; it is then no longer the head
of the social body invested with the right of govern­
ment by the author of nature and representing the
common good of all ; it is merely one party among
others in the political life of the country. Whatever
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qualifications it may possess in the order of political
rivalries, it has no special right to claim that it is the
ally of the Church ; it is even absurd to suppose that
what is by definition universal, that is to say Catholic,
can ever possibly be linked to what is by definition
particular, that is to say, to a party.
The Church, whose wisdom unites in a superior and
metapolitical unity all the truths whose temporal appli­
cation in the sphere of the terrestrial State men must
seek politically both “ right ” and <c left,” is therefore
obliged to combatvigilantly temptations, to which either
party may be liable, to enfeoff her to its own policy.1
1 “ Being also not only a perfect society, but a society superior
to every human society, the Church absolutely refuses, by right and
duty, to become the slave of any political party and to conform to the
shifting exigencies of politics. . . .
“ To seek to implicate the Church in such party quarrels and claim
to use her support the more easily to triumph over one’s opponents is
an improper abuse of religion ” (Leo XIII, Encyclical Sapientiae
Christianae).
“ Its Catholicism (i.e. of the Sillon),” wrote Pius X, “ adapts itself
only to the form of democratic government which it considers most
favourable to the Church and to be, so to speak, one and the same with
the Church ; it therefore enfeoffs its religion to a political party. We
need not point out that the advent of universal democracy does not
concern the action of the Church in the world, we have already recalled
that the Church has always left the nations the care of adopting the
government they consider most apt to serve their interests. What
we do desire to state once again, following Our Predecessor, is that it is
both erroneous and dangerous in principle to enfeoff Catholicism to
any particular form of government and that the error and danger are
the greater when religion is synthesised with a kind of democracy whose
doctrines are erroneous. Such is the case of the Sillon which, com­
promising the Church in fact, and in favour of a particular form of
politics, sows division among Catholics, tears young men and even
priests and seminarists away from purely Catholic action and wastefully squanders the living energies of a part of the nation. . . .”
“ The leaders of the Sillon,” wrote Pius X again, “ allege that they
are developing their action in a sphere which is not that of the Church,
that they pursue only temporal and not spiritual interests, that a
Sillonist is merely a Catholic devoted to the cause of the working
classes ” (Pius X, Letter on the Sillon, 25th August, 1910).

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The Church is militant here on earth, but knows
that she belongs to Heaven. However strenuously
she might unceasingly protest her independence of
parties both “ right ” and “ left,” the terribly general
tendency of the Conservative world to link the defence
of its material interests to the defence of religion, so
concealing the efforts of Catholics in other spheres,
gave rise in many minds to a formidable misunderstanding in this connection. The Action Française
affair, by dispelling this misunderstanding, acquires a
peculiarly striking symbolic value.
The religious crisis which it seems to inaugurate
may be severe : it will be none the less salutary, if
only French Catholics have the sense to profit by it and
realise the full import of the lesson which, without the
slightest doubt, transcends the incident which occa­
sioned it. It is a crisis of liberation, of deliverance.
The spiritual must free itself from the earthly fetters
which threatened to enslave it. We must realise that,
however important human and political means may
be in the sphere of the temporal good, they are the
least effective for the extension of the kingdom of God
and that in proportion as the world falls to pieces they
will appear more and more inadequate in that sphere.
We must realise that, however necessary any kind of
political activity may be, it is confined to a human and
particular plane, where religion can make an authoritative intervention for the protection of the spiritual
good but can never surrender its own independence.
If Catholics are required, as Catholics, to stand outside
and above every political party of whatever sort, it
goes without saying that, as citizens, they can still give
their adhesion to any political party they may consider
F
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useful to the common good, once the Church has not
condemned it either for doctrinal errors or dangers of
spiritual deviation. The distinction, however, must
be properly grasped. Catholics do not then surrender
their intellectual and religious preoccupations—how
could they leave these out of account in considering
the common good ? Their adhesion to any particular
political party is a moral choice which remains
subordinate to their destination to the ultimate end
and their appreciation of spiritual values. But it is
directly ordered to the service of the terrestrial State
in its subordination to the eternal good, not to the
service of the Church itself. And this personal choice
of theirs, as Catholic members of the terrestrial State, not
as members of the Catholic State, in no way pledges the
Church and affirms no necessity of means linking the
fate of Catholicism to any human party, for different
minds, animated by the same desire to serve Christ and
the Church, may very well form different judgements
with regard to the common temporal good, even when
it is subordinated, as it ought to be, to eternal interests,
and so elect for opposite political parties.
20. The condemnation of the Action Française
clearly in no way affects Catholics who, in their search
for the good of the terrestrial State, consider that the
restoration of monarchy or a policy “ of the right ” is
the best means of securing it. In practice, however,
they are in a painful situation, because the party to
which they belonged, finding itself unable to conform
to the requirements of the Church, withdrew its
obedience. Hence a more or less lengthy period of
weakness and confusion, the issue of which it is no
66

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business of mine to anticipate (however ardently I
may desire some peaceful solution), for the sphere
of practical politics is outside the scope of this
essay.
If the political situation, however, consequent upon
the condemnation of the Action Française is outside
the competence of a philosopher, the state of minds
does interest and concern him. One thing is immedi­
ately apparent from this point of view. The read­
justment must be made by working in the deep and the
first necessity is a sort of intellectual and moral examina­
tion of conscience.
It is clear that in condemning whatever errors and
aberrations she perceives in any doctrine or movement,
the Church has no intention of condemning whatever
good they may contain. Whatever is right and wellfounded in political conceptions which, empirically
and partially rediscovered by Maurras, go back to
Joseph de Maistre, Bonald, Bossuet and St. Thomas
Aquinas, remains intact. For minds which now con­
sider as utterly exploded the old revolutionary ideology,
the religion of necessary progress and every Rousseauist
myth which the world took for the substance of life—
the myths of natural Goodness, of democratism,1 of
the General Will and Law as the expression of numbers,
of the Liberty of everyone as more important than
truth and justice, of the State as the unmoral purveyor
of material well-being and lay sovereign, absolute and
unlimited, of the Nation or Humanity as the incarna­
tion of an immanent God, etc.—there can be no ques­
1 That is to say of the people as perpetual possessor and sole lawful
possessor of sovereignty. (G'f. Appendix IV and the author’s Three
Reformers, ch. iii.)

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tion of going back, of making any concession whatever
to such false and essentially obsolete ideas. There
must be a progress still further forward and higher up
in the movement, leaving them far behind. The only
salvation is in the whole truth. A Christian policy
cannot maintain itself without its philosophical and
theological principles, must have a complete concep­
tion of political reality itself, with all the moral values,
relations of justice and responsibilities in the order of
the family no less than of society which such a concep­
tion implies and whose source is truly religious ; it
must realise that the false liberal dogmas, so effectively
combated by Maurras on the plane of immediate
experience, consist in denying not only the subjection
of the individual to the political whole, but also and in
the first place, the subjection of man to God in the
natural and the supernatural order, according to
Cajetan’s great expression which seems to summarise
in anticipation the whole doctrine of Leo XIII on
liberalism : “ Whether it be in relation to natural
happiness, either private or political, or to supernatural
happiness, man is always subject (to some superior
authority) ” [8g] ; in a word and figuratively speaking,
a Christian policy must select its historical analogue^
not in the century of Louis XIV, when so much pride
of life ran to seed amid such brilliance, but in the
theological civilisation of the Middle Ages. On this
condition only will it be possible to pass beyond the
sphere in which another naturalism may take the place
of the naturalism of freedom of a Spinoza, a Rousseau
1 An analogy and nothing but an analogy is here intended. Time,
we know, is irreversible. It is a question of spiritual correspondence,
not of literal copy. It is not a question of a material return to the
Middle Ages, but of drawing inspiration from their principles.

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SPIRIT

or a Kant, the naturalism of authority of a Hobbes or a
Mandeville.1
Many of those who, by a process of abstraction,
retained of the Action Française movement almost
exclusively the spiritual renovations carried out by
Maurras in the sphere of political thought, hoped that
the great intellectual activity he stimulated would be
gradually exalted and transfigured under the influence
of grace, so that by a kind of organic evolution, the
imperfect and as it were vegetative form of pure
empiricism might in the end give way to the spiritual
soul of metaphysics and theology. Such hope events
have shown to have been based upon too optimistic
a judgement.
The fact nevertheless remains that, even at the risk
of a very painful crisis and although such things were
at first understood only by a few, the truths acknow­
ledged by the criticism of liberal and revolutionary
ideology must be delivered in a higher synthesis than
the mere nationalist idea could ever guarantee. The
word was invented in France to meet a historical
situation of a very peculiar sort, in circumstances and
amid dangers of a particularly local and momentary
kind, and won many adherents. At the present day
the most adequate expression of the profound aspira­
tions of the human being in his struggles against death
is to be found not only in the word nationalism [90], but
also and in the first place in the word universalism.
There is no other authentic and truly supranational
universalism than Catholicism. The minds of men
can only re-adjust themselves to the present needs of
the world by adjusting themselves to the Catholic
1 Cf. Appendix VI.

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absolute. As their view so becomes more elevated, so
also its horizon expands.
Men in our time are summoned to an integral
restoration of Christian values, to a universal reinven­
tion of order. They must expel from their minds all
the barbarism, both capitalist and communist, of the
naturalist and atheist world ; not only in the political
sphere, but also in the economic and social sphere
which has been corrupted by the system of the fertility
of money, and in the sphere of international relations
and—most important of all—in the sphere of intellec­
tual and religious life. There can be no true and
complete order in human life unless grace and charity
are predominant, for every practical order presup­
poses that the will is in direct relation to its ends and
therefore the pre-eminence of the love of the supreme
Good. If peace is the work of justice1 and if charity
presupposes justice, nevertheless—it is a fundamental
law of the State and life—“ True and authentic peace
depends on charity still more than on justice ; the
function ofjustice is to remove the obstacles in the way
of peace, such as acts of injustice and injuries, peace
beingpeculiarlyand particularlycharityin operation.”12
This is the confused feeling of everyone to-day. But if
the desired union of hearts is not realised in theological
charity which consists in loving with one same love
1 Isaias xxxii. 17.
2 Encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei. Pius XI is here recalling, as he
explicitly indicates a few lines earlier, the following passage from St.
Thomas : “ Peace is the work of justice indirectly, so far, that is to say,
as it removes a hindrance. But it is the work of charity directly :
because charity begets peace of its own nature : for love is a unifying
force (vis unitiva), as Dionysius says (De divin, nomin, ch. iv, lect. xii):
but peace is a union of the appetitive inclinations.” Sum. Thiol., ii-ii,
29, 3, ad 3.

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SP I R1T

God for His own sake and man for God’s sake, the
disillusion will be bitter. Such genuine love has its
roots in faith, and faith presupposes reason. Catholi­
cism alone—and of all its doctors the common Doctor of
the Church—makes man understand that the absolute
primacy of charity, so far from being opposed to
reason, rather presupposes it : that reason still remains
“ the first principle of human actions,” 1 but as implying
in the appetite unswerving devotion to the last end and
as itself illumined by faith and the infused gifts. We
must make no mistake. The action of the Church in
the past twenty-five years appears as a vigilant,
unwearying defence of charity itself, which is the life
of her life and the eternal justification for her existence ;
the Church defends it in the hearts of her children
both against the influence of hatred and against the
influence of false love ; against the hardening caused
by the naturalist worship of the race or the nation and
the deliquescence caused by the naturalist worship
of humanity and the modernist corruption of reason
and faith ; for theological faith is the source of all
supernatural life and the divine love. In truth the
order to which we tend has intelligence for its founda­
tion and charity for its end : we see it simultaneously
suspended from supernatural love and supported upon
baptised reason.
As far as France is concerned, it is important to
remember all the fidelity to grace its vocation implies,
the wealth of consecrated property invested in the
patrimony and destiny of a Christian nation. The
salvation of a Christian nation is not a casual operation:
it necessitates the acknowledgement of the super1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., i-ii, 58, 2.
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natural order and the employment of proportioned
means, elevated in the use to which they are put by the
virtues from above. For the means must be pro­
portioned to the end, a very simple axiom neglected
nowadays by many who seek in the most intense
natural activity the means of attaining an end involving
the supernatural order. God is the leader of history ;
the common task is merely to prepare the way, each of
us doing his duty to the best of his ability, in the first
place by raising his mind and heart to the height of
the whole truth.
II.

JOAN

OF

ARC

OR

PHILIP

THE

FAIR

2i. Preaching obedience does not make for popu­
larity. It is a doctrine poor in demagogic values,
distasteful to all men. The French national tempera­
ment, moreover, is quick to take offence, passionately
devoted to liberty, prone to contradict and besides
particularly exacting as regards authority in the
matter of psychological discernment. Obedience
then, you would say, is difficult for Frenchmen. In
reality, however, the French love to obey, if only they
are told why ; the fidelity which is at the heart of
obedience has a great attraction for them and their
rebellions, as often as not, are mere outbursts of
impatience at not being ordered enough. May one be
permitted to quote the Gospel, adapting it? “A
certain man had two sons, and coming to the first, he
said : ‘ Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.’ And
he answering said : ‘ I will not.’ But afterwards,
being moved by repentance, he went. And coming to
the other, he said in like manner. And he answering,

A CRISIS

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THE

CA T H O U G

SPIRIT

said : ‘ I go, sir,’ and he went not ; which of the
two did the father’s will ?” 1 The Frenchman, to
be sure.
Two opposite traditions cross and mingle throughout
the course of French history, the sacred and the
profane ; one really made France, the other by striving
to elevate it according to the ambitions of the flesh,
prepared the way for the forces which tended to undo
it ; the first was predominant in the Middle Ages and
informed the admirable limited monarchy (regimen
mixtum) [91], elaborated by bishops and kings ; it
found its purest manifestation in St. Louis and in Joan
of Arc its immaculate angel of sorrows. The second
remains situate under the sign of Philip the Fair, grew
up with absolute monarchy, tainted the policy of
Richelieu (who was far from vexed to see the formula­
tion of the theory of the State Catholic) [92], and flourished
in the Gallican liberties vis-à-vis the Pope (that is to say
Gallican servilities vis-à-vis the King). Such a natural­
ist conception of patriotism was the chief fault of the
ancien régime.1 If it was to be found in men who in
other respects were devoted servants of the country,
we should not forget what a deadly burden its con­
sequences in home and foreign politics, more particu­
larly the protection accorded to the Protestant princes
and Prussia, imposed upon the future of France in
return for proximate and palpable glowing advantages.
A baptised nation can not ensure its greatness upon
principles opposed to the laves of the Gospel or by
sacrificing the common interests of the Christian
commonwealth. The result of so doing for France
and the world (for such a sin, far from being peculiar
2 Cf. Appendix VII.

» Matthew xxi. 28-31.

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to France, has been as serious, even more serious
elsewhere and is indeed the common fate of the whole
modern world) proceeded from an inexorable logic.
It has often been observed that the same principles of
rebellion of the part against the whole which were made to
serve against the Pope necessarily did duty against the
kings and then against the country itself. Nogarct is
first cousin to Robespierre and Lenin. The refusal
to submit to the Church necessarily involved a corollary
refusal to submit to God and to admit His rights over
the State as such. The regalian decrees of the Parlia­
ments are the rough draft of the lay laws.
Histories of France, conservative and radical alike,
all stand in need of drastic revision from this point of
view. The homicidal ideas informing the world which
issued from the Reformation and the Revolution,
perverting therein normal developments which pursue
their course elsewhere, are the cadaverous forms of the
corruption of the Christian world, progressively
destroyed by the claim of modern politicians and
philosophers, kings and nations, to absolute independ­
ence {aseity}. It was five hundred years ago that we
began to die.
It seems useless to repeat such an experiment. The
restoration of order will be wholly Christian or an
utter failure.
“ The realm does not belong to the Dauphin, but to
God,” said Joan of Arc to Baudricourt in 1429, “ and
yet it is God’s will that the Dauphin be crowned king
and hold his realm in commendam.” She had no doubt
of the royal right of the Dauphin before leading him to
Rheims but until then she refused to call him king ;
for it was from the Consecration that there dated for
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THE

CAT II O I, 1 C

SPIRIT

Joan “ not the political legitimacy of Charles VII,
but his supernatural legitimacy, so to speak, the perfect
exercise of his vice-gerency over the land of France in
the name of Jesus Christ” [93]. The Consecration
which Joan so ardently desired is itself an act of
homage to the spiritual suzerainty of the Church ; it is
the most striking sign, impressed upon the crown itself,
of the rights of the spiritual power over political
things, so far as these affect the welfare of souls.
Consider Joan of Arc at Rhcims clasping the knees of
the king : “ Now is the pleasure of God fulfilled, Who
desired that I should raise the siege of Orleans and
lead you to this city of Rhcims to receive your worthy
Consecration, proving you to be true king. . . .”
The king, thenceforth, shares in the ministry of the
Church—per hanc (coronam) te participem ministerii nostri
non ignores1—and in virtue thereof rules. Joan would
have him spend himself in the restoration of Christen­
dom : she saw him riding with the English at the head
of a new crusade. . . .
A century and a quarter earlier, there was a king of
France who turned against the Church the authority
she had consecrated. By the sacrilegious hand of
Guillaume de Nogaret, Philip the Fair seized and
imprisoned and outraged the Pope at Anagni. Seated
on his throne, with the tiara on his head and the keys
and the cross in his hands, the great old man, Boniface
VIII, in whom the Middle Ages had taken refuge,
waited for the coming of the men of blood. ‘k Inasmuch
as I am betrayed like Jesus Christ, I will at any rate die
like a Pope.” He died, indeed, some days later, of
grief. So the “ little boy ”—nos deponeremus regem ila
1 Formula of the Roman Pontifical.

75

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GAESA R ’ S

sicut unum garcioneni—intimated his majority to the
world and that with the assistance of his lawyers he
was preparing to inaugurate the modern policy of
national self-seeking. That the Church had any
right to intervene in matters of State, even for the
defence of ecclesiastical immunities, was for the first
time officially denied by the eldest daughter of the
Church. I note that, while proceeding to the extreme
limits of outrage against the Papacy, while shamefully
calumniating Boniface VIII, forging his bulls and
describing the Vicar of Christ as a “ malefactor ” and
“infamous bandit ” [94], Philip the Fair and his friends
professed themselves the best Catholics in the world and
the most devoted sons of the Church, but “ subject,
themselves, their people and their followers, to the
protection of our Holy Mother the Church, the Council
and others to whom it should belong, only in regard to the
spiritual ” [95], that is to say, provided always that the
spiritual allowed the temporal and the summa regis
libertas to do as they pleased in the world. There was
as it were the first separation of the Roman Church and
the French State or more generally, and in the lan­
guage of Kant, of “ morality ” and “ law.” They
added, also, “ that the King has been empowered by
God to defend and exalt the faith and that prelates
are invited thereto in partem sollicitudinis.” And the
prelates, who signed whatever the king wanted,
accepted that point of view. So that in reality, as in
every similar case, the claim for the absolute inde­
pendence of the temporal was converted into an
attempt to subordinate the spiritual to the temporal ;
the whole commotion excited in the kingdom by the
lawyers of Philip the Fair was a prearranged and
76

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A

j
i

i
i

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!
*
I
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j
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CRISIS

OF

THE

CATHOLIC

SPIRIT

perfectly organised movement, “ with the sole object of
setting the Pope aside, absorbing the episcopate and
placing the entire Church in the hands of the civil
power.” Such is the conclusion arrived at by the
latest historian of the conflict.1
The true heirs of Philip the Fair are the anti-clerical
and laicising radicals ; the monarchists of the school
of the Count de Chambord had, it was believed, freed
themselves from such a spirit. But the two traditions
mentioned were mingled in the nationalist movement,
although many had hoped that the sacred tradition
would ultimately prevail amongst men who had fought
so courageously for public honour to be paid to Joan
of Arc.
The significance of the present crisis will be better
understood, if it is borne in mind that before first
warning and then condemning the Action Française,
Pius XI solemnly condemned laicism and as solemnly
proclaimed the universal kingship of Christ.2
A divine intention appears through the mist of
human history : Catholics who devote their energies to
the reconstruction of France must take their choice
among the principles of the national tradition and
explicitly reject those which cannot but be considered
as the primary root of the evils afflicting their country.
Providence is now challenging them to choose between
the spirit of Philip the Fair and the spirit of Joan of
Arc. The spiritual event taking place to-day in each
of them, in the intimacy of their liberty, is much more
important for the history of the future than many
visible changes.
1 Jean Rivière, Le problème de ΓÉglise et de l'État au temps de Philippe
Ze BeZ, 1926, p. 118.
2 The Encyclicals Ubi Arcano Dei and Quas Primas.

77

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OUR FIRST DUTY TO GOD
I.

SUPREMACY

OF

THE

CHURCH

22. The moral of the crisis which confronts us is
self-evident ; it is a reminder of the exigencies of the
supernatural life, an absolute affirmation of the primacy
of the spiritual.
Such a primacy presents itself to us under three
different aspects which the doctrine of St. Thomas,
better than any other after the Gospel and St. Paul,
enables us to understand. Does not St. Thomas
himself constantly preach the primacy of the spirit
by precept and example ? By his general teaching
with regard to Christ and the Redemption, as by his
observations on civil government and the Church,
he shows us the supremacy of the Church in all its
force.
By his doctrine concerning nature and grace and the
subordination of ends, he makes us understand the
primacy of spiritual over political ends, and of the
universal domain of grace over all the particular
divisions of nature.
By his doctrine concerning human life and the
virtues, he reveals the primacy of infused contempla­
tion, peculiar to minds raised by grace to a share of the
divine life, over the exterior activity which is common
(by analogy) to bodies and minds.
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DUTY

TO

GOD

23. We must assert as a truth superior to every
vicissitude of time the supremacy of the Church over
the world and all earthly powers. If the universe is
not to suffer a radical disorder, the Church must lead
the nations to the ultimate end of human life, which is
also that of States, and must therefore, in virtue of
the spiritual interests entrusted to her, direct govern­
ments and nations and bend before God the stiff necks
of the powers of flesh. On that condition only will
they be stable : “ For He docs not take away mortal
kingdoms Who gives the kingdom of Heaven : He
confirms them.”1 The Pope is living Authority. On
the summit of humanity, we see in him the imprint of
the face of Christ. If that authority is not obeyed by
Christian nations, what authority will hold ? The
economy of the world is breaking up. And if that
authority is obeyed, it inspires the hearts of men with
the spirit of love which constitutes unity.
The great convulsions of the modern world are
memories of the unity which has been lost. It is
metaphysically impossible for it to recover peace
without justice, that is to say, in the first place, without
the submission which is owing to God [96]—and unity,
without the principle of unity on this earth, that is to
say, without the effective acknowledgement of the
supremacy of the spiritual power. Men may listen
to the truth or they may not, the truth must still be
told. The Papacy has been telling the truth for years
with an energy which has never flagged.
It was for the good of nations and States, not for
her own good, that the Church once helped them to
1 Hymn Crudelis Herodes in the Office of the Epiphany, quoted by
Pope Pius XI in the Encyclical Quas Primas, i ith December, 1925.

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CAESAR’S

do their temporal work in such a way as suited the
requirements of the supernatural end. The apostasy
of the nations is exerting itself to relieve the Church
more and more from any such anxiety. We should bo­
under no mistake as to what such an apostasy means
to the world. What sort of benefit did it formerly
receive from the order which subjected it more or
less effectively to the Church and her spiritual laws ?
The Church did not make the world holy or just :
the world remained the world. She did not make it
comfortable or restful or agreeable : the world
remained a vale of tears. She made it habitable.
The mass of men could fulfil their destiny on earth
in the common conditions of human life without
being obliged to heroism. If the Saints had themselves
crucified with Christ, it was for love, not of necessity.
Nowadays the devil has made such a mess of every­
thing in the system of life on earth that the world
will presently become uninhabitable for anybody but
Saints. The rest will drag their lives out in despair
or fall below the level of man. The antinomies of
human life are too exasperated, the burden of matter
too oppressive ; merely to exist, one has to expose
oneself to too many snares. Christian heroism will
one day become the sole solution for the problems
of life. Then, as God proportions His graces to human
needs and tempts nobody beyond his strength, we
shall doubtless see coincident with the worst condition
in human history a flowering of sanctity. . . .

24. If we consider at all attentively the state of
apostasy of the modern world, we shall not be sur­
prised that, while not denying the urgency of a return
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TO

GOD

to sound political ideas or the right of Catholics, like
any others, to strive to secure by every honourable
means the triumph of the political system they think
best suited to their country or the importance of the
civil and political duties imposed on each of us by
the fourth commandment, the Church nowadays
not only insists, as she has always done, upon her
indifference with regard to the various forms of lawful
government, but also herself adopts an attitude
more and more apolitical or rather supra-polilical. She
has no longer to exercise her spiritual authority
among the nations, as in the Christian centuries,
to direct governments positively towards religious
ends, but must henceforth in the first place defend
her rights and the liberties of her children against
aggression and prevent religion becoming too closely
implicated in political struggles. She therefore
approves of Catholics exercising whatever political
activity they prefer, provided such activity does not
tend to diminish or pervert in them the spirit of the
Gospel. She admits that on this condition they may
collaborate with infidels. She will not have Catholic
influence and action as such bound to any party, any
class, any political servitude.1
With regard to the very reserved attitude of the
Holy See towards fascism and its strictures upon the
Action Française, certain persons, forming an imper­
tinent judgement on matters pertaining to the Church,
have spoken of a “ sliding to the left ” ; as though
what is built upon a rock could slide to right or left.
We are in reality summoned to an affirmation of
supernatural faith, to a strenuous asseveration of the
i Cf. p. 64.

G

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CAESAR’S

rights of the spiritual against the most powerful
political and temporal enterprises, even against such
as proffer their support. For the Church fears the
protection of a human arm which is not in the first
place absolutely' docile to God (and the docility of
whatever is powerful, while it has always been rare,
in the modern world is almost a miracle). It is the
great principles of spiritual independence and sover­
eignty which modern liberalism most detests, and of
which St. Gregory VII was the supreme incarnation,
which are here in issue.
The Church makes her way amidst dangers springing
from the most opposite quarters to imperil the souls
of men, striking at one time to one side, at another
time to another. Anyone with his eyes fixed on the
present thinks that she is changing direction every
time ; it is the danger which changes direction, the
Church marches straight on. She repudiates none,
rescinds none, renounces none of her decisions. The
encyclical Pascendi is still there, the Syllabus is still
there, the Bull Unam Sanctam is still there. Liberal­
ism still stands condemned, Americanism, Socialism,
Sillonism, Modernism still stand condemned. Laicism
is still and again condemned.1 If we consider, as we
ought, the prodigious memory of the Church and the
eternal perspectives where she insists we shall take
our stand to contemplate her actions, we shall then
see the solemn proclamation of the kingship of Christ
related in the closest connection throughout the
centuries with the resounding affirmations of the su­
premacy of the spiritual made by the Popes of the
Middle Ages and that the present attitude of the
1 Cf. the encyclicals Ubi Arcar.o and Quas Primas.

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TO

GOD

Church in regard to nationalism, even such nationalism
as is most anxious to rely on the Catholic tradition,
is dictated by the great memories in which they all
continue to live who rose up like kC a rampart for the
house of Israel : Paschal II against the Emperor
Henry IV ; Innocent IV against Frederick II ;
Boniface VIII against Philip the Fair ; Gregory XIII,
Sixtus V, Gregory XIV7 and Clement V III against
Henry of Bourbon ; Innocent XI against Louis XIV ;
Clement XIII against the courts of Madrid, Lisbon,
Naples and Parma ; Pius VII against Napoleon ;
Gregory XVI against Frederick William . .
[97].
She has a longer memory than any of us, the experience
of all history. It is folly to reject the advice of such
wisdom or to be concerned at the course she may be
taking.
But it is folly no less to betray her designs and to
rush out, as though that were the way indicated by
her, to embrace errors she has ever rebuked. If
Catholics think that they are entering into the mind
of the Pope by compounding with the spirit of “ modern
liberties ” condemned by the Pope, by abandoning
the eternal rules of doctrine or by savouring the swreetness of accommodating their baptised souls to the con­
cupiscences of the age in the hope of a return to the
age of innocence through the virtues of evolution and
human progress, they will suffer a cruel awakening.
It is important also not to forget that if the Church
herself is essentially supra-political, every Catholic,
on the other hand, considered as a member of the
terrestrial community, is in the State and of the State
not above it, and must contribute his share of work
for the temporal salvation of the State and the world
83

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Certain political conditions, subordinate though they
may be to spiritual conditions, are indispensable
to such temporal salvation. The Church, which
pursues another end—an eternal end—has never
failed to acknowledge, would even sanctify such
conditions of temporal good and by the very fact of
ordering them to the ultimate supernatural end
guarantees from above their integrity.
II.

PRIMACY

OF

THE

SPIRITUAL

25. We should be sorry for Churches which are
separated from the Pope ; they have nobody to defend
them against the power of the world. There is no
man raised above all the kings to interpose his hand
and the hand of God between them and the instinct
of tyranny natural to the civil power. The Russian
Church had never accepted, as is too commonly
thought in the West, the oppression she suffered at
the hands of the Imperial Government ; she prayed
in secret for her liberty : Lenin and martyrdom were
required to set her free—in a terrible persecution.
But is her freedom genuine and permanent ?
We should be sorry also for nations that know not
the Church and the Pope. They cannot adjust the
spiritual and the temporal in a proper harmony.
If the temporal authority does not become a usurping
power—the general rule—the spiritual authority ab­
sorbs the temporal and reigns like a despot as in Tibet.
Attempts at ordinary subordination succeed only in
confusing everything ; a deep-seated presentiment
of the primacy of the spirit impelled the like of Gandhi
to make war on the British by fasting and penances
and suffering deliberately chosen ; but that is to
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DUTY

TO

GOD

require heroism of the multitude and it is to be feared
that such a direct application of spiritual methods to a
domain which is specifically temporal—civic and
national—may end in streams of blood.
The example of Gandhi, however, should put us
to shame. It is everywhere forgotten in Europe, which
once was Christian, that if specifically political means
ought to be applied to specifically political ends,
nevertheless, by the very fact of their proximate end
being subordinated to a more exalted end, the use of
such means ought itself to be rectified and elevated
by more exalted virtues and impregnated as it were
by their spirit. Only on that condition are they
completely good and effective in their order ; for only
in that case are they perfectly subject to the whole
order of their ends. Joan of Arc would have had her
army in a state of grace before waging battle ; every
method of hers was loyal and pure ; by her solemn
warnings the rights of charity were maintained even
in regard to enemies. States nowadays have turned
their methods of existence into an organised system of
sin.
The truth is that Europe has forgotten even the
subordination of political to spiritual ends. There
lies its great mistake. Hence derive that general
condition of the oppression of the spirit and the con­
science, that contempt in practice for human person­
ality and its dignity, the overwhelming burden of
which is everywhere more or less consciously felt.
We should be sorry above all for nations which,
gathered by a signal favour of grace around the Pope
and having in their midst the voice of Christ indefatigably reminding them of all that Truth requires,
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CAFSAR’s

have persisted for centuries in stopping up their ears.
Generatio incredula et perversa, usque quo patiar vos ? 1
26. It would appear that we arc on the threshold of
an age when, all the high hopes set upon nationalism
and humanitarian optimism having been disappointed,
the great problems of the spiritual order, the war
between the angels, will once more dominate history
and the distress of mankind. This is what the Russian
philosopher, Nicholas Berdiaeff, calls a new Middle
Age. It is most striking to consider from this point of
view the ferment at work within the Church. All
her aspirations at the moment seem to be strained
towards a spiritual restoration of Christendom. The
spirit of God is making her cry out with her whole
heart in the hope of that holy task. We should be
sorry for anyone who judged a movement of such
divine origin according to the standards of politics,
national conflicts and worldly interests. Jesus Christ
is moving His chalice from one place to another
throughout the world, extending the frontiers of the
Church, augmenting everywhere within her labour
and desire in distant preparation for the return of the
Christian East to unity, or the end of the fratricidal
schisms provoked by the Reformation, or imploring
Heaven to make the scales fall from the eyes of the
elder race, or extending the secular effort of the missions
and solemnly inviting the nations of Asia to share in the
plenitude of the priesthood and the government of
churches.2
1 Matthew xvii. 16.
2 The encyclicals of the Supreme Pontiffs are a testimony as it
were in every age to the action of the Holy Ghost. Nothing is more
significant at the present day than the whole of the encyclicals and

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This is an essentially spiritual work which is being
accomplished ; the affirmation of unity and Catholicity
necessitated not only by the rents caused by the war,
but also, it would appear, by a presentiment of the
future. The universal supplications of Good Friday
are heard above the din and clamour of the age ... as
though the Church were gathering all her love
together in preparation for some divine work before
the great anguish.
We should strive to the utmost to bring that spiritual
Christendom down into the arena of the temporal and
to realise it in political Christendom ; may it be
considered probable at present ? A Christian political
order in the world is not to be artificially constructed
by diplomatic means ; it is a product of the spirit of
faith. It presupposes a living practical faith in the
majority, a civilisation with the impress of theology
and the acknowledgement of ah the rights of God in
the life of the State. We are far from such an ideal,
Unless God intervenes miraculously or excess of
despair compels this distracted w’orld to a moment’s
obedience, the kingdoms of earth seem destined for
long to the most deadly divisions.
It is understandable that when nations are in a state
so far removed from real order and even the most
precarious peace is so difficult to secure, countries,
especially those whose frontiers are most exposed,
should refuse to abandon the precautions in armadecrees of Pius XI (more particularly the encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei on
securing the Peace of Christ through the kingdom of Christ, Quas Primas
on the Kingship of Christ, Rerum Ecclesiae on missions and a native
clergy, Studiorum Ducem on St. Thomas Aquinas, Ecclesiam Dei on St.
Josaphat). An interesting number of the Revue des Jeunes ( 15th March,
1926) contains a collection of articles on these encyclicals.
’

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merits upon which their existence depends. As
Catholics in the different countries are as a rule and
very normally the element most devoted to the
principles of the natural law, it is also understandable
that from this point of view they should be conscious,
as citizens, of specially grave duties and be the first
to require from their governments all the strength of
action and preparation necessary for the protection
of their native land. Such is indeed the most proximate
and essential objective which a Christian policy ought
to set before itself.
It would not be Christian, however, if this proximate
end were not related to a more remote and exalted
end in such a way that the idea of the good of the
human community, founded on justice and charity,
and of a permanent peace to be established among the
nations not merely enjoyed a primacy of honour over
such a policy, but actually exercised an effectively
controlling action. The sense of obligation towards
the country in which we are born and brought up is,
like the sense of obligation to parents, a virtue related
to justice ; we are indebted to our country for benefits
of every kind which we have received from her and
they are innumerable. “ After God, it is to his parents
and his country that a man owes most.” 1 But patriot 1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Thcal., ii-ii, ιοί, i. “A man is con­
stituted a debtor to others in a variety of ways, according to their
various degrees of excellence and the various benefits he has received
from them ; in both cases, however, God occupies the highest place,
for God is the supreme degree of excellence and the first principle of
our being and government. Our parents and our country are, second­
arily, the first principles of our being and government through whom
and in which we are born and brought up ; therefore, after God, man
is most indebted to his parents and his country ; accordingly, as it is a
religious act to do reverence to God, so, in the second place, it is a
pious act to do reverence to one’s parents and one’s country.”

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ism in the baptised soul is not merely an acquired
moral virtue of intrinsic nobility ; in the light of
supernatural faith and Christian prudence, it ought to
be “ an infused virtue, perfectly subordinated to
charity, vivified by the love of God, by the super­
naturallove of one’s neighbour and even one’s enemies ’’
[98]. There is an order of charity, that is to say, of
the supernatural love of God and one’s neighbour ;
the love of one’s country has its place therein [99].
Charity at the same time requires, not merely as a
perfection at which we ought to aim, but as an
essential necessity imposed by the precept, not only
that we should love our enemies in general, but also
that our hearts should be prepared, if the necessity
arose, to love them by name and individually.1 So
supernatural charity reconciles the love of country
and the love of every man, where a purely natural
benevolence towards humanity and a purely natural
love of the nation can only affront one another in vain.
Without allowing itself to be contaminated by
humanitarian ideology or relying upon the near
abolition of warfare—or war waged against the Church
—an integral Christian policy 2 would realise that it is
not sufficient to combat symptoms, to employ such
methods of defence as are rendered necessary by the
general barbarism of modern nations ; the evil must
be combated at the source and the self be first accus-

;.i

1 “ It xs, however, of the necessity of charity according to the preparation
of the mind that a man should have his mind prepared to love his enemy
in the particular, should the necessity arise.” St. T homas Aquinas,
Sum. Theol.y ii-ii, 25, 8, the question being “ Whether it is of the necessity
of charity that a man should love his enemies ? ”
2 It must be admitted that no great political party at the present
time in France, Europe or outside Europe, professes entirely Christian
principles,

·"

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tomed to have regard for the rights and necessities of
others. The appreciation of problems would then
become more sound and equitable, the preoccupation
of justice would accord with that of force and resume
its indispensable pre-eminence in practice [too].
Moreover and above all, however pressing their
national duties may be and whatever measures of
prudence they may from that point of view be bound to
adopt in the political sphere, it is the duty of Catholics,
as citizens of a nation, at the same time to strive to
re-establish in the spiritual sphere the Christendom
of prayer, knowledge and love, if not of international
law, before referred to ; a supra-national task to
which they are summoned as Catholics by the Holy
Ghost and the Church. Haec oportet facere et illa
non omittere. Such a union of apparently antinomous
virtues is difficult, but is constantly required in the
Christian life and we are all of us obliged to do difficult
things. Both tasks are in reality inter-related. As it is
true that humanitarian and racial naturalism are both
alike hostile to the idea of patriotism and Christendom,
so it is equally true that the strength of the nation is,
with justice, the most proximate guarantee of peace
and that a genuine, spiritual community between
nations strengthens every member of it.
27. The spirit makes spontaneously for universality.
There are two kinds of universalism, as there are two
principalities of the spirit. One universalism seeks its
principle of unity in man himself, considered as the
rule and ultimate end, and thereupon mingles all
human diversities in a great confusion destined to
efface national boundaries and to establish the univer9°

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sal State in which our nature will be self-sufficient, like
the angelic nature. Now man is a material being :
and as the object thus pursued on the materia] side,
which divides, is an absolute self-sufficiency which even
the angels lack, a deeper descent becomes obviously
necessary down to the spirit itself which had resolved
to be self-sufficient ; utopian and humanitarian to
begin with, in its preparatory phase of desire, the
pursuit of such a unity of man regardless of Christ ends
by becoming, in its positive phase of realisation, the
pretext for the imposition on man of an absolute
violence and an anti-human tyranny.
The other universalism seeks the unity of man from
the Father of creatures ; respecting every natural
diversity, it raises above the nations the true universal
State which is the Church and in which man, by
supernatural grace, attains to the freedom of the sons
of God. The two universalisms are implacably
opposed to one another in irreconcilable antagonism.
In one case man would make himself divine by his
own energy, in the other he is made divine by the
blood of the incarnate God. The former universalism
is of the devil, homicidal from the very beginning,
head of the Church of evil.1 The latter is of the
Redeemer. Bolshevist imperialism, in its effort to
expand throughout the world, would seem to proclaim
the time when only the universalism of Antichrist and
the universalism of Christ will be left facing each other
here on earth.
The latter is called Catholicity. True universalism,
let it not be forgotten, is the very reverse of eclecticism.
1 Diabolus est caput omnium malorum:, St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol.,
iii, 8, 7.

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It does not marry thejw and the noy, Heaven and Hell.
It presupposes aj?rtz, but a yea vast enough to fill earth
and sky—and excluding the nay for all eternity.
The universality of truth and faith, which excludes
error, is the indispensable condition of the universality
of love, which excludes nothing that exists [ιοί].
Authentic universalism is centred. A city is at the
centre of the universe and makes its unity. Amor is
the same word as Roma. To speak less superficially :
Christ is the head of all humanity. All men belong
to Him, good and bad, faithful and infidel? All arc
intended to become members of Him, are members of
Him potentially. “ His empire,” writes Pius XI,
adopting the words of his predecessor Leo XIII,
“ extends not only to the Catholic nations or to those
which, purified by holy baptism, belong of right to the
Church, although erroneous opinions may have driven
them astray and keep them apart or schism have
separated them from charity ; it embraces also all
mankind that have no knowledge of the Christian
faith, so that in all truth the universality of the human
race is subject to the pow er of Jesus Christ.” a For
this reason the Pope, to whom, as Vicar of Christ,
every human creature is subject by necessity of salva­
tion [102], is authorised to offer all mankind to their
Creator in his prayer.3 “ Lord be King not only of
the faithful who have never left Your side, but also
of the prodigals who have abandoned You. . . .
1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., iii, 8, 3, ad 1.
2 Encyclical Quas Primas, nth December, 1928, quoting Pope Leo
XIII’s encyclical Annum sacrum, 25th May, 1899.
3 Leo XIII put this universal authority into practice when he
Consecrated the whole human race to the Sacred Heart (encyclical
Annum sacrum).

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Be King of all those who arc still astray in the darkness
of idolatry and Islamism, and do not refuse to draw
them all into the radiance of Your Kingdom. Look
with pity upon the children of that people which was
once Your chosen people ; may the Blood which oi
old they called down upon their heads descend upon
them also, but now in baptism of life and redemption.”1

28. Whatever injures Catholicity injures Christ.
It is the last hope of the human race.
It would be a deadly error to confuse the uni­
versal cause of the Church with the particular cause
of a civilisation, to confuse, for example, Latinism
with Catholicism, or Westernism with Catholicism.
Catholicism is not linked to the culture of the West.
Universality is not confined to one part of the world.
Christ died for East and West. His Divinity
embraces East and West in one same uncreated love.
As Man, He was born “ a Jew by excellence of nature ”
in the centre where East meets West.
I am well aware of the dangers to the mind latent
in the confused syncretism which decks itself in the
colours of the East, and the encounter between the
ideology with which Europe poisons the world, and
from which we can free ourselves only with difficulty,
and the great amorphous demons of the false religions
of Asia. That is, however, a common plague, a
common peril proceeding not from the East, but from
the universalism of the devil contaminating East and
West by one another. The swarm of pseudo-Christs
is the product of such conjunctions of evil.
1 Formula of universal consecration to the Sacred Heart, modified
by Pius XI on the occasion of the Feast of Christ the King, Acta
Apostolical Sedis, 5th November, 1925.

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Let us make no mistake : the complaints and
curses which the East utters against us at the present
day are inspired not only by hatred but also by a
profound disillusion. We cannot hear that outcry
without quivering for sorrow and shame. What
would it be if they knew the gift of God which we owed
them and which we have kept to abuse it—which our
missions sought to convey to them but our vices stopped
on the way ? The labour of the missionaries, their
charity, the testimony they so often sealed in their
blood, are the glory of Europe and perhaps its ransom.
But far from helping them as it ought, Europe by its
sins has constantly thwarted them. For a century
past, it has constituted itself the apostle of its own
apostasy.1 Before becoming indignant with our
accusers, let us first admit that we have sinned against
them and that the diffusion of our atheistic pseudo­
culture and that self-styled scientific modernism,
which is a gospel of damnation, has merely succeeded
in emptying the world of its living energies and spirit­
ual reserves. The claim put forward by certain
representatives of the East to be ambassadors of the
spirit reveals an illusion which is far from being
innocuous. It also conceals a painful aspiration
which only the Church of Jesus Christ can satisfy.
As a Catholic and a member of that universal
Church, I expect no message of salvation from
Buddhism or Taoism, but I feel myself in the first
place accountable to all those men in the mystery of
reversibility.
I would take leave to refer to what I had recently
occasion to write that “ if Mr. Hilaire Belloc means
1 Cf. Appendix VIII.

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that Europe would be nothing without the Faith
and that its raison d'etre has been and remains to
dispense the Faith to the world, Mr. Belloc is right
in saying that Europe is the Faith. But speaking
absolutely, no ! Europe is not the Faith and the Faith
is notEurope : Europe is notthe Churchand the Church
is not Europe. Rome is not the capital of the Latin
world. Rome is the capital of the world. Urbs caput
orbis. The Church is universal because she is born of
God, all nations arc at home in her, the arms of her
crucified Master are stretched above all races, above
all civilisations. She does not bring nations the bene­
fits of civilisation, but the Blood of Christ and super­
natural Beatitude. It seems as though some kind
of marvellous epiphany of her Catholicity were in
preparation in our time, of which the progressive
development in missionary countries of a native clergy
and a native episcopate may be considered a pre­
cursory sign ” [103].
Before being combated from without by the false
Catholicity of the Adversary, this holy Catholicity
has been constantly thwarted from within by the
selfishness of man. There is no need to mention the
spiritual disasters precipitated in the course of cen­
turies by human rivalries in the Church or the ambi­
tions, commercial cupidity and interested designs of
governments. For the honour of Catholicism, a
Las Casas was found to denounce at the outset the
scandals of which the natives of Central and Southern
America were the victims [104], and to throw over them
the protection of the justice of Christ [105]. Rapacity,
however, proved the stronger. To the methods
adopted by English colonists in North America and
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India reformed Christianity had no opposition to
offer. The history of modern colonisation, heroic in
its soldiers but dishonoured by gold, bears a heavy
burden of iniquities of which the “ opium war ” [106]
is merely one among many. All that is part of the
world’s business and will be paid for at a price. What
I here wish to emphasise is a fact of the spiritual
order. Prejudices regarding the radical inferiority
of the non-white races, which affected the minds of
clergy and laity alike, and even of many of those who
devoted themselves to preaching the gospel, have too
long caused missionaries to be considered not as the
apostles of Jesus Christ only but of a particular human
or national culture also, sometimes even as the fore­
runners of colonists and merchants. There lay one
of the chief obstacles to the evangelisation of the
world. The Church is now doing away with that
obstacle. She is reminding us that her missionaries
must renounce every worldly interest, every concern
with national propaganda, must know nothing but
Christ, and that they are sent to found churches which
shall be self-sufficient, complete with clergy. She
does not profess that all races and nations have the
same historical vocation and a similar human develop­
ment ; she does maintain, in the most significant
manner, that they are all called of God, all alike
included in her charity, that each has its legitimate
place in the spiritual unity of Christendom and is
capable of providing the flock of Christ with bishops.
European Christians might take to heart the words
recently addressed to the undergraduates of Louvain
by one of the Chinese bishops recently consecrated
by Pius XI, Dr. Philip Tchao [107] : “ Cultivate
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amongst you,” he told them, “ manifest around you,
the sentiments of Catholic fraternity which yesterday
brought tears of joy to our eyes. . . . The hearts of
pagans, like the rest, hunger and thirst for charity.
We Catholics, who are the children of the same Father,
redeemed by the same Jesus, nourished by the same
Eucharist, must break down once and for all race
and colour barriers, national prejudices and antipathics, and loyally love one another with our whole
hearts, with the whole strength of our wills, if need
be. ... In a world divided by so many misunder­
standings and torn by so many hatreds, on the day
when the infidels will be able to repeat of the Catholics
of all countries the celebrated words spoken about the
early Christians in Rome : Just see how they love one
another !—on that day the Church will have conquered
Satan. For Satan is hatred and Christ is love ” [108].

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29. It would be foolish to think that, in liberating
itself from old fetters, Catholicity will not find fresh
dangers to meet, against which it must be on its guard,
The nationalism of the young nations in a high fever
of emancipation is as capable of great excesses as the
nationalism of the exhausted nations and States
heavily laden with history ; their susceptibility is no
less quick to take offence ; it is far from certain that the
world which set out to behold a deliverance is not
simply taking part in a change of servitude.
To speak less superficially : it may be observed that
every moment of deliverance is for humanity a moment
of danger. We should always be on our guard against
sudden releases, because our nature is weak and bent
beneath such a heavy load. At the slightest sensation
H

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of alleviation, it imagines that all the constraints and
all the old misery, all the rigour of the law, are about
to cease.
This is the reason why, after the great dclivciance oi
the Cross and the Resurrection and Pentecost, Cod
reserved for it such a long and bitter penance. The
persecutions of the early centuries, the anguish and
the agonies of the Dark Ages, were the noli me langue,
as it were, of the Holy Ghost ; under cover of such
darkness He kept Christ and the redemption alive in
the souls of men. Oppressed by the constraints not of
fear but of love, compelled by suffering to make an
avowal of love and prove it, as Père de Foucauld said,
they did not let their deliverance go the way of the
flesh. The Christian centuries needed such a schooling
to teach them where to find true liberty.
Yet it was a question then of a genuine and divine
deliverance, the only deliverance. The world ex­
perienced later another deliverance, one that was not
pure. When the Revolution, fostered by the long
injustice of men, burst like a fruit, what it rejected was
the whole system of constraints which preserved being,
and of force which protected man against himself—
and such a system, though normal to the human
being, had ruined itself by a surfeit of abuses. The
Revolution, as we know', inaugurated the era of liberty.
If, from the Edict of Milan down to the Declaration
of the Rights of Man, human energy in the service of
Christ lasted for fifteen centuries before going bank­
rupt, a century and a half—even less !—was sufficient
for human liberty emancipated from Christ to plunge
the world in a chaos of woes.
Souls nowadays would seem to be waiting for some
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further deliverance, a genuine deliverance in the
universalism of Christ or a sham deliverance in the
universalism of Antichrist ; both may perhaps take
place simultaneously in the divided world. The
Catholic deliverance is a victory of love. Its greatest
danger is from within : the spirit must not yield. It is
being sorely tried ; it is being asked to provide from
its own resources the order which the constraints of
society formerly helped man to maintain within him­
self. Order is in the heart of sacred love. In God
love proceeds from the Father and the uncreated
Word. In us, who are made in the likeness of God,
love must also proceed from truth ; otherwise it turns
destructive ; it is expensive to deny the Filioque. In
its formalist period (if I may hazard such an epithet),
the modern world sinned in the first place against love,
outraged the likeness of the Trinity in itself by attempt­
ing to impose a sterile form upon things, a word which
did not exhale love. In its liberal period, it was by
attempting in the first place to embrace all things in
a love not emanating from truth that it outraged the
likeness of God in itself, sinning then against the word,
that is to say against the principle of love. And love
suffers no less from that second sin.
There, however, is the danger which continues to
threaten us. For we have witnessed several episodes
of modernism and the struggle against it, but unfore­
seen episodes may still arise. Eastern thought, so far
as it comes to the faith of Christ, will bring the Church
abundant resources for the contemplative life ; but
the danger which, even then, will attend such riches
will still be a danger of mistrust with regard to the
Word, to which the East, when it goes astray, unlike

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the Extreme West, seems to prefer not practical action,
but a formless speculation which is not infused con­
templation and would fain be above reason. The
abhorrence of Latinity is as worthless as the idolatry of
it ; for many minds it is merely an ornamental façade
concealing a fundamental intolerance of the jorm of
reason.
Well ! the danger indicated may certainly be
avoided, but on well-defined conditions. The East,
like the West, needs the lessons of wisdom which orders
all things in accordance with the hierarchies of nature
and grace. I beg to be excused for reverting to a
former essay [109]. “ The fact is,” I wrote, “ that the
order of reason, having ceased to be maintained under
the order of charity, has become everywhere corrupted
and is no longer fit for anything. The evil of rational­
ism has produced a discord between nature and the
form of reason. It has now become exceedingly
difficult to remain within the bounds of the human.
You must place your stake either above reason and
still for it, or below reason and against it. Now only
the theological virtues and the supernatural gifts and
infused contemplation are above reason. All the
so-called supra-rational, which is not in charity,
ultimately serves only animality. The hatred of
reason will never be other than the revolt of the genus
against the specific difference.
“ The world, the world I mean for which Christ has
not prayed, has made its choice beforehand. To set
itself free from the forma rationis, to fly away from God,
in an impossible metaphysical suicide, from the harsh
and saving order appointed by the eternal Law, is the
aspiration with which the flesh of the old Adam
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quivers, the aspiration of the Ancient of Ancients
when he fell like lightning from the sky. . . .
“ It is a mistake, however, to judge only according
to nature. Grace is there ^vith surprises in store.
While this old world continues its downward career, the
real new world is at hand, the secret invincible urge
of divine sap in the mystic Body which endures and
grows not old, the blessed awakening of souls at the
prompting of the Virgin and the Spirit. O Wisdom
striding in power from end to end of the world
and making extremes meet ! Installed in ancient
errors and now affected by our follies, the East is as
ailing as the distracted West and the bewildered Slav
world. But on all sides we shall see, wherever the
living faith takes root, the adhesion to what is truly
above reason, to uncreated Truth and the wisdom of
the Saints, simultaneously achieve—not without a
strenuous effort certainly—the restoration of the
very order of reason, implied as a condition by super­
natural life. So the Gospel and philosophy, mysticism
and metaphysics, the divine and the human go hand
in hand. . . .”

30. When we think of Europe, more especially of
the Mediterranean civilisation, we are dazzled by all
the grandeur of its vocation and its past. One point,
however, should hold our attention. Whatever the
state of its intrinsic titles may be, the kind of historic
monopoly which that civilisation enjoyed in fact, now
seems to be severely shaken. It is important in this
connection to understand thoroughly the significance
of the war and the frightful rent it made. Benedict
XV’s remark about the suicide of Europe goes
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further than one thinks. Europe has killed its fast.
Weep your eyes out over the gods of Hellas and the
whole classical past, the immense secular body of pro­
fane Christian culture from which every European born
into the world drew some sap of nourishing humanity
and which supported him in life, educated and
sustained him on all sides, now seems as it were
inanimate. In fact those who received so much from
it have now the sensation of receiving almost nothing
at all. All the fragrance and beauty, the forms and
values, the very pictures by which our ancestors lived,
which made nature fraternal to them and the universe
familiar, and which from generation to generation pre­
pared us in them, have suddenly become remote and
separate from us, entirely worthy of admiration and
respect, but immovably fixed in what has ceased to be.
This is undoubtedly the deepset cause of the great
distress afflicting contemporary youth. It is strolling
in its own humanity as in a museum : it sees its heart
in the show-cases. Too many masterpieces. Is it
surprising that it should want to smash the lot ? We
are exotic to our very selves : is it surprising that
nothing should strike us as exotic and that every
human form indifferently should excite our curiosity—
or merely bore us ?
Souls have been stripped bare. And the Church
also in a sense is bare. All the wool and silk, all the
riches of secular humanity with which the civilisation
of a select part of the world once clothed and protected
and sometimes burdened her, are falling in tatters.
Such a garment is not the Church. It does not matter
to her special life. But the magnificent lustre she sheds
over the world should not blind us to the fact that the
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Prince of this world is mafing the world more and more
alien to her. Well ! She is not afraid of solitude ;
if need be, she will inhabit the deserts and make them
blossom. There she will fmd new raiment to adorn her.
I do not despair of Europe. The death I have
referred to is not a real death. The deep springs of
her life are still there, concealed but not dried up.
But I do say that no purely human means—only the
Church and the Faith can make them gush forth
again. Europe will rise again only if she returns
entirely to the feet of Christ. Then only will she be
able to resume her function of serving the world by
guiding it, not ruling it for her own advantage.
Meanwhile the Church reminds us that, if our culture
is Greco-Latin, our religion is not. The Church
adopted such a culture, but did not subordinate herself
to it. If the West, grown callous by an excess of pre­
varications and abuse of grace, refuses for a time her
influence, she will boldly turn to cultures developed
under other skies—she alone can do so without too
great a risk, because she has in her hands the means
of making all things right in hearts of good-will.
She is the mother and nurse of civilisation, and knows
how to bring up a world.
And let it not be thought that she will ever abandon
the superior virtues which she herself produced out
of Hellenic and Latin culture. If she made such an
extensive use of that culture, the very simple explana­
tion still holds good ; like ancient Hebraism in the
order of revelation, that culture had received from
Providence in the order of reason a privilege which
it would be shameful to deny ; it is the only culture
in which human reason nearly succeeded. There

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was therefore nothing exceptional in its providing
the supernatural life of the Church with choice
human means. Again, for the perfect achievement
of such success, the superior influences which only the
Church herself could dispense were required. They
alone enable reason truly to attain that universality
in the natural order to which it tends by nature and
which the infirmity of man ceaselessly denies it. It
took centuries of Christian work and effort for the
mind finally to emerge into the integral universalism
which truth requires. St. Thomas Aquinas is the
great exponent of such universalism developed in
the intelligence under the light of faith and for that
reason the Church has such a predilection for his
doctrine and has made it, in the words of Benedict
XV, her own special doctrine. It has been very justly
observed and should be untiringly reiterated : “ It
is not Catholicism which is Thomist, it is Thomism
which is Catholic and it is Catholic because it is
universalist.” 1 The metaphysics and theology of
St. Thomas are expressed in a system of symbols and
a Latin language—but the philosophy itself is no
more bound to Latinism than to the physics of Aristotle
or Ptolemy. It welcomes all being, because it is
absolutely docile to being. Its structure being as
hard as steel, it is as extensible as may be ; its discip­
line being the strictest possible, it enjoys the utmost
freedom. By one of those paradoxes which Provi­
dence does not disdain and which are the effect of a
superior logic, the least scholastic philosophy grew out
of Scholasticism. It is now being invited to come
forward and occupy the most advanced positions.
1 H. Woroniecki.

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Those who possess arc, no doubt, indolent as a rule
and allow their treasures to lie undisturbed ; Thomists
are hard put to it not to diminish St. Thomas. And
men, we know7, lay hands on everything that descends
from Heaven to appropriate it to their ephemeral
interests and make it serve their private quarrels.
But if the force of gravity and the contingencies of
opinion attract every human system towards the
divisions of earth, the faith and contemplation from
which the doctrine of St. Thomas depends will always
preserve it in universality as an intellectual instrument
for the Church. That is the capital point : that
philosophy is the universal Church’s intellectual
instrument and it is therefore as impossible for it ever
to restrict the universality of truth as for Catholicism
ever to restrict Catholicity.
It is the Church who preserves all the virtues of the
West. She preserves them by making them universal,
inasmuch as she makes use of them in her own peculiar
intellectual and spiritual life and so extracts from their
natural particularities an immortal substance which
she incorporates in herself. I have said that the
garment of profane culture which Europe had woven
for her is becoming undone. It is not the garment
which is now in question, but the body itself. All the
eternal sap in the wisdom and riches of the West has
been incorporated in the peculiar life of the Church.
A whole rational organism with a universal value
transcending place and time has so been constituted,
which will endure for ever. St. Thomas is entrusted
wdth the task of maintaining its unity.
Supernatural faith is in itself independent of all
such treasures of reason. But if it is to spread and
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preserve itself among men, it must make use of them.
To claim to strip it of them on the pretext of disen­
cumbering it, would be the grossest absurdity.
Because of the natural infirmity of reason, which
lacks the divine guarantees of integrity and perfection
peculiar to faith, it may well be that important virtu­
alities of rational wisdom, philosophical or theological,
have remained concealed or insufficiently developed
in the speculation of the West ; we have much to
receive under this head from our Slav brethren and
a genuine Christian spirituality which, in spite of the
schism, is still able to produce saints.1 We have also
something to receive from non-Christian forms of
thought, nay, from all the errors of the world, which
always hold some truth captive. Nevertheless, what­
ever shall be received will have to be assimilated into
the truth, and the peculiar doctrine of the Church has
behind it the authority of the Church herself unceasingly
assisted by God not in her infallible definitions only,
but also in the whole of her intellectual life. The
influences of material causality, adaptations to any
particular historic formation, affect absolutely nothing
essential in such doctrine ; it is true and so tran­
scends all variations in time and space. It developed in
a particular region of the globe and in the course of
so many centuries, but so far from suffering any
historical or geographical particularisation on that
account, is on the contrary, after a very long period
of ripening, ready to furnish the means of a universal
reconstruction.

31. Catholics are faced with a task of immense
1 Cf. Appendix IX.
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difficulty : we should not attempt to biink tlic fact.
To ensure the triumph of the universalism of Christ,
it is now necessary to make up for the deficiencies in
the Christian education which many nations have
failed to receive. By adapting Catholicism to their
use? If adaptation means change, we do not adapt
truth, but adapt ourselves to it. By adapting them to
Catholicism ? If adaptation means conformity to
something alien, there is no need of adaptation to
Catholicism, which is nowhere alien. Lei me select
a better word and say that a great work of preparation
is required which will enable such nations to make
the Gospel grow in the soil of their own peculiar
civilisations.
Such a work is possible, because in spite of all the
accidental differences (exaggerated out of all propor­
tion, apparently, by many philologists and theorists),
man and the human reason are everywhere alike.
“ What struck me most on my arrival in China,”
Père Lebbe told me, “ was not the difference, but the
resemblance.” Moreover, there is no place in the
world but contains some trace of God ; He has left
His secret marks everywhere and they only need to
be found.
Such a work is terribly difficult, because it must have
a simultaneous regard, in matters which the human
subject would only too willingly confuse, for the
absolute unchanging truth and the relativity of every
contingent kind of cultural development. One law
reminds us that grace has a natural right over all
natures and nations and that in all countries the house
of God is the common natal house of everyone.
Another law reminds us that every weakness in regard
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to error is paid for at a terrific price and that souls
are not brought to the light by complaisance for
darkness.
It demands a universal collaboration. God grant
intellectual vocations among the converted of every
race. And may they hasten before too many ruins
and blood-stained corpses mark the earth ! It is
their effort which will perfect the common task. But
a Frenchman may be permitted to believe that his
country has received a special call to such an under­
taking, because France was born missionary. What
other country has spent more blood, lavished more
devotion on the missions ? The more one knows and
admires other countries, the better one divines the
importance of the message of France. A certain
intellectual protectionism, which enjoins ignorance
of one’s neighbour on the pretext of conserving one’s
own strength, but is dictated in reality by a feeling
of bourgeois thrift and standing on one’s dignity, is a
hindrance to the delivery of such a message. When
it gets the better of it—without thereby being false
to itself—its stark enthusiasm then excites everyone
to the best of which he is capable. Has it ears to-day
for the imperious complaints challenging on all sides
its ancient generosity ? The world is asking France
to spend its intellectual strength on the great enter­
prise for which God is waiting.
At a time when the illusory wisdom of the philoso­
phers of this world is besieging every mind in all
countries, is it conceivable that such an enterprise
can possibly be accomplished without the help of the
mind equipped to the uttermost ? It is not through
the imprecise and the formless that it has any chance of
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(JOI)

succeeding, but by dint of precision, formal and formed
energy. To set to work for it without the strongest
doctrinal guarantees or to hope to find adequate
weapons in the most primitive and least differentiated
state of Christian thought or to seek to buiid upon
philosophies alien to truth would be courting the risk
of grave disappointment. We must insist upon it
again and again ; it is the most highly developed,
the most perfect form of Christian thought, the lofty
wisdom under the aegis of the common Doctor of the
Church, which must be mobilised in this campaign.
It must be made to yield in appropriate forms of
presentation, and by thorough sifting to meet the
genuine requirements of every general problem, the
intellectual values which every country in the world
needs. It is the form which preserves whatever is
universal and permanent, it alone can revive the West,
give it back the free and living use of its spiritual
riches, its tradition and culture ; it alone can also
save the inheritance of the East and reconcile the two
halves of the world. For it is not a case of irreducibly opposing one culture to another or ofjumbling
them all in one nameless confusion, but of using
the finest and most active intellectual forms elabora­
ted in the Church to assume and integrate in the light
of the incarnate Word, without injuring in the least
their natural individuation and autonomy, all the
wise and good and truly human, and even divine,
elements in the various historical civilisations and
disciplines.
A crusade of the spirit, the spirit of crusaders !
Purely defensive positions, compromises, provisional
withdrawals, partial truths arc now of no avail. It
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is to a universal expansion of the mind that we arc
summoned through love. It is high time. The soul
craves to adhere unreservedly to the absolutism of
truth and charity. There will be men come forward
free from every preoccupation but Christ. The Saints
have foretold their coming.1 They will make no
exception of persons, nations or races. The ancient
routine or modern prejudices, the peace of mind of
the rich, the fate of literature and good taste, will
concern them little. Distinguishing in all things light
from darkness, they will undertake to reconcile human
antagonisms in justice and to give man wholly back
to God. Love will make them universal by grace
as God is universal by nature and expand their minds
to the measure of the divine intentions. If the world
refuses to receive them, their work will nevertheless
not be in vain : it will be fulfilled at all events in the
invisible kingdom of the hearts of such as listen to them.
III.

THE

PRE-EMINENCE

OF

CONTEMPLATION

32. Action is subject to time in which it takes place
and disappears and the law which governs action is
rapidity. Our Lord preached for three years. But
whether one be as inactive as the hermits or as active
as the doctors and the apostles, action triumphs over
time only so far as it descends from contemplation,
which unites the spirit to eternity. Three years in
the life of Our Lord inserted into the flux of our con­
tinuance the infinite efficiency of His blessed contem­
plation and so occupy the whole of time to the last day.
1 St. Vincent Ferrer, the Blessed Grignon de Montfort.

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The primacy of the spiritual would, as wits indicated
at the beginning of this chapter? be but imperfectly
appreciated, if we neglected to consider the part played
by contemplation in human life and its superiority
over the merely active life.
The Ancients knew that the contemplative life,
in which man “ burns to perceive the beauty of God ”
and offers Him the sacrifice of his soul,” is worth
more than the active life. “ Absolutely and of itself,”
says St. Thomas? “ the contemplative life is better
than the active life.” It tends more directly to divine
charity, which is the essence of perfection.
By the active life, the Ancients understood two
distinct things, which yet go together : exterior
activity in the midst of men and the effort to attain
perfection in the virtues. This moral effort, from
which we are never exempt, is ordered to contempla­
tion and union with God to which it disposes the
individual3 ; the exterior activity ought—according
to the perfected order of human life—to proceed
from contemplation and union with God? To the
extent that the order of charity still falls short of per­
fection in man, to that extent exterior activity, not
proceeding as it ought from adhesion to God, runs
the risk of squandering the substance of man in accord­
ance with the rhythm of matter and impeding the
progress by which, under the impulse of God, man
builds himself ; but at the same time moral effort,
combined with that activity, is a necessary means of
such progress. So that the active life is useful or
1 Of. pp. 78-9.
2 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., ii-ii, 180, 1 ; 182, 2 ad ς ·
i82, I.
’
5
3 Ibid., 180, 2.
3 Ibid., 182, 1, 3, 4 ; 188, 6.

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harmful, may assist progress or compel retreat, according as one or other of these two aspects is predominant.
Things then only go as they ought, if man, while
steadily increasing the exercise of the virtues, simplifies
his exterior activity, restricts it to what the order of
charity requires, rids it of that sort of pertness and
presumption that “ vagabond, disorderly and childish
manner” [no] which is an illusion of life.
Again, once he has submitted to the habitual
discipline of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and to the
extent that he participates in the perfect life, then and
to that extent the exterior activity proceeds in him,
as it ought, from adhesion to God, supervenes by way
of addition, not subtraction,1 then, so far from being
a deficiency or an impediment, it is a superabundance.
So the whole multitude of everyday actions, required
by the necessities of human life and intercourse among
men, became in the hands of the Blessed Virgin a dust
of stars gathered in the sky. The movement of the
active life is then reversed ; whereas it helped to
make the ascent to God, it now descends from God.
Then, and then only, according to its particular
vocation and the mission it has received, can the
creature perform the prodigies of activity which astound
us in certain Saints, triumphs of grace in which man
is a mere tool in the hands of Omnipotence and of
which the most colossal achievements of our natural
energy are but a fleeting counterfeit.
Such is the immutable order which no agitation can
impair—an order which demands a whole succession
of renunciations and deaths, because it is the consequence of our destination to a supernatural end.
1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., ii—ii, 182, 1, ad 3.

112

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Only a few so much as begin to follow it. And how
many proceed to the end ? Ultimately, no doubt,
everything is returned to them in a. way—transfigured
in the liberty of the children of God, qui spiritu Dei
aguntur. They bear witness, however, that even
infused contemplation docs not raise them to partici­
pation in the life of Christ and the three divine Persons,
except in a night hard as death in which Love deprives
them of all their human ways of acting. And truly,
before ascending to such a height through some
eminent grace, they must have acted by themselves,
by themselves made use of all their faculties forcibly
directed towards God—it is indeed the fundamental
error of quietism that it professes to obtain by merely
human effort a passivity which God alone can give.
Nevertheless the very force of their will must have
applied itself rather to appeasing their natural activity,
to making it fast, than to overexciting it in a kind of
athletic development. For that summons to perfection,
which love makes to everyone but which only they have
heard, directed them from the very beginning to a
divine union transcending all the energies of nature.
They are scattered and unknown these friends of
God, but it is they who redeem souls and are the
mainstay of the world, by making good in their
own persons whatever deficiency there was in the
Passion of their Master. But do they preserve human
history from jeopardy ? If the world, in spite of
everything, has for some centuries past achieved an
organic progress and enabled men to raise themselves
in accordance with the spirit, it is because in the
structure of its functions and states, in its scale of
values and the form of its culture, it continued to be
i
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dominated, whatever the morals of the great majority
may have been, by the essential order of human life,
the order directed to perfection, which the Saints
alone fully realise.
The modern world has completely reversed that
essential order of human life. Exterior activity began
three centuries ago and more to absorb the whole life
of man, because in reality the world then turned to the
conquest and practical utilisation of matter away from
union with God through faith and love. Conversion
to perishable goods, the definition of mortal sin,
gradually became the general attitude of civilisation.
The Church, however, has always maintained in her
teaching and practice the primacy of theological
activity and contemplation. She remembers Moses
praying for the armies of Joshua with Aaron and Hur
supporting his arms, which could not droop without
endangering the victory [m]. “What use,” asked
St. John of the Cross whom she has just proclaimed
a doctor, “ arc those who prefer activity and think
that they can conquer the world by their preaching
and exterior works ? What do they do ? A little
more than nothing, sometimes absolutely nothing,
sometimes even harm [112].” For the “mixed life,”
which St. Thomas declares to be superior to the merely
contemplative life, is not the life in which action
diverts from contemplation, but the life in which
contemplation itself superabounds in action.
Contemplation alone discovers the value of charity.
Without it, it is only known by hearsay. With it, it is
known by experience. By love and in love, it pro­
claims that God is love. Then man lets God do in
him as He will, allows himself to be bound, because
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he is in love. He is free because he loves. Whatever
lacks the taste of love loses all its savour for him.
Because of this love in which it consumes our life,
contemplation alone realises in us universality, makes
the soul Catholic in spirit and in truth. As it tran­
scends all the intellectual and moral virtues, prudence,
understanding and art, so it also transcends all particu­
larisms, attunes the soul to the unity of the mystic
Body of Christ, disharmonises it with every more
contracted unity. Through it Christ, dwelling in
them that love Him, gives their hearts a sort of Euchar­
istic amplitude.
Without contemplation, every philosophical and
theological doctrine, even true, becomes sectarian ; all
forms of even honourable zeal mere rivalries. Because
it makes man one single spirit with God, it really
makes unity in man and among men. It proceeds
from the gift of wisdom and the beatitude of the
peacemakers is the privilege of such a gift.

33. The works which penetrate furthest into the
future are those which the Spirit of God ordains in
silence and leads as His freedom wills. The operation
of grace is preparing great things in a youth stirred by a
yearning for the absolute, the more ardent of whom
are turning to-day to God. A stern contest is being
waged on the frontiers of the mind and art and
philosophy. Such an activity is naturally peculiar to
a small group : so far from seeking the collaboration
of all, it demands rather a measure of solitude. All
that can be wished for in that sphere in the way of
broad union is a union in charity, which would spare
those who arc bearing the brunt of the enemy’s attack
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many an additional blow from their brethren in the
faith.
In other spheres, however, another kind of broad
union is practicable, union in the work itself, and this
invites every kind of assistance. I wrote some years
ago with reference to Catholics who were resolveci to
live their faith regardless of modern errors and to
serve the interests of Christ before all other interests :
“ However acute their oppositions may and ought to
be on matters which from the human point of view are
sometimes very important, they will always have for
common principles not only the dogmas of the faith,
but also the intellectual directions, all the intellectual
directions, both speculative and practical, maternally
given by Rome and received in a spirit of lively and
filial docility. It looks as though the time had come
for them to make a truly Catholic, that is to say
universal, synthesis, to construct, to gather together,
to insist everywhere on the positive, and with that
object first to reconcile in their minds, under the
indispensable light of theological wisdom (otherwise
there is nothing to hope for), aspects which, although
too long kept apart, are in reality complementary,
doctrinal absolutism and evangelical daring, fidelity
to pure truth and compassion for sick souls, tradition
where needed, revolution where needed. . . . Miseri­
cordia et veritas obviaverunt sibi . .
[113].
With such a programme of unqualified adhesion to
every pontifical direction, Catholics, if they so desired
and whatever their differences in other spheres, could
usefully unite in accordance with the constantly
reiterated desire of the Sovereign Pontiffs and work in
harmony. Such a union is possible, in the first place,
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in the order of knowledge. The desire to become
better acquainted with the doctrine of the Church,
of which so many baptised persons are so lamcntably
ignorant, is apparent on all sides and to be fortified
against hydra-headed error by a serious philosophical
and theological training. For the past fifty years the
Popes have been imploring Catholics all to have
recourse to St. Thomas Aquinas. Have such urgent
entreaties been met with a sufficiently generous love of
truth ? If in the interval a unanimous effort had been
made to reform the mind under the inspiration of the
common Doctor, Catholics would be commanding
every highway in the world. Fierce assaults are
preparing against the Church at the moment, while
many minds are threatened by a sort of syncretism,
indulgent to every kind of error. Recourse to arms
brooks no delay.
The union mentioned is equally practicable in the
sphere of action, on condition that the proximate ends
of the action contemplated are sufficiently universal.
Whether it be a question of co-operating in such a
spiritual restoration of Christendom—and this would
seem to be the great task of to-day—or assisting in the
work of evangelisation, in the immense labour of the
missions at home and abroad ; or rediscovering the
principles of Christian politics and combating laicism
and its laws ; or preparing for the establishment of a
Christian social order and opposing social conditions
contrary to the justice and the spirit of the Gospel ; or
practising works of spiritual and corporal mercy, or
bringing succour to all the suffering members of Christ,
not only to the poor and sick, but also to so many ardent
hearts exasperated in error by false doctrines, the
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iniquity of this God-less world, the aridity and egoism
of orthodox religious people—there is no lack of work
calling for the co-operation of Catholics because they
arc Catholics. It would be sufficient if all who have
been working for years in separate teams in a multitude
of admirably various and necessarily independent
tasks got to know one another. The new forms
which might arise would take their place in that con­
cert, whose supreme rule would be the integral
teaching imparted by the Papacy. A harmonised
activity, so proceeding from the spirit of faith, the love
of Christ in His Church and a great devotion to His
word unceasingly transmitted by his Vicar, would,
so far from diverting souls from the life of union with
God, impel them rather the other way. That is
indeed the sort of common action which the life of
union with God itself demands. Negotium justum
suscipit necessitas charitatis.1 Making its way little by
little, it would soon be followed by immense results
for the extension of the kingdom of God. The w’ork
makes poor progress merely because of the lack of
union among the workers.

34. Still more necessary, however, than such a
union of all in action—and constituting also a superior
condition of it—is the invisible union of a few in con­
templation, in that wisdom which can do all things :
“ and remaining in herself the same, reneweth all
things, and through nations conveyeth herself into holy
souls, she maketh the friends of God and prophets.” ■
1 “ The love of truth seeks a holy repose, the necessity of love accepts
a just task,” otium sanctum quaerit charitas veritatis, negotium justum suscipit
necessitas charitatis. (St. Augustine, De Civit. Dei, xix, 19.)
2 Wisdom vii, 27.

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This is what the anguish of the present clamours for in
the first place. The world is crying out for saints.
If Catholics do not give it what it wants, so much the
worse for them and for everybody ; it will be revenged
upon them and go for consolation to the devil. The
successive crises among them during the last twentyfive years reveal a painful inheritance of weakness.
The condemnations they have entailed must be
considered as the liquidation of the nineteenth century.
God clearly wants something new.
But, in the first place and above all, He asks us to
restore within ourselves the essential order which the
modern world has shattered. “ St. Paul, who came
in signs and wisdom, says that he came neither in
signs nor wisdom,” 1 only in the virtue of the folly of
the cross. That Jew, destitute of everything, whom
God consumed with love, carries Europe and all the
Christian centuries in his arms. And w’hat docs he
say ?... “I bow my knees to the Father of Our
Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom all paternity in heaven and
earth is named, that he would grant you, according
to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his
Spirit with might unto the inward man. That
Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts : that being
rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to
comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth,
and length, and height, and depth. To know also
the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge,
that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God.” 2
However few they may be, those who take to heart
the lesson of St. Paul and strive to live only to be one
day filled with that fulness, fulfil the design for which
Ephesians Hi. 14 19.

1 Pascal.

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we were born. For “ after all, we have been created
only for that love. In the evening of this life, it is on
love we shall be judged ” [i 14].
35. Now what purpose does this book serve ? Con­
templative minds already knew, better than its author,
everything it attempts to explain. Others will be none
the wiser.
Anyone who does not understand to-day, may per­
haps understand to-morrow. And again, as Pascal
says, we have not been given the task of securing the
triumph of truth, but of fighting on its behalf.

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APPENDICES
I.

ON

THE

THEORY

POWER

IN

OF

THE

‘‘DIRECT5’

TEMPORALIBUS

“ A few theologians, in the course of history, have even
pushed the enthusiastic conviction of the rights of the
Church to the extent of claiming for her directly all power
on earth. The ne scandalizemus eos by which Our Lord
motives His pure and gracious concession in paying the
didrachma appeared to them the only possible limit to the
rights of the Mother of the redeemed. . .
(Père
Humbert Clérissac, Le Mystère de ΓEglise'). The teaching
of Leo XIII in the encyclicals Sapientiae Christianae and
Immortale Dei would seem to convict them definitely of
error and in any event absolutely rejects the gross exaggera­
tions into which certain fourteenth and fifteenth century
canonists had fallen : proceeding to the opposite extreme
to the regalian pretensions of the lawyers, they insisted
that every right, every lawful dominion and legitimate
possession were enclosed as in a box in the breast of the
Sovereign Pontiff, in such a way as to enable the latter to
intervene directly and of course in questions of property
within the jurisdiction of the civil law' and that an appeal
lay to him as of course from every sentence pronounced by
the secular judges ; they held the power of pagan princes
over infidel peoples to be unlawful and denied in short the
lawfulness of terrestrial powers based on natural law.
Yet the Church no more constitutes such lawfulness than
grace constitutes nature. (Cf. A. Baudrillart, “ Des
idées qu’on se faisait au quatorzième siècle sur le droit

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d’intervention du Souverain Pontife en matière politique.”
in Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuse, vol. iii, 1B98 ;
Jean Rivière, Le problème de P Eglise et de Γ Etat au temps de
Philippe le Pel, 1926 ; E. Dublanchy, “ Turrccrcmata et le
pouvoir du Pape dans les questions temporelles,” Revue
Thomiste, January—March 1923 ; Turrecremata, Summa
Ecclesiae ; Bcllarminc, De Summo Pontifice, lib. v.)
Not all the partisans of the. theory of the direct power
over the temporal fell into such exaggerations, but they
were concerned to attribute to the Church a high dominion
over the universality of temporal sovereignties in respect even
of the temporal good to be procured, to the end that kings should
be considered solely and simply as ministers or delegates
of the Church in temporalibus and depend directly on her
authority in that particular sphere. Must not the temporal
sovereignty of Christ have been transmitted by Him to the
Church and Peter no less than His spiritual sovereignty ?
And it is perfectly true, as has already been observed,
that the kingship of Christ is not only spiritual but also
temporal. Raised by the hypostatic union above all
human beings, possessing a consummate and complete
infused knowledge which makes His mind perfect in the
highest degree and allows Him to rule the world univer­
sally (cf. C. V. Héris, Rev. des sc. phil. et théol., July 1926),
Christ, as Man, has received from God an absolute right
over all created things to govern them in accordance with
His universal ends. “ It would be a disgraceful error,”
Pope Pius XI wrote recently in the encyclical Quas
Primas (nth December, 1925), to deny the authority of
the Christ-Man over any civil matter whatsoever, inasmuch
as He has received from the Father so absolute a right
over created things that everything is subject to His will.”
“ Nevertheless,” the encyclical continues, “ throughout
the whole of His earthly life, He absolutely refrained from
exercising any authority of the kind, and scorning the
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possessam and ackiiiiiioiniiion ot human things, abandoned
them then, as lie abandons them to-day, to their owners.
This is admirably expressed in the verses : Non eripit
mortalia, qui regna dat caelestia” [from the hymn Crudelis
Herodes, in the Office of the Epiphany].
We arc thereby given a hint of a great mystery of the
historic life of I lis mystical Body and the perpetual urgency
of the phrase : ” My kingdom is not of this world,” the
profound explanation of which is precisely the redeeming
mission of Our Lord. Whatever the conventional value
of their arguments may have been, and even supposing
that their now long forgotten opinions, reduced to their
most formal elements, could possibly be reconciled with
the truth on which Leo XIII was later to shed such a
flood of light, the partisans of the direct power over
the temporal should never have omitted the correction
which at any rate suggests itself immediately and which
the encyclical of Christ the King so justly indicates. One
may have a right and not exercise it, a sword and keep it
sheathed. Mitte gladium tuum in vaginam. . . . Would it
be proper for the Church to make effective use, even in the
most tactful way and with the highest motives, of a power
w'hich her Master refused to exercise ? She never has in
fact used such a power. Every intervention of hers in the
temporal, even when she assumed the inheritance of the
declining Empire in order to make Europe, has invariably
proceeded from the indirect power only (not to mention
cases involving only a human and alienable right, such as
might have been assumed by bishops, in the absence of the
political authority, to defend the life of States against
invasions or that conferred by an arbitration spontane­
ously invited by opposing parties).1
1 Leaving out of account also cases in which the Pope himself
proceeded to act (diplomatically or in the field) as temporal sovereign
of the Papal States.

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The reason is that for the Church, as for the Lord Jesus,
the redemptive mission predominates over every other
consideration. The Church is bound to make good
whatever defect there was in His Passion. He came to
suffer and redeem, not to dominate, and it will continue to
be so in future ages until His kingdom comes.
The Popes from the eleventh to the fourteenth century
testified by their teaching and action, as heads of the
Church, not to the theory of the direct power but to the
doctrine of the indirect power and the supremacy of the
spiritual over the temporal, itself sovereign and independent
in its own domain.1 It may, however, well be wondered
if the Middle Ages, in affirming so magnificently the right,
were not too optimistic in regard to the fact and seeking
with still excessive confidence in man and the world the
realisation on earth of the primacy of the spiritual. Be
that as it may, it must not be forgotten that the doctrine
of the direct power over the temporal is a mere theological
opinion rejected by all modern theologians. It has been
alluded to here simply for the sake of completeness and
there will be no further mention of it in this essay.
Certain declarations (by Mgr. Ireland or Cardinal
Gibbons) have recently been recalled denying the Pope
the right “ to impose his will in purely civil matters.”
They should be regarded, let it be observed in conclusion,
as a refusal to concede to the Pope a direct power over
civil matters (if, for example, the Pope were to intervene
in the electoral system of the United States on the ground
of the political good of the citizens, a thing which he
would nevei’ be tempted to do) and, clearly, not in any way
as a repudiation of his indirect power over the temporal
on the ground of the divine interests of which he is the
custodian.
1 Cf. G. de Lagarde, Recherches sur l'esprit politique de la Réforme.

Ι24

APPENDICES
IÏ.

POLITICS

AND

THEOLOGY

“ Were we to say that politics (political science and
political prudence) is a kind of physics and a kind of art
of the social good, a separate branch of ethics, a science and
actual practice of the conditions of prosperity of the State
determined by observation from the sole point of view of
‘ natural laws,’ and susceptible of having moral considera­
tions subsequently and supereroga toril y engrafted upon
them, we should be guilty of a capital error. The end of
the terrestrial State is the totum bene vivere of mankind on
this earth ; a temporal good, no doubt, but one which is
not only of the material order, but also and pre-eminently
of the moral and spiritual order. The science and practice
of the good conduct of the State are therefore inseparable
from the exact knowledge of the ends of human life.
“ This is the very reason why St. Thomas, basing him­
self upon Aristotle but surpassing him infinitely, could
assure in doctrine the total subordination of politics to
ethics before referred to, and alone—applying with
perfect exactitude the very true principle : ‘ The good of
the whole is more divine than the good of the part,’ 1
which the pagans constantly tended to convert into an
idolatry of the State—show on the one hand that every­
thing relating to man, considered formally as part of the State,
can be referred to the good of the State, but on the other
hand that there is an aspect in man in accordance with
which man, being referred directly to God, escapes such a
political ordination and himself possesses the dignity of a
whole more eminently than the entire physical world,
inasmuch as God is much more intimately the end of a soul
than of the whole universe of bodies. For this reason, also,
according to St. Thomas, a private individual can be a
1 Because the whole as such is more than the part and so is nearer
to the first Being.

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good citizen {civis communis, if not civis praeclarus}, without
being morally good simpliciter (it is enough if he possess
the civic virtues and be ordered to the common good/,
whereas the Prince performs his political function well,
his princely function, only on condition of being a virtuous
man purely and simply, not only in the political order,
but also in the whole order of the moral life. For he must
be the incarnation of the common good. . . .
“ Integral political science, however great the part
observation and induction may properly play in it, is
not only superior in kind to inductive science, to a merely
physical observation of facts and empirical sequences
(so-called sociology’, as Durkheim interprets it), but also
superior in kind to philosophy ; to be truly complete
it must have a reference to the domain of theology, and
it is precisely as a theologian that St. Thomas wrote his
De regimine principum ; ends, indeed, being in the practical
order what principles are in the speculative order, the
knowledge of human actions and of the good conduct
of the human State in particular can exist as an integral
science, as a complete body of doctrine, only if related
to the ultimate end of the human being. An Aristotle,
no doubt, in spite of the deficiency indicated, could
trace the outline of a political philosophy, part of a moral
philosophy itself suspended to the doctrine of the supreme
Good (of a natural supreme good, such as it might be
conceived by a pagan, and still very obscurely). Every
political philosophy is therefore, like every moral philosophy,
a sort of abstract limit, the science of the natural laws govern­
ing human action. Man, however, is not in fact in a purely
natural state, but in the state of nature fallen and redeemed ;
the rule of conduct governing individual and social life
cannot therefore leave the supernatural order out of
account.” {Une opinion sur Charles Mourras et le devoir
des Catholiques, pp. 40-45.)

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APPENDICES
III.

THE
POWER

DOCTRINE
A ND

THE

OF

THE

DOCTRINE

OF

INDIRECT

THE

TWO

SWORDS

The doctrine of the two swords, as conceived by a
St. Bernard and a St. Thomas Aquinas, meant that the
Church has the temporal sword only in the sense in which
one is said to have that which one can direct the use of.
To be able to give orders to a power is in a way to possess
such a power. When St. Bernard wrote with reference to
the temporal sword : “ It, too, is yours and it may be
drawn at a sign from you, although not by your hand.
. . . Both swords belong to the Church, the spiritual as
well as the material : the material sword is to be drawn in
defence of the Church, the spiritual by the Church, the
spiritual by the hand of the priest, the material by the
soldier, but at a sign from the priest and on the order of
the Emperor ” (De Consideratione, iv, 3, 7), and when St.
Thomas and the most distinguished theologians of his
time, basing themselves upon that famous text, taught that
the Church possesses the two swords (“ The spiritual for
execution only, but the temporal also to the extent that
it can order it to be drawn ”—St. Thomas in iv Sentent.,
Dist. 37, expositio textus), they intended simply to affirm
that the spiritual sword can and ought to direct the
temporal sword (natural law is sufficient to justify the
lawfulness of drawing it) because of spiritual interests
themselves and with a view to the supernatural end,
and so merely professed the theory of the indirect power.
(There is, however, a difference to be observed between
the old and the modern philosophers of the point of view
in the manner of considering and presenting this theory.
The former, taking a more metaphysical point of view and
considering in the first place the subordination of ends, laid
the greater stress on the general subjection of the temporal

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to the spiritual and of kings to the Supreme Pontiffs in
view of the ultimate supernatural end to be attained.
The latter, taking a more juridical point of view and con­
sidering in the first place what delimitations to draw in
practice, discuss the indirect power in a narrower sense,
restricted to express interventions by the Church in
temporal matters ratione peccati, and lay the greater stress
on the liberty which the Church, such special cases apart,
leaves to temporal powers.)
The doctrine of the two swords is susceptible of another
interpretation and may assert for the Church not only the
right to check temporal sovereigns ratione peccati— -,not to
mention the right to appoint them in case of necessity
and to relieve the pressing needs of peoples who run the
risk of deviating spiritually if they are not governed—
but also an exalted supremacy over the temporal as such
which would make sovereigns, illegitimate without her
consent, mere delegates. This is again the doctrine of the
direct power over the temporal (cf. Appendix I, ante).
These two different interpretations of the “ possession of
the two swords ” are often confused in the theories of
canonists towards the end of the Middle Ages and the
confusion does not make the discussion any easier.
Before Bellarmine, Cardinal Giovanni di Turrecremata
(Summa Ecclesiae) and Cajetan (Tommaso de Vio) had
already explained as precisely as could be desired the
theological doctrine of the indirect power. Cajetan, for
example, in his Apologia de authoritate Papae, Tract ii, c. 13,
ad 8, writes as follows : “ The power of the Pope with
regard to spiritual things is direct in relation to the supreme
end simpliciter of the human race ; there are therefore two
characteristics of his power, one of not being direct with
regard to temporal things, the other of being, with regard
to temporal things, in relation to spiritual things. This
is because everything, including temporal things, ought,
128

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without a doubt, to be ordered to the ultimate end by
him whose function it is to direct all men to one end and
such is the Vicar of Christ.” In his Commentary on the
Summa Theologica with reference to the following passage
from St. Thomas Aquinas {Sum. Theol., ii-ii, 60, 6, ad 3) :
“ The secular power is subject to the spiritual power as the body
is to the soul ; for this reason there is no usurpation of power,
if the spiritual superior intervenes in the temporal order with
regard to things in which, the secular power is subject to it or which
are ceded to the spiritual by the secular power,” he writes :
“ The soul governs the body in a triple order of causality :
by efficient causality, for it is the cause of the corporal
movements of the animal, by formal causality, for it is
the form of the body, by final causality, for the body exists
for the soul. It is the same, proportionately, with the
spiritual power in relation to the secular power : the
power which disposes of spiritual things has a formal
part to play in relation to the power which disposes of
secular things ; the latter are ordered to spiritual and
eternal things as to their end : and the highest end
corresponding to the most exalted agent, it is for the
spiritual power to move and direct the temporal power
and all that pertains to it to the supreme spiritual end.
“ The consequence is that the spiritual power by its
very nature has authority over the temporal power in view
of the spiritual end ; such are the things in which the
temporal power is subject to the spiritual, and this is
what St. Thomas means when he writes ‘ with, respect to
things in which the secular power is subject to the spiritual
power.’ That means that the secular power is not subject
absolutely and in every respect to the spiritual power :
for instance, in the civil order the Governor of the State
must be obeyed, in the military order the Commander
of an army, rather than the Bishop, who has no business
to meddle in such matters unless in relation to spiritual

K

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things (nisi in ordine ad spiritualia). But should anything
whatsoever in temporal tilings in any way jeopardise
eternal salvation, the prelate then intervening in that
domain by a command or a prohibition is not thrusting
his scythe into another man’s harvest but legitimately
exercising his own authority : because all secular powers
are subject on that score to tiie spiritual power. Such
is the meaning to be given to the first paragraph of St.
Thomas’s answer in which he shows in what way the
spiritual power is judge of temporal things. The second
paragraph : with respect to things which are ceded to the
spiritual by the temporal power, refers to prelates who, by the
gift of kings, in many places possess both jurisdictions.”
Bellarmine (De potestate Summi Pontificis, cap. v), after
defining the classic doctrine of the indirect power, “ By
the words direct and indirect . . . we understand . . . that
the pontifical power is by nature and specifically spiritual
and therefore directly concerned with spiritual matters
as its primary object : but indirectly, that is in relation
to spiritual things, reductively, and by necessary' conse­
quence so to speak, it is concerned with temporal things, as
its secondary object, to which this spiritual power is not
converted unless in special cases, as Innocent III says,”
refers explicitly to Turrecremata, Cajetan, Vittoria,
Dominic Soto and several others. He attributes the
expression “ indirect power ” to Innocent IV, that Pope
having employed the adverb indirect to indicate the way in
which the spiritual power affects temporal things. The
word, as M. Jean Rivière points out (op. cit. pp. 39 and
54), was, however, already in current use in the time of
Innocent IV and familiar to the commentators of the
early thirteenth century. Vincent the Spaniard, for
example, who wrote about 1216, commenting upon the
words of Innocent III, “ For we do not intend to judge
the fee,” adds “ Directe ; sed indirecte cognoscendo an
Ι3θ

APPENDICES

peccet et inducendo ad poenitentiam ... et ita per
consequentiam feudum restituet.
1 he distinction was
taken up again by Innocent I vk who unequivocally asserted
the indirect power over the temporal ratione peccati. His­
torians may discuss the personal inclinations of St. Gregory
VII, Innocent IV and Boniface VIII to the end of time.
Whatever their private views may have been, the only
doctrine they professed as Popes was the doctrine of the
indirect power.
Bellarmine’s doctrine was taken up again by Suarez.
The following statement by the latter should be remem­
bered (Vivès cd., vol. v, p. 366, No. 3) · “ There are not
two powers in the Supreme Pontiff, but one only relating
directly to spiritual things and by way of consequence to
temporal things.”
IV.

THE

THREE

MEANINGS

OF

THE

WORD

‘‘democracy.’’

“ Philosophy must distinguish three meanings in the
w'ord democracy or everything will be hopelessly confused :
“ {a) Democracy as a social tendency,1 recommended by
the Popes (demophily, Christian democracy),2 simply the
ardent desire to procure for the working classes, more
than ever oppressed in the modern world, the human
1 What Leo XIII also calls Christian democracy. I had written social
democracy to indicate that it was a question of the social relations of men
among themselves and not of the form of political government. My
attention was drawn to the fact that the words might lead to misunder­
standing, Leo XIII having found fault with them, although in quite a
different sense, so far as they signified the socialist or communist system
(encyclical Graves de Communi). The expression had therefore better
be discarded : “ democracy as a social tendency ” is, I hope, absolutely
unequivocal.
2 “ Although democracy, from the very meaning of the word and
the usage of philosophers, indicates popular government, nevertheless,
in the present context, it is so employed that it has lost all political
connotation and simply means this very beneficial Christian action in regard
to the people.'’ Leo XIII, encyclical Graves de Communi.

ISI

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CAESARS

conditions of life required not only by charity, but also and
in the first place by justice. (Continuing in such a direc­
tion, we shall doubtless arrive at a radical criticism of our
economic regime, such as has already been partially
effected by several Catholic writers.)
“ It is regrettable that the zeal displayed by the Catholic
masses in the defence of the social order and the struggle
against revolutionary elements have coincided only too
often with an omission to observe this elementary duty and
a terrifying lack of attention to the injunctions of Leo XIII.
“ (b) Political democracy (πολιτεία), as conceived by
Aristotle and St. Thomas, exemplified, for instance, in
the old Swiss democracy and considered by the Church
and philosophy as a legally possible form of government
(indicated or counter-indicated in fact, according to
historic conditions and circumstances).
“ (c) Democratism, or democracy as conceived by
Rousseau, that is to say the religious myth of Democracy,
an entirely different thing from the legitimate democratic
regime (πολιτεία).
(This myth also necessitates in the
Social Contract a theory of the three classic systems, monar­
chical, aristocratic and democratic, which is equally false
and pernicious.) Democracy in this sense becomes con­
fused with the dogma of the Sovereign People,1 which,
combined with the dogma of the general Will and Law as
the expression of Number, constitutes, in the extreme, the
error of political pantheism (the multitude—God).
“It must, however, be observed that what makes the
condition of nations in modern times so tragic is that in
fact, in concrete reality, the religious myth of Democracy
has everywhere invaded and contaminated political
democracy and even every actual form of government.
The effort of the mind should be directed to making the
1 That is to say of the people as perpetual possessor and sole lawful
possessor of sovereignty.

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necessary discriminations and, while taking account of
tiie relations of fact found in history, should devote itself
to the task of securing the re-establishment of conditions
essential to a practical renovation which will be successful
only if it is complete.” (JJne opinion sur Charles Maurras
et le devoir des Catholiques, pp. 25—29.)
I would add that in the vocabulary of St. Thomas,
democracy as legitimate form of government ( (£) above) is
not called democracy, but Republic (politia'). It is a sort
of mixed system, in which the democratic principle which,
in the abstract, would tend to the supremacy of mere
numbers, (“ Democracy, that is to say the supremacy of
the populace, when the mass of the people through weight of
numbers oppresses the rich,” De Regirn. princ., i, 1) is
tempered by the aristocratic principle (the supremacy of
the pre-eminent in value or virtue) and above all by tho.
oligarchic principle (the supremacy of the pre-eminent in
riches or power). (Cf. Comment in Polit. Aristotelis, iv, vii.5
It is therefore more exactly an ameliorated democracy.
(Cf. Marcel Demongeot, Le meilleur regime politique selon
St. Thomas, Paris, Blot, 1928, and the very valuable articles
by D. Lallement : “ La doctrine politique de St. Thomas
d’Aquin,”
Revue de Philosophie, July-August, 1927,
September-October, 1927, January-February, 1929.)
As for the word democracy, it signifies in St. Thomas both
the corrupt form of the politia and the abstract democratic
principle.V.
V.

ON

LIBERALISM

i
,

Liberalism, as is commonly known, is a condemned
error.1 It was liberalism above all which Pius IX had in

!
*

1 Cf. the encyclicals Mirari vos (Gregory XVI) ; Quanta cura (Pius
IX) ; Immortale Dei, Sapientiae Christianae, Libertas, praestantissimum
(Leo XIII) ; Pascendi (Pius X) and IJbi Arcano Dei (Pius XI). The
words “ liberal” and “ liberalism ” are to be understood here, not as

IBB

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AR E

NOT

G A ESA R

S

mind when he condemned the following proposition :
“ The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself
to, and compromise with, progress, liberalism and modern
civilisation ” {Syllabus, prop. do). Teo XIII summed up
the whole error in a single phrase, “ Every man is a law
unto himself,”1 which is merely the fundamental axiom
of Rousseau in the social order and Kant in the moral
order: “Obey nobody but yourself”; it expresses the
essential claim of modern immanentism.
Pope Leo has developed a full and important doctrine
on this question, more particularly in the Encyclicals
Immortale Dei and Libertas, praestantissimum, the importance
of which is as urgent as ever.
Liberty, he declares, recalling the teaching of St. Thomas,
they may be used to describe any particular political party, but in the
strict sense given to them in the language of theologians. The distinction
was very precisely expressed by Leo XIII, who also added the wish that
some other name might be found to describe political parties (Letter
of Cardinal Rampolla to the Archbishop of Bogota, 6th April, 1900 :
“ Wherefore, in the present case, there should be borne in mind what
the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office enjoined on the bishops
of Canada on the 29th August, 1877, namely that the Church, in
condemning liberalism, had no intention of condemning each and all
of the political parties described as liberal.
“ I have also said as much myself in a letter addressed to the bishop
of Salamanca, at the instance of the Supreme Pontiff, on the 17th
February, 1891, adding, however, the following conditions : Catholics
who describe themselves as liberals must in the first place sincerely
adhere to every essential point of doctrine taught by the Church and
be disposed to admit whatever the Church may teach in the future :
moreover they will not set before themselves anything that the Church
has explicitly or implicitly condemned : finally, as often as circumstances
may require, they will not retuse, and it is indeed their duty, openly
to proclaim that their objects arc in full conformity with the doctrines
of the Church. It was also said in the same letter that it was desirable
that Catholics chose and adopted some other form of description to
indicate the political parties to which they belonged for fear that the
name of liberals assumed by them might mislead or astonish the faith­
ful : but that it was not permissible to brand with a theological censure,
still less to denounce as heretical, liberalism understood in a different
sense from that defined by the Church in condemning it and that so
long as the Church should have given no other indications
1 Encyclical Libertas, praestantissimum.

Ϊ34

APPENDICES

is the privilege of creatores endowed with mind or reason 1 ;
it is essentially the faculty of being able to choose between
the means conducing to the end, for he who has the
faculty of choosing one thing among many is master of his
actions. The possibility of choosing evil is not of the
essence of liberty, it is a defect peculiar to our liberty :
“ The faculty of committing sin is not a liberty, but a
servitude ” : and so whosoever committeth sin is the servant
of sin,- because he suffers an alien impulse, contrary to the
internal principle of action which is the peculiar character­
istic of the human being, that is to say reason.3
Because of its imperfection—and because, being subject
to becoming, we must in all things begin with the imperfect
and little by little grow up to adult age—human liberty
needs to be protected : that is the important thing. “ Such
being the condition of human liberty, it needed protec­
tion ; it needed help and assistance capable of directing
all its movements towards the good and diverting them
from evil : otherwise free will would have been a very
harmful thing to man.” And in the first place it needed a
law, or ordinance of reason, a rule of what to do or what not to
do. “ Nothing more absurd or perverse could be said or
imagined than the statement that man, being naturally
free, ought to be exempt from all law ; if it were so, the
consequence would be that it is necessary for liberty not to
be in accordance with reason : whereas it is the contrary
which is true, namely that man ought to be subject to law
1 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., i, 59, 3 . . . wherever you have mind
(intellectus), there you have free will ; i, 83, 1 . . . that a man should
have free will is a necessary consequence from the very fad of his being a rational
creature ; i ii, 17, t, ad 2 . . . the root of liberty as subject is the will,
but as cause it is the reason.
2 St. John viii. 34. Leo XIII is here quoting the commentary of
St. Thomas.
3 Tiie possibility of falling into error is to reason as the possibility
of choosing evil is to free will. Liberty to make a mistake is a defect of
the rational nature, not a privilege of the mind as such or of the liberty
of the spirit.

ISS

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CAESAR’S

precisely because he is by nature free. . . . Of its very
nature then and considered from any angle whatever, in
individuals or societies, in superiors no less than in sub­
ordinates, human liberty implies the necessity of obedience
to a supreme eternal rule, which is no other than the
authority of God in His commandments or prohibitions
to us. This perfectly proper sovereignty, so far from
destroying or impairing liberty in any degree, on the con­
trary protects it and brings it to its perfection. l?or the
true perfection of every being consists in pursuing and
attaining its end : now the supreme end to which human
liberty should aspire is God.” 1
If, therefore, we are to attain in the end a perfect liberty
(which is to be realised in its fulness only in Heaven and of
which only the Saints, qui spiritu Dei aguntur, have a shadowy
indication here below), our very nature—our nature
perfected by grace, inasmuch as it has pleased God to
raise it to the supernatural order—solicits, in order to
attain that end, the regulative control of the divine law,
both natural and revealed, and the educative constraints
of the human State and the Church of Christ. In the words
of Cajetan before referred to,2 to attain his supernatural
happiness no less than his natural happiness, either
private or politic, man is subject : subject to the sovereignty
of God, the Author of grace and nature, subject to the
spiritual authority which is in the Church, subject to the
temporal authority which is in the State.
Having laid down these principles, Leo XIII defines
liberalism as the application to morals and politics of the
claim to absolute independence which is the distinguishing
characteristic in philosophy of rationalism and naturalism.
It is therefore the refusal in practice to admit any control
proceeding from anything other than ourselves.
He then proceeds to distinguish various degrees of this
1 Leo XIII, encyclical Libellas.

136

2 Cf. p. 68.

AP PENDIGES

error : below absolute liberalism, which “ rejects every
authority and all divine law natural or supernatural,” 1
and refuses any kind of subjection “ cither in public life or
private and domestic life,” 2 there is a liberalism of the
second degree, which agrees to subject itself to the natural
order, but refuses any kind of subjection to the supernatural.
There is, finally, a third degree of liberalism which, ac­
cepting subjection to the supernatural order as far as
individuals are concerned, refuses it as regards States.3
It is clear, moreover, that, in virtue of the internal logic
of the principle on which it is based, every form of liberalism
tends to absolute liberalism as to its perfect type.
I do not propose to attempt a complete study of liberal­
ism (that would require several volumes), but content
myself in this note with a few observations on the subject.
(1) One liberal error makes the liberty of man consist
in the independence of his will in regard to every exterior
rule—this is “ autonomy ” in the Kantian sense, what
Leo XIII calls independent morality ; or it would make the
justice of social relations consist not in conformity to the
divine law, but in the sole consent of individuals ; or again
it would make liberty of thought consist in its independence
in regard to reality, and the rejection of all constraint—
a form of liberalism condemned by Gregory XVI in the
Encyclical Mirari vos (15th August, 1832), when he re­
called the question of St. Augustine : “ Is there any worse
death for a soul than liberty to go astray? ” (Ep. 166).
Parity of truth and falsehood, of justice and injustice, of
good and evil, is the metaphysical secret to which liberalism
obscurely attunes the human soul.
(2) Another liberal error consists in denying the right
of the spiritual power to intervene in temporal matters
1 Cf. the Letter from the Secretariate of State to the Archbishop of
Bogota.
* Encyclical Libertas.
3 Letter to the Archbishop of Bogota.

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ratione peccati, and die subordination of civil society to the
Church of Christ because of the subordination of ends.
This form of liberalism has been considered at length in
the first chapter of this book.
(3) A third liberal error consists in denying that civil
society has itself an end not only of a material but also of
a moral order. This error is closely connected with the
preceding one, for if civil society has not itself an end in
the moral order, it docs not of itself postulate—always
presupposing the elevation of man to the supernatural
order—its subordination to the society entrusted with the
task of leading souls to the supreme supernatural end, and
any such subordination would then be doing violence to
civil society. This error is as categorically condemned by
the teaching of Leo XIII as by St. Thomas Aquinas.1
“ Nature itself,” says Leo XIII, “ cries out that society
ought to give the citizen the means and facility of living
honourably, that 'is to say according to the laws of
God. . . . Governments are strictly bound to take steps
to secure, by the wisdom of their legislation, not only
exterior advantages and benefits, but also and above all
the welfare of the soul.” 2
“ Man is born to live in society, for Providence has
intended him, who cannot acquire in isolation either the
resources necessary for the maintenance of life or perfection
of mind and heart, to associate with his fellows in a society,
not only domestic but also civil, which alone can procure
perfect sufficiency of life, vitae sufficientiam perfectam.” 3
“ What is true of man, considered as an individual, is
also true of society, both domestic and civil. Nature has
not made society to be the last end of man, but so that man
•’Some very explicit texts from St. Thomas Aquinas on this point
will be found in the first chapter (pp. 11-12). Of. also notes 20, 22
and 23.
2 Leo XIII, Fincyclical Libertas.
3 Leo XIII, Encyclical Immortale Dei (1st November, 1885).

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A P P END IGF S

shall find in and through society the assistance he needs
to attain his perfection. If a society, therefore, nursues
exterior advantages, the elegance and abundance of the
good things of life to the exclusion of everything else, if it
professes to neglect God in the administration of the State
and to take no account of moral laws, it is criminally
deviating from its end and the commands of nature, it
is not so much a society and human community as a
fraudulent imitation and simulacrum of society.” Then
“ force remains the sole guarantee of order and public
tranquillity. But force is very weak indeed, if it is not
based upon religion.” 1
It is, therefore, an error to consider, as is sometimes done,
that the temporal common good, the end of the State,
means an exclusively material good. It is both material
and moral, but mainly moral : the upright life on this
earth—in time—of the human multitude assembled in a
social body.2 But every man being ordered in the first
place to an infinitely superior good, which is God, the
supreme supernatural end of human life, the common good
of the human State ought itself to be ordered to that
supreme supernatural end ; and whereas the common
1 Leo XIII, Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae.
2 This common good {communicatio in bene vivendo} is a different thing
from the mere aggregation of particular goods, and is not the peculiar
good of a whole which (like the species, for example, compared with
individuals) relates only to itself and sacrifices the parts to itself ; it is
the common good of the whole and its parts, a good which integrates par­
ticular goods in the whole so far as they are communicable (externally,
in the natural manner of human communication here below), and as it
is itself communicable to the parts—whether the material prosperity
of the State he in question or its intellectual and moral patrimony.
And this whole, not being a substantial whole, like a living organism,
but a community of persons and families, ought to have regard for
the more fundamental rights which natural law confers on human
personality and domestic society. Otherwise it corrupts its own good.
Every individual, considered in his formal aspect as a constituent
part of the State, is ordered to that common good of the State. But
he is ordered in the first place, as a person destined for immortality, to
God Himself, and on that score the State is but a means for him.

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good of the State, being a temporal good, will cease with life
on earth, the ultimate good, being eternal life, will never
cease. This eternal and supernatural good, in which even
in this life we participate through grace, this spiritual
good (that is to say, it proceeds from union with the Holy
Spirit) is the peculiar end of that divinely instituted society,
superior to every human society, the Church, the mystic
Body of Christ.
So we see that the Church alone, not the State, has
jurisdiction over the spiritual, over what directly comes into
contact with the salvation of souls and the worship of
God—“ the Church alone has been invested with such a
power to govern souls, to the complete exclusion of the
civil authority ” 1—and that, leading us to eternal life,
she has a sovereign right of education and control over the
moral life of man. But we also see that civil society can
and ought to aim positively at procuring to the best of its
power the virtuous life of the multitude : to the best of its
power, that is to say on the one hand by legislating directly
only in regard to exterior acts and itself making use only
of exterior sanctions, and on the other hand by confining
itself to the formal point of view of the common good of
the social body, thereby defining very strictly the limits of
its activity (and necessarily leaving room for the toleration
of the lesser evil). Moreover, our moral activity being
subordinated to the movement towards the last end, it is
as instructed by the Church with regard to the things
conducing to that end and in agreement with the Church
(by acknowledging her direct power over the spiritual,
her indirect power over the temporal) that the terrestrial
State will conduce to the virtuous life. “ Nature has not
provided us with the means of mere existence, but of
existence as moral beings. Therefore man expects from
the tranquillity of public order, the immediate object of
1 Leo XIII, Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae.

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APPENDICES

civil society, both the possibility of perfecting his existence
and above all sufficient, help to perfect his morals—a
perfection which consists only in the knowledge and practice
of virtue. At the same time he desires, as it is indeed his
duty, to find in the Church such assistance as will enable
him to acquit himself perfectly of his obligations to God :
this is to be found in the knowledge and practice of true
religion, which is the queen of the virtues, because by
relating them to God, religion perfects and completes
them all.” 1
(4) The peculiar end of civil society, therefore, is not
only to secure respect for the individual liberties and rights
of every citizen, or to ensure material comfort, but also to
procure the truly human and therefore moral good of the
social body. Liberty to practise any religion whatsoever
indifferently 2 (as though the civil power were under no
obligation, to the best of its ability and without claiming
any jurisdiction over consciences, to do homage to truth),
liberty to express any opinion, liberty to print anything,3
liberty to teach any doctrine,4 are all, therefore, even, in
the eyes of civil society, things contrary to nature.
1 Leo XIII, Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae.
2 Syllabus, Props. 78 and 79 (Denz.-Bannw., 1778 and 1779).
Cf. the Encyclicals Mirari vos, Immortale Dei and Libertas. “ Another
liberty also loudly extolled,” writes Leo XIII in the last-mentioned
Encyclical, “ is the liberty called freedom of conscience. If we are
thereby given to understand that everyone is free to worship God or
not as he likes, it is an error which the reasons given above are sufficient
to refute. But it may also be understood in this sense that man in
the State has the right to follow the will of God according to the
dictates of his conscience and to fulfil His commandments, and that
no hindrance should be offered to him. This true liberty, worthy of
the children of God and gloriously protecting the dignity of human
personality, is superior to all violence and oppression ; it is particularly
dear to, and has always been desired by, the Church.”
3 Encyclicals Mirari vos, Quanta cura and Libertas.
* Cf. the Encyclical Libertas and the letter already quoted to the
Archbishop of Bogota. “ From such principles, which the Apostolic See
has frequently condemned as false and contrary to Catholic doctrine,
naturally flow as from a muddy spring the so-called modern liberties,

141

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Either for the defence of the Church and the impre­
scriptible rights of the Church, or to direct itself properly
towards its peculiar end, the State has the rigid and the
duty to intervene in such matters, as it has the right and the
duty to see that justice is observed in private contracts.
The crime committed by many modern states is not
restraining such liberties (they constantly invoke them),
but restraining them in an unjust and perverse way, which is as
contrary to the law of God and the laws of the Church as
it is contrary to the moral good of man and the common
good of the State. The order is then completely reversed
in this sense that the temporal power, instead of legislating
in conformity with divine laws, of which the spiritual
power has charge, does so in contempt of those laws and
that power, and so turns things upside down.
Granted certain actual situations, “ many people think
that the Church ought to move with the times, to accom­
modate and adapt herself to whatever the prudence of
the day may require in the government of societies. This
is an honourable opinion, if it be understood to refer to a
certain equitable manner of acting capable of being
reconciled with truth and justice, namely that the Church,
nursing the hope of some great good, should show some
complaisance and make whatever concessions she can to the
fashion of the day, while still preserving intact the sanctity
of her mission. But it is altogether different with such
practices and doctrines as the decline in morals and
erroneous opinions have illegally introduced. No age
can dispense with religion, truth and justice, high and holy
namely : liberty of worship, liberty of thought, liberty of teaching and
liberty of conscience.” It is not to be thought that Catholic doctrine
claims to substitute in such spheres constraint or servitude for liberty.
It merely declares that the human being’s liberty of action therein
ought to be regulated and defined. The objects of its condemnation
are liberties regarded as inviolable and considered as sovereign rights con­
ferred on man by nature.

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things which God has placed under the protection of the
Church, and nothing could be more improper than to
desire the Church to practise dissimulation in regard to
error or injustice, or to connive at anything which might
prove harmful to religion.
“ It follows, therefore, from what has been said that it
is in no way permissible to ask, to defend or to accord
indiscriminate liberty of thought, of writing, of teaching,
of religious worship, as so many rights bestowed on man
by nature. For if nature had really bestowed them, it
would be lawful to reject the sovereignty of God and no
law could restrain human liberty.
“ It also follows that such diverse sorts of liberties can
for adequate reasons be tolerated, provided that an
appropriate moderation prevents them from degenerating
into licence and disorder.
“ Lastly, wherever custom has established such liberties,
the citizen must profit by them to do good and consider
them in the same light as the Church. For every liberty
must be accounted legitimate to the extent that it
increases the power of doing good, and beyond that,
never.” 1
The thesis, therefore (that is to say, the normal end in
law to which one should always ideally refer and as far
as possible tend), must be distinguished, as the current
formula requires, from the hypothesis (that is to say, the
aggregate of actual conditions determining hic et nunc the
possibilities of realisation of the thesis).
From this last point of view the doctrine of St. Thomas
on the various systems of political life may help us to form
a better judgement of certain concrete cases. “ Mixed
systems ” being according to him the best suited to human
nature, St. Thomas distinguishes two principal forms of
mixed system, the monarchical mixed system and the republican,
1 Leo XIII, Encyclical Liberlas.

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which differ specifically by the way in which each con­
ceives the common good.1
In the “ perfect mixed system ” (the best type of
monarchy), which combines the monarchical principle
(the rule of a single man entrusted with the unity of the
whole) and the aristocratic principle (allocation of offices
to those best fitted for them) and the democratic principle
(participation by the masses in the administration of the
State), the temporal common good is envisaged and directly
aimed at in all its elevation, in its integrity of a political
work (human, rational and moral) to be achieved, and
presents itself formally as the virtuous life of the multitude
assembled in one. Such a system, which commends itself
from the point of view of the greatest good, is essentially
constituted under the sign of unity and value or virtue ;
the part played in the life of men therein by the orders
of the public authority or government as such is
considerable. Precisely because of its high ideal and the
preponderance of solicitude for moral interests implicit
in the definition of it, it cannot help controlling in a parti­
cularly firm manner the various liberties referred to in the
documents just quoted : at the same time it invites the
whole-hearted application of the principles which require
the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual sove­
reignty : aiming positively at the “ virtuous life,” it must
be positively subject to the control of the super-terrestrial
State entrusted with the duty of leading man to his last
end ; the indirect power, as in fact happened in the Middle
Ages, will find many an opportunity for more or less
imperative intervention.
The Republic (jbolitia), which combines the democratic
and oligarchical principles, is, in itself, according to St.
Thomas (cf. Comm, in Polit., iv, vii), a less perfect form
1 Cf. Marcel Demongeot, Le meilleur régime politique selon St. Thomas,
Paris, Blot, 1928.

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APPENDICES

!
i
I
1

;

I

of mixed system, the least elevated of the legitimate forms of
political life. 1 he temporal common good is there envisaged
and aimed at in its least difficult, least positive aspect—
merely as procuring the greatest average convenience, the maximum
general ease in the common life of men. Such a system, which
commends itself from the point of view of the least evil,1 is
essentially constituted under the sign of political liberty ; the
part played in the life of men therein by government as
such is weak. Without, therefore, excluding solicitude
for moral interests, the preponderance of concern for
excellent material functioning is implicit in the definition
of it.
Such a political system will, therefore, hardly concern
itself, and in proportion as its aims are the less elevated be
as little concerned as possible, with regulating the various
liberties before mentioned ; the radius of its activity will
at the same time be the less likely to come into contact with
the sphere of spiritual interests and come under the incidence
of the power entrusted with the task of taking care of the
salvation of souls ; and so long as such concrete conditions
prevail, the Church may in fact find in liberty alone her

I

1 Evil, in the philosophy of St. Thomas, being what most frequently
happens in the human species, the point of view of the least evil in
fact corresponds to what as a general rule succeeds best among the
I
average of that unhappy species, especially if assistance derived from
I
the supernatural order be left out of account. For this reason St.
j
Thomas, who considered Monarchy to be the best of all political
j
systems and the most desirable purely and simply, elsewhere writes :
i
“If we do not mean the best system which can be desired and chosen
!
purely and simply, but the best in fact attainable in the average of
j
cases, we should say that a Republic, and the mixed forms of aristocracy
j
most closely approximating to it are the best systems which most
States and men can realise ” (in Polit. Arist., iv, x, § i)—systems which
1
in fact arc rarely realised, because it is their corrupt form which as a
irule most frequently predominates {ibid., § i6). We so perceive how
the most intrinsically elevated political forms, which commend themI
selves from the point of view of the greatest good, stand in still greater
need of the superior virtues which religion brings so as not to become
,
corrupted among men, and how, in fact, Monarchy attains its perfect
i
type in human society only if it is a Christian monarchy.
i
*
I

j

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greatest chance of exercising influence. Such would seem
to be the case at the present moment in the United States.1
If instead of having to deal with this normal type of
politia, we have to deal with political forms concealing under
the cloak of democracy principles and a spirit tending with
religious fervour to set up a general state of materialism
and atheism, the conditions would clearly be altogether
different. Such systems would use the various liberties
mentioned against God and man until such time as they were
finally suppressed to the advantage of the all-powerful state.
And the ‘‘ hypothesis ” would mean for the Church an
aggregate of concrete conditions in which, whether she
were patient and made the best of circumstances or resisted
flagrant injustice, she would always have battles to fight.
(5) It is another liberal error to think that the source
of civil power is not God, the Author of nature, but the
masses, or even, as Rousseau said, that while its source
is God, it resides in the masses, and that governments are
mere delegates of the masses. The masses can, in certain
forms of polity, appoint men to the task of watching over
the public good, but, this appointment once made,
sovereignty resides in them, not in the masses, and they hold
it from on high, not from below. “ Such a choice appoints
the sovereign, but does not confer the rights of sovereignty.
Authority is not thereby conferred : all that is determined
is who shall exercise it.” 2
1 The peculiar conditions prevailing in the United States explain
how a mind, confining itself entirely to the hypothesis of the Constitution
of that country, with no apparent awareness that the concrete circum­
stances so laid down may be theoretically conceived as non-existent,
can produce in all sincerity so liberal a manifesto as that published in
the Atlantic Monthly for May, 1927, by Mr. Alfred E. Smith in answer
to the objections made to his candidature for the Presidency by Mr.
Charles C. Marshall.
2 Leo XIII, Encyclical Diuturnum illud (29th June, t88t). Cf. Pius
IX, Syllabus, 60th proposition condemned : “ Authority is merely the
sum of numbers and material forces ” ; Leo XIII, Encyclicals Im­
mortale Dei, Quod apostolici and Libertas ; Pius X, Letter on the Sillon.

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(6) It is still another liberal error i<> think that civil
laws are not binding in conscience.1 It is permissible
to resist unjust laws, that is to say that, if a law is unjust
because it enjoins something destructive of the good of the
state,2 it is not binding in conscience, “ unless perhaps for
the avoidance of scandal or commotion which the violation
of it might entail : for which reason man is bound to
give up even his own right, as it is said in the Gospel of
St. Matthew (v. 4.0, 41) : “ And if a man will contend with
thee in judgement and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also
unto him. And -whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him
other two.'’ 3 And if a law enjoins something contrary
to the divine good, the commission of a sin or some act
prohibited by natural or divine law, it must on no account
be observed.4 “ But if the ordinances of legislation and
princes,” writes Leo XIII, “ sanction or enjoin something
contrary to divine or natural law, the dignity of the
Christian name, duty and the apostolic precept alike
proclaim that God must be obeyed before men.” 5
1 The Thomist definition of law, recalled by Leo XIII (Sapientiae
Christianae), is well known. Law is not the expression of Number or
the General Will, “ but an order of the undeviating reason made by the lawful
power with a view to the common goody
2 E.g. when it violates a natural right of human personality or the
family.
3 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., i—ii, 96, 4.
4 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., i-ii, 96, 4. May such resistance
to unjust laws be attended by the use of force ? Cardinal Zigliara
(Summa philosophiae, vol. iii ; Jus naturae, i-ii, c. 2, a. 7, § 17) answers
in the affirmative, as regards occasions of special gravity and so far as law­
ful self-defence necessitates the use of force. The right of passive resistance
would, he declares, be humanly ineffective, if it did not also involve
the right of repelling by every honourable means (including force) acts
of violence and aggression effectively done by the executive witha view to
securing obedience to unjust laws. This the writer calls “ defensive
resistance,” and the initiative in it must be taken by a lawful social
authority.
5 Leo XIII, Quod apostolici. Gf. Diuturnum illud ; Sapientiae Chris­
tianae. Conscience being the proximate guide of human actions, man
must always act according to his conscience : if, then, the case should
arise cf an individual resisting a just law from motives of conscience—

H?

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S

But such exceptional eases apart, by the very fact that
civil authority derives from God, men arc bound in con­
science to obey the laws of tiro State.1 “ It is no more
permissible to condemn the lawful power in whomsoever
it may reside than to oppose the will of God.2 “ Christians,
therefore, invest the notion of authority with a religious
veneration, for they see in it, even when it resides in an
unworthy mandatory, a reflection and as it were an image
of the Divine Majesty. They have the proper respect for
law which law deserves, not because of force and penal
sanctions, but in conscience bound, for God has not given
us a spirit offear.” 3
I would add that an executive may enact unjust laws
without on that account being necessarily unlawful.4
An executive may not acknowledge that it derives its
authority from God (thereby committing the most serious
and grotesque error), without thereby necessarily losing
that very authority which it derives from God although it
denies it.
The laws which it enacts, so long as they prescribe noth­
ing contrary to natural or divine law, continue to be
binding in conscience. Gregory XVI {Mirari vos) and Leo
XIII {Diuturnum), quoting St. Augustine, recall in this
connection the attitude of the early Christians and the
obedience they rendered to persecuting governments, even
to such as Julian the Apostate.
because he believes that it commands him to commit a sin—-he clearly
incurs no guilt in following his conscience, but (except in case of
invincible and absolutely involuntary error, even in causa) he is guilty
of having a badly educated conscience at variance with the eternal law
which is the first and supreme rule governing human actions. The
public authority, therefore, if the law is just in itself, is within its rights
in punishing his resistance by imposing on him the prescribed sanctions.
1 St. Thomas Aquinas, op. cit.
2 Leo XIII, Immortaie Dei.
3 Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae.
4 Leu XIII distinguishing between the political régime and the
legislation passed (Encyclical In mediis).

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An authority becomes unlawful or tyrannical when it
procures not the common good but the radical corruption
of the common good. In such a case, according to St.
Thomas,1 it is the authority which, properly speaking, is
seditious. It may then be lawful to overthrow it, unless a
worse disorder would ensue and greater harm so befall the
populace. In fact St. Thomas considers the risk of such
worse disorder so considerable that in the De RegiminePrincipum 1
2 he leaves no other remedy', in a case in which a tyrant
cannot be dethroned by the intervention of some superior
authority, than recourse to Almighty God.3
If Princes
should happen to proceed to rash excesses in the exercise
of their authority,” writes Leo XIII, " Catholic doctrine
does not permit a spontaneous rebellion against them, for
fear lest the tranquillity of order be more and more
disturbed and society suffer still graver harm in conse­
quence. And when the excesses have risen to such a
pitch that all hope of salvation seems lost, it teaches that
the remedy must be sought in the merits of Christian
patience and urgent prayer to God.” 4
Nevertheless, it is clear that it is lawful to fight by every
honourable means (that is not to say feeble means, because
rebellion is not the only effective means, there are honour­
able means which are also energetic) a tyrannical or
persecuting government (more particularly when it is
engaged in sapping the very foundations of public good
by the imposition of atheist teaching upon children or the
1 Sum. Theol., ii-ii, 42, 2.
2 De Regimine Principum, i, 6.
3 On the other hand, the reasons given by St. Thomas in the text
from the Summa just quoted show—and recent examples (Russia on the
one side, Hungary and Italy on the other) might be adduced in con­
firmation—that it may be the act of good citizens to take the place of
failing authority once the latter abandons the State to revolution :
for they.are then rising up not against lawful authority but against
sedition itself.
Leo XIII, Encyclical Qpod Aposiolici.

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destruction of the natural organism of the family) ; or
again to try to change by every honourable means for
reasons of public interest the established regime. “ When
one is under the oppression or the menace of a tyranny
overpowering the State under an unjust violence or seeking
to deprive the Church of the liberty which is her due, one
may lawfully seek another political organisation under
which it may be possible to act with liberty. . . . Nor
does the Church condemn the desire to free our country
from either a foreigner or a despot, provided that such an
end can be achieved without doing violence to justice.” 1
“ Let every man also retain the just and honourable liberty
of preferring any particular form of government which is
not at variance with the order of things established by
Christ.” 2
(7) “ Salvation, however, is not to be found elsewhere
than in Christ : for there is no other name under Heaven given to
men in which we were to be saved. It is therefore necessary to
return to Him, to prostrate ourselves at His feet, to gather
from His divine lips the words of eternal life ; for He
alone can point the way to salvation, alone teach the truth,
alone recall to life, Who said of Himself : I am the Way,
the Truth and the Life. One more attempt has been made
to deal with the affairs of the world without regard to
Christ ; the building was begun by rejecting the corner­
stone. Peter made the reproach to those who crucified
Jesus. And once again the structure of the building has
collapsed, breaking the heads of the builders. Jesus
remains in spite of everything the corner-stone of human
society, and once again the maxim is justified : There is no
salvation but in Him.” 3
1 Leo XIII, Libertas.
2 Pius XI, Consistorial address of the 20th December, 1926.
3 Pius X, Jucunda sane.

Ι5θ

APPENDICES

vi.

democratic;

naturalism

anti-democratic

and

naturalism

“ Democracy, lawful in itself/’ Père Garrigou-Lagrange
wrote recently, “ may degenerate into democratism, into a
kind of religion which confuses the order of grace and the
order of nature or tends to reduce the supernatural truth
of the Gospel to a social conception of human order, to
transform divine charity into philanthropy, humanitarian­
ism and liberalism. The Church may then intervene
in virtue of her very magistracy. She cannot forget the
maxim : corruptio optimi pessima ; the worst form of cor­
ruption is that which attacks what is best in us, the most
exalted of the supernatural virtues, the soul of all the
others. If there is nothing better in this world than true
charity, which loves God above all things and its neigh­
bour for the love of God, there is nothing worse than false
charity, which reverses the very order of love, by making
us forget the infinite goodness of God and His impre­
scriptible rights, to stuff' our ears with the rights of man—
equality, liberty and fraternity. The formal object of an
essentially supernatural virtue so becomes confused with
that of a feeling not unfrequently largely inspired by envy.
Is that not the essence of the democracy-religion which
completely falsifies the idea of the virtue of charity and at
the same time that of virtue indissolubly bound with
justice ? To seek to discover in it the spirit of the Gospel
would be mere illuminism. To realise it, it is sufficient to
apply the main rule for the discerning of spirits : ‘ The
tree is judged by its fruits ’ : the fruits produced by the
works of Rousseau are not the fruits of the Gospel.
“ To react properly against such democratism and those
who profit by it to the great detriment of their country,
is it sufficient to give the helm a vigorous turn in the
opposite direction, in the human order ? Is it sufficient to

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recall the benefits conferred by the natural hierarchy o
values once established by the guilds in the artisan world,
the benefits conferred by an intellectual aristocracy and a
landed aristocracy, the advantages derived from a monarchy
which brought about unity and continuity in the home and
foreign policy of a great country, to protect it against its
enemies both within and without ? If such a reaction takes
place only or mainly in the human order, and not suffici­
ently in the supernatural order <>f faith and love of God, it
runs the risk of falling into the opposite extreme to that
which it is fighting. Not only can it not effectively sub­
stitute, as it ought, for false notions of charity and justice
the true conception of these virtues, but it can easily degener­
ate into an aristocratic naturalism recalling the wisdom
of Greece and its intellectual pride in opposition to the
spirit of the Gospel. The profound significance of the
teaching of Our Lord respecting humility and love of our
neighbour would be thenceforth lost : ‘ I confess to thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little
ones’ (Matthew xi. 25). ‘ This is my commandment, that
you love one another, as I have loved you ’ (John xv. 12).
“ To react against the naturalist conception of charity
which is as it were the soul of democracy-religion, one must
safeguard oneself against the opposite extreme which would
be a contrary form of naturalism. One must rise above
these two extremes to the culminating point which unites
the theological and moral virtues, living faith, resolute
hope, the supernatural love of God and our neighbour,
of our very enemies, divine charity indissolubly bound to
true justice. To rise to such a height, Christian humility
is required ; it is a fundamental virtue and alone can
repress the pride which tends to pervert every political
conception and to warp every form of government.
Humility must be accompanied by docility of the mind

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with regard to every natural and supernatural truth ; it is
the only way to supreme truth and true wisdom ” (Père
Garrigou-Lagrangc, Vie Spirituelle, March, 1927).
VII.

THREE

FORMS

OF

NATIONALISM

“ Nationalism may be primarily understood : (a) in
opposition to humanitarian myths, as the doctrine that
the nation, considered as synonymous with the civitas or
the country, is the highest natural social unity ; (6) in
opposition to individualist errors, as the theory that the
common good is ‘ more divine,’ as Aristotle and St.
Thomas say, than the individual good and different in
kind from the mere aggregate of individual goods, and
that the natural law (no less than the fourth command­
ment) bids us cherish the good of our country above our
private interests. Nationalism may also be understood
in the same sense in relation to the providential order as
the doctrine that every nation has its own mission to fulfil
in history and that these missions are not all identical. It
is impossible not to approve of ζ Nationalism ’ in the
primary sense, even if the threat of destruction against
which it protects the patrimony of the country compels
it to assume the appearance of a rather feverish reaction.
It would no doubt be impossible to say purely and simply,
even in face of exceptional circumstances, ‘ the national
interest above all,’ for God and the law of God always
transcend the national interest (although it is none the less
true that, the nation having a moral end, a real national
interest requiring something contrary to the law of God
would be a contradiction in terms : when St. Louis
restored Guyenne to the King of England because justice
required it, he was working in the true or metempirical
interest of France). But the empirical criterion of national
interest, which in the past has only too often come into
criminal opposition with the laws of the Gospel, happens

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in fact, in the circumstances in which France is at present
involved, to be particularly useful as a defence of the prime
conditions of the restoration of order against the peril
of general dissolution. I would add that to criticise liberal
illusions in the name of the national interest is certainly
legitimate, but that the criticisms need to be completed
by pointing out the metaphysical and moral errors inherent
in the principle of liberalism and to correct them every
time they would seem to tend to a misconception of the
authentic rights of conscience.
“ Nationalism may be understood in a second sense as
the systematic expression of the principle of nationalities
carried to the extreme and is then more or less synonymous
with racialism. So conceived, it is a very dangerous error.
However desirable it may be to satisfy, in accordance
with justice and in the heart of the civil unit, the aspirations
of the various ‘ nations ’ considered in the sense of racial
families, the revolutionary dogma of the principle of
nationalities (that unity of origin constitutes the raison
d'etre and unity of civil society and the members of each
ethnic branch ought to assemble in so many nationStates) is a materialist illusion contrary to natural law and
destructive of civilisation. Maurras, let it be said, has taken
a definite stand against this interpretation of nationalism.
“ There is finally a third sense of the word nationalism
meaning the corrupt form of the legitimate nationalism
as at first defined : it is then the blind worship of the
nation (State or country), considered as transcending
every moral and religious law, nationalism as opposed
to God and the kingdom of God : as such it refuses to
acknowledge the independence of the Church of Christ
and her authority over temporal matters, an authority
of the extent of which the Church is the sole judge in
every case and which allows her to absolve the subjects
of an apostate king of their oath of allegiance ; or it

Σ54

APPENDICES

refuses to admit the liberty to preach the Gospel, claiming
to subordinate it to the temporal interests of governments
(as has so often happened in missionary countries) ; or it
refuses to admit the duties of justice and charity of mutual
obligation between nations, which forbid the making of
war from mere desire for glory or lust of conquest or
fomenting civil war in a neighbour’s territory. It must be
admitted that the love of State or country, by reason of its
very nobility and disinterestedness, is such a powerful
sentiment that without the superior control of a very
vigorous supernatural spirit, it can easily incline more or
less to such an excess. In the shape of Gallicanism,
regalism and Josephism (continued and odiously aggrava­
ted by Jacobinism and State laicism, which refuses to
admit the duties which the nation as such owes to God),
it constituted the chief fault of the ancien régime before
becoming a characteristic of the modern world ; Philip
the Fair and some of his successors have from this point of
view created a tradition, the moral of which it would be
disastrous to adopt. If the word nationalism be under­
stood in this third sense, one would have to be deter­
minedly anti-nationalist.
“ At a time when the world is rent by more fearful
national antagonisms than ever, rendered not less violent
but on the contrary still more dangerous by humanitarian
illusions, spiritual Catholicity, at any rate, is still a living
force, and what writer during the war laid greater stress
upon it than Maurras ? It is in reliance upon it and by
making in the first place an effort at comprehension in the
supra-national domain of the spirit that an obedience
non fictum should have been given to the exhortations which
the Supreme Pontiffs have multiplied during these last
years in favour of a permanent peace.”
{Une opinion sur Charles Maurras et le devoir des Catholiques,

pp. 66—72.)
ISS

THE

THINGS

THAT
VIII.

ON

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

CHINA

There are diseases which, transported to other climates
and encountering organisms which have never been
immunised, become deadly scourges. Marxism, trans­
ported into the Russian organism, produced Bolshevism.
Europe rejected the kingship of Christ in its social life
and thought that its apostasy was no great matter. That
apostasy makes the round of the world, however, and
returns to Europe with a scared face. The West is not
satisfied with supplying the Chinese with arms and ammu­
nition with which to kill one another 1 ; everyone knows
that it is the ulcers of its false philosophy which are at
present corroding the Chinese mind and in China threaten­
ing the world.
“ In China,” Père Wiéger recently wrote in a remarkable
article,2 “ in the years immediately preceding the Revolu­
tion which was felt to be imminent, more particularly after
the establishment of the Republic, it was also the Young
who went abroad, all hoping to become, like their Japan1 “ How do the big wigs come by these pretty toys, as a Prussian
General called them, whose remark was repeated everywhere ? The
answer is quite easy. They begin by extorting the money required
from the people of China by threatening to cut their throats. They
then pay the money into the outstretched palms of certain foreign
contractors, who will deliver them arms and ammunition as often as
they ask for them and for as many piastres as they are willing to pay.
So the game can go on as long as there is any money left in China.
Ah, Europeans, my brethren (I omit the Americans and the Japanese,
who do not affect me so closely), nations which were said to have
compassionate hearts . . . which moved the whole world to put an
end to the slave trade, to suppress the traffic in alcohol and opium and
are now providing the Chinese in abundance and with complaisance,
with the means of massacring one another !... Does the money
you earn in such a way not burn your hands ?... If you were to
stop feeding it, the civil war in China would stop immediately. ‘It is
you who keep it going’ is the cry of the Young Chinese, and they are right.
Sir Austen Chamberlain had to admit as much in the House of Com­
mons on the 17th February, 1927 ” (Père Léon Wiéger, “ La Chine
Actuelle,” in Etudes, 5th April, 1927)·
2 Etudes, 5th April, 1927.

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ese predecessors, members of the new aristocracy, stars
in the new firmament. They studied, in Europe and
America, politics and sociology, especially public education
and national institutions. Less disciplined and of a more
adventurous turn of mind than the Japanese (I am speaking
of the Japanese of fifty years ago), they laid in a store of
whatever would be useful to them in urging on the Revo­
lution, advanced, subversive and extremist ideas, with
which many schools, clubs and private individuals com­
placently supplied them.
“ Such journeys and sojourns abroad were expensive,
however, and not all the Young were able to travel. All,
however, felt that they carried a revolutionary in their
breasts. They were helped by a revolutionary change in
official education. Elementary schools, lower and upper,
secondary schools and academies on the new pattern
were founded. A so-called National University and
secondary school were set up in Peking to teach all that
was most contagious in Europe, America and Japan.
At the present moment, in the compulsory elementary
schools, the descent of man from a monkey is being taught
in its crudest form to children of from eight to twelve, the
socialism of Marx and the communism of Lenin to pupils
of from twelve to fifteen, in secondary schools the so-called
scientific incredulity, and to undergraduates the atheism
of Moscow according to the formula of Zinoviev : ‘We
shall in the end dethrone God in His heaven.’ No more
religion, morality, law, worship, parents or masters !
We want absolute liberty for everyone in everything, the
abolition of every constraint and restriction ! Such is
the cry of students of both sexes in China, for the spring
of the new learning flows for boys and girls alike and the
new spirit drives both equally mad.
“ This power of propagation and contagion seems to
me impossible to repress for reasons which I will .explain

IS?

THE

THINGS

THAT

ARE

NOT

CAESAR’S

and which deserve serious consideration, for they will
determine the future.
“ Public education has completely escaped the direction
and even the control of the State. There is certainly in
the Ministry at Peking a Minister of Education, but he is
a mere ornament and has ceased to be of any practical
importance. The public education of the entire country,
North and South, is directed by two quasi-private and
practically independent societies, tire Federation of
National Education and the Office for the development of
Education. Each holds an annual congress. The latter
lays down the general lines of policy. The former puts
them into practice and draws up detailed programmes.
Two enormous printing and publishing concerns cavy
them out, the Commercial Printing Company and the
China Publishing Company, both established at Shanghai
and with branches and agents everywhere. I have
italicised the words ‘ carry them out ’ for this reason. The
most important thing is a text-book, which the master
must content himself with explaining temperately, without
superfluous comment, just enough for it to be understood.
So in reality it is the author of the text-book, not the school­
master, who does the teaching. . . .
“ Now the two firms in question have drawn up in
accordance with the new programmes and published two
whole series of school manuals, one for the pupil and the
other for the teacher. In practice there are only these
two series and they are used in every school. Therefore,
in the whole of China, that and that alone is taught by
the schoolmasters word for word ; that and that alone is
what the pupils learn like parrots. It is therefore easy to
know what 1'oung China has in its head and says, thinks and
believes, lake the book of the elementary schoolmaster
teaching the upper and lower classes and read it carefully.
It is that and nothing else. Common everyday knowledge

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APPENDICES

in reading, writing and arithmetic, geography, history and
the natural sciences : in addition, for the infants, man's
descent from a monkey : for older children, socialism and
communism. The text-books for secondary schools teach
the theory and practice of atheism, the inexistence of
morality and law, the valuelessness of any principle. The
citizen should be content with practising a sort of exterior
civic decency, respect his neighbour’s interests so as to
protect his own, a rejuvenated form of Chinese ritualism,
older than Confucius, as old as China itself. On the
pretext of nationalism, the most absolute cxclusivism, the
most rabid xenophobia arc inculcated. On the pretext
of scientism, irréligion is made compulsory.”
If only towards the end of the nineteenth century there
had been a Chinese—a Chinese Catholic I mean, for none
other could have succeeded in such an undertaking—to
denounce to his fellow countrymen the danger latent in an
apostate West ! It is very remarkable that such an invasion
of Western atheism, scientism and socialism, capable of
destroying very rapidly every spiritual and universally
human element in the ancient culture of China, is also only
capable—because merely brutal principles, essentially below
the life of the spirit, are there involved—of isolating and
exasperating into a hatred of one’s neighbour all the
material (in the Aristotelian sense of the word), strictly
national and racial elements in that same culture. By a
diabolical paradox, it is precisely in order to protect the
rights of their own culture that the Chinese most intoxi­
cated with the worst products of the West oppose Christ­
ianity at the present day. “ That the Chinese are civilised
people is undeniable. They were civilised even long
before the Europeans and the Americans and they know it.
It was they who civilised the Japanese and they have not
forgotten it. Besides their civilisation, the Chinese have
their own peculiar form of culture, which also is of venerable

159

antiquity and very elevated. A priori, therefore, the pre­
tence of civilising, of cultivating, them was doomed to failure
and apt to infuriate them. Now it was the Japanese, the
least competent in the eyes of the Chinese, who committed
the blunder of proposing themselves as teachers of culture
in 1923. This provoked a storm of anger which spread
next to other nations, guilty of the same stupidity. It was
the dread and horror of being cultivated by the foreigner
against their will, of seeing their national culture ousted by
a foreign culture, which first turned the Chinese against
the Protestant schools, the American more especially,
which formerly were highly esteemed. They turned out
yellow Yankees ! The same fear, and this is worse, excited
them next against Christianity, which formerly, if not
admired, was at least tolerated or even respected. Modern
Chinese teaching denying the transcendental character of
religion and regarding it as an integral part of the peculiar
culture of each nation, Christianity became detestable,
as being the intrusion of a foreign culture. Young China
hates it from this point of view, not because of its dogmas,
and the anti-Christian League would exterminate it for
the same reason.” 1
The truth is that Christianity alone—the grace of
Christ which divinely perfects nature without destroying
it—can maintain and preserve whatever spiritual treasures
there may be in Chinese culture without injuring its
national and social individuality, but elevating it in the service
of God, Who is Spirit. It is the one hope which remains,
as Père Lebbe has long insisted. Catholicism is by right
the protector of the authentic culture of China and true
Chinese patriotism—as of every genuine culture and every
true patriotism.
The difficulty of forming an exact idea of China may be
realised if we consider what sort of idea a learned Chinese
1 Père Wiéger, toc. cil.

APPENDICES

can form of Europe.1 We have the most valuable testimony
in the experience of the missionaries to dispel our ignor­
ance. I cannot resist the temptation to reproduce here
from the Missions Caikoliques ( i Bill March, 1927) - the
admirable account given by Mgr. Guébriant, Superior of
the Foreign Missions, in a lecture delivered in Lyons on
the 16th February, 1927.
1 Cf. e.g. Kou Houng Ming’s book on I'Espnt du peuple chinois (Stock,
1927).
2 Léopold Levaux’s essay on la Chine et les Missions (Roseau d’Or, No.
10, 1926), since published as a pamphlet .; the Bulletin de la jeunesse
Catholique chinoise (Louvain), Père Lebbe’s pamphlet Que sera la Chine
demain ? may all be usefully consulted, and, more generally, the publi­
cations devoted to the lore of the missions (Xaveriana) of the Jesuit
College at Louvain, as well as the Revue des .Missions published by the
Benedictines of Saint André at Lophem, near Bruges.
[Reference should also be made to Pope Pius Xi’s Letter Ab ipsis
Pontificatus primordiis dated the 15th June, 1926, addressed to the Prefects
Apostolic of China “ with reference to certain erroneous opinions con­
cerning the work of the Church ” in that country and lirst published in
translation in the Sept.—Oct. numbers of Le Bulletin des Missions, 1928.
The erroneous opinions in question, widely prevalent, says the Pope,
among the youth, chiefly consist in considering the activities of the
Catholic Church in China as dictated solely by the unscrupulous
ambitions of the various European governments and the zeal of the
missionaries, therefore, as a covert form of political propaganda.
After referring to the universal character of the Catholic Church, which,
in accordance with the precept in Matthew xxviii. 19, embraces all nations
indifferently, the Pope declares that the task of evangelisation is not
imposed upon the missionaries by their respective civil governments
but by God Himself (John xv. 16), and that there is the testimony of
history to prove that the Church has never failed in her duty to protect
and assert the rights of nations against the arbitrary domination of
kings and governments. He then lays special stress on the urgent
necessity of training a native clergy to take the place, as circumstances
permit, of foreign missionaries and to parry the danger of an in­
temperate patriotism. Titus and Timothy, foreigners though they
were, preached the faith to the Cretans and the Ephesians ; Patrick,
a Scot by birth, converted Ireland ; Boniface, a Breton, won the
Germanies lor Christ. The Church accommodates herself to the
exigencies of time and place, but her method is ever the same and her
behest to her missionaries is to gather the native children and to
educate them carefully in the hope that they may one day become priests.
The Pope concludes his letter with a prayer that the prejudices of
the Chinese may be dissipated, their hostility to the Church disarmed
and their great country restored to prosperity and peace.]

M

161

CHINA
LECTURE DELIVERED BY HIS LORDSHIP
-BISHOP DE G U É BRIA N T

China, the subject of my address to you this evening, is,
in a way, my second country. I have spent thirty-six
consecutive years of my life there—thirty-one in Sze-chwan
the most remote province of the interior, and five in the
famous province, more famous than ever to-day, whose
capital is Canton. Betwcen-whiles I have had to travel
over nearly every other province of China making an
apostolic visit, that is to say, a general investigation into
the Missions, which the Holy See had requested me to
undertake immediately after the War.
“ I can therefore talk on China without failing in the
respect due to my audience by talking on a subject I
know nothing about. But, I hasten to add, such know­
ledge as I possess of that great country is not in the least
scientific. I have seen it, resided in it, become familiar
with it during many years : I have, so to speak, lived it :
I have compared my experiences and my impressions with
those of my colleagues, missionaries from all countries and
establishments. But I have not made any special study
of China and Chinese questions. I have scarcely read
anything at all, for, in my long lifetime as a missionary, I
had no books and now, in my office of Superior of the
Foreign Missions, I have no time.
“ Having said so much and with the assurance that you
will not attach to my remarks an importance which they
do not possess, I will put before you very simply and very
willingly my views on China and what is happening there
at the present moment.

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“ China is the greatest country in the world, the most
populous, the most compact, the richest in possibilities of
every kind and possessing everything necessary to become
the most powerful.
“ Do you think that an overstatement ? Consider, if you
please, the attitude of tlie great powers with regard to
China in revolution. They still call themselves the great
powers, but what a tremendous contrast between words
and facts ! One of them has done nothing but hesitate
for the last two years or begun to pack up. It allows its
trade to be boycotted, its concessions to be invaded, its
nationals to be threatened, and all this time the other
powers, less obviously aimed at, are only the more discreet
in their expectations. Why ? Clearly because they are
afraid, afraid of China, not as it is at the moment, but as
it may reveal itself at any time, if it succeeds in organising
itself, for it would then be a formidable power and no
nation desires to give such a power the slightest excuse
for turning against it when the time comes.
“ What constitutes the power of China is not so much
the extent of its territory or the riches of its soil or subsoil,
as the qualities of the race which inhabits it ; an abundantly
prolific race eager to live. Wherever it discharges its
superfluity, it adapts itself to all climates and environments
without losing its peculiar character and brings to the
struggle for life an unrivalled perseverance and energy.
The fertility of the Chinese population is a brutal fact
which strikes the eye at once. I should hesitate to say that
the increase of population in China itself is very fast.
Children, it is true, are born in prodigious numbers, but
they die in frightful proportions and, besides, the rate of
mortality in general is very high in such a swarming
population. There are no official statistics which enable
one to give exact figures, but I have the impression, con­
firmed by my missionary colleagues, that the numbers in

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our Christian communities, where well-kept registers make
it possible to keep an accurate check, would be stationary,
or nearly so, if not increased by conversions.
“ Now what is true of Christian communities can only
be true a fortiori of the pagan mass. The reason is over­
population, the lack of hygiene and cleanliness, the
frequent famines and other causes, such as the suppression
of little girls.
“ There is indeed an interior emigration whereby over­
populated cantons flow over into less inhabited or even
quite uninhabited areas, for such there still are. But the
indifference of the administration, which takes no interest
in such questions and docs nothing to encourage, guide and
support the emigrants, derives no advantage from such
social movements, and the emigrants, left to their own
devices, are exposed to every hardship and disappear in
large numbers without leaving any trace.
“ This is not true, however, of Manchuria, a country of
fertile steppes which only need strong arms to provide the
richest harvests.
“ Owing to its proximity to the over-populated agricul­
tural provinces of the North, to Shan-tung especially, it
attracted colonists in the end and the first colonists attracted
others, so that solely through the energy of its admirable
people, the Chinese republic has been increased by new
provinces, with a population, approximately, of at least
twenty million inhabitants.
The same thing could
happen, and for the same reason, in Mongolia. What
would the results be if a strong and intelligent government,
instead of living from day to day only more or less acknow­
ledged by the nation, systematically took in hand a colonisa­
tion for which it has all the cards in its hand : an enormous
fertile country, a prolific and laborious population ?
“ What cannot be absorbed by interior colonisation
naturally seeks an outlet abroad. But whereas the Chinese
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of the North turn their eyes to Manchuria, Mongolia and
even Siberia, the Cantonese emigrate abroad. I say
‘ Cantonese ’ advisedly and not Southern Chinese,
because I have never had the impression that there are
two Chinas, one in the North and the other in the South,
whereas the difference between China, properly so called,
and Cantonese China is immediately perceptible. Only I
understand the term Cantonese China in a very compre­
hensive sense which includes not only the province ot
Canton but Fu-kien as well, embraces to however small
an extent neighbouring provinces and makes no distinction
between the three human branches—I hardly venture to
say the three races—inhabiting the country, the Cantonese
properly so called (or Punti), the Hakka and the Hokklo.
Now it is a remarkable fact, a fact, I fancy, not very well
known—it escaped my own notice during my thirty years’
residence in Sze-chwan, before I was transferred to Canton
—it is a remarkable fact, I repeat, that Chinese emigration
abroad has been up to the present exclusively Cantonese,
Hakka, Hokklo or Fu-kiennese.
“ The Northern Chinese, also, no doubt have begun to
travel : students especially, for Northern Chinese are to
be encountered pretty well everywhere in the world.
But they never establish themselves outside their own
country. They have no colonies anywhere, to my know­
ledge, except in Siberia. The Cantonese, on the other
hand, of every kind and the Fu-kienncse spread everywhere
and anywhere a door is open. Go and inquire in Indo­
China or Malaya, the Straits Settlements or Java, the
Philippines or New Guinea, in South America or the
United States, the Antilles, Peru, even South Africa, the
Transvaal, Mauritius or Reunion Island, all the Chinese
you will find established there, either settled definitely in
the country and taking root or spending the whole or
only part of their lives there, busily engaged in trade or

165

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on the plantations, all these Chinese, I say, are Cantonese
or Fu-kiennese, speaking one or other of die dialects of
Southern China which other Chinese do not understand.
“ Whatever the significance of such an observation, it is
dear that China, both North and South, is a formidable
reservoir of men, and whoever has seen it close-up cannot
rid himself of the feeling that some phenomenon or other
is preparing there of the same sort as the Hood, unless it
be a tidal wave.
“ Because—and this is the second characteristic which
strikes me most in regard to the Chinese--they have a
marvellous facility of adapting themselves to all climates
and environments. The Japanese seem to be a long way
their inferiors in this respect. One would say that they
cannot adapt themselves to the heat of the tropics or to
the severe cold of the high latitudes ; there is, therefore,
no Japanese colonisation of Formosa and yet the Mikado
has been sovereign there for the last thirty years ; and,
as for cold countries, it is only with difficulty, slowly and
painfully, that the Japanese succeed in populating the
great island of Hokkaido or Yezo, the most northern of
their own archipelago. How much greater is the adapta­
bility of the Chinese ! It is true that their country, which
is as large as Europe, offers the greatest diversity of climate
from the borders of Siberia down to such low latitudes as
that of Tonkin. And the Chinese prosper in every country
in which they have been allowed to settle. In the whole
peninsula of Indo-China, they adapt themselves to the
French, English and Siamese administrations indifferently
and are already to be reckoned in millions : there are
millions of them, also, in the Dutch Indies, hundreds of
thousands in Eastern Siberia. And yet, where, I ask you,
where can a more violent physical contrast be found than
between the climate of Batavia and that of Baikal, a
greater moral contrast than between the administration

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of an English colony and that of a Russian Soviet
Republic ?
‘‘ Here another quality of the Chinese race comes into
play, the third of those which I consider most character­
istic ... its energy, I would go so far as to say its fury,
in the struggle for life. Canton, the great metropolis of
Eastern Asia, with its violent psychology. Canton with its
four or five million inhabitants, in city and suburbs, is
perhaps the best place to choose in which to observe the
intensity of the Chinese will to live. I had been transferred
there by the order of Pope Benedict XV, after spending
thirty-one years in Sze-chwan, and the change had cost me
a lot. In the beginning, the population of Canton struck
me as horrible : it was such a violent contrast to the
laborious but tranquil simplicity of the peasants of my
beloved province. Well ! I came in the end to find some­
thing beautiful in all that squalor. And that something
beautiful was precisely the courage with which that
innumerable population struggles for a livelihood, from
the old woman of eighty still rowing in the sampans down
to the urchin of ten selling pastry cooked with rancid oil.
Such an effort, bitterly, but on the whole honestly, main­
tained to overcome the difficulty of living in the midst
of such fierce competition, such an effort, by its intensity
and perseverance, becomes a beautiful thing to see, and
I came to admire it sincerely and love it with my whole
heart. Now what is true of Canton is true everywhere else
in China, even where local circumstances require not so
much variety and ingenuity of effort. The Chinese people
is in the highest degree a laborious people.
“ I would add that it is also temperate—everybody knows
that—and, lastly, that it is one, a unity imperilled by no
separatist movement. The Cantonese and the Northerns
fight each other, but both alike profess to be purely and
simply China, the China which neither could conceive

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otherwise than as the compact mass of Chung-kwei, the
£ Nation of the Middle.’
“Is it not true that China, so considered, an enormous
superficial area, a dense population, ceaselessly multi­
plying, a unit for thousands of years past and conscious of
its unity, constitutes a singularly imposing force, and that its
near future appears as one of the most troublesome among
the many harassing problems before us ?
“ The Catholic missionaries are not to blame if the terms
of the problem now present themselves in all their acuteness.
The object of their effort for centuries past to Christianise
China was first and foremost the welfare of the Chinese.
But they were none the less aware of the danger which their
evangelical work, if it had attained its object, would have
spared the world. Their dream was to see the people of
the Far East assimilate the essentials of our Christian
civilisation and perfect it still further by adapting thereto
every good thing they themselves derived from their own
past. That would have meant their expansion in liberty,
justice and peace, to the advantage of the general progress
of humanity.
“ Christianity, unfortunately, long confined to the cata­
combs by the mistrust of governments, then distorted by
parasitical propaganda, finally thwarted, if not discredited,
by the example of Christians themselves, was accepted
only by a few. And what it might have procured for the
people without upheaval or violence, they now want to
conquer without it and by force.
“ No, it is not the fault of the missionaries or of Catholic
France. When one thinks of St. Louis sending religious
as ambassadors to the potentates of the East, of the French
Pope, Clement V, dispatching bishops to China in the
early years of the fourteenth century, of the Society for
Foreign Missions issuing in the seventeenth century from the
generous impulses of the French clergy, anxious to provide

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the newly-established Christian communities of the Far
East with priests of their own race, of Pauline Jaricot
organising at Lyons a hundred years ago the Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith, of Mgr. de ForbinJanson establishing that of the Holy Childhood ; when one
sees that the more recent Congregation of St. Peter the
Apostle, in which the Holy See reposes such high hopes
for a native clergy, is also a French promotion, one is
entitled to say that French hands were the first to be held
out and have never ceased to be held out, in an absolutely
religious and therefore entirely disinterested intention,
towards those whom modern rhetoric, has at last begun to
describe, but not without a degree of pomposity, as ‘ our
coloured brethren.’
“ Be that as it may, China now presents a formidable
problem, of which the data would appear to be as follows.
“ The present unrest in China—it seems to me undeni­
able—is a nationalist impulse. To attempt to explain it
by considering it as xenophobia pure and simple would be
neither right nor prudent. It is easy, no doubt, to perceive
in such an upheaval the resurrection of ancient hatreds
and an unjustified contempt for the foreigner, and incidents
have already occurred which later will make the Chinese
blush. But what, as a matter of fact, they want to wrest
from the foreigner is a hegemony which has long been a
fact without, however, having become a right. Now
that is legitimate. A great people is not wrong in wanting
to be free and respected, master in its own house, to deal
with other nations on a footing of equality, and to be the
first to profit by its own riches.
“ Such an aspiration has been consciously felt only for a
few years, a generation at the outside. It made its first
appearance among the young students, when they saw
that the age-old illusion which confused China in the mind
of the educated with the world and the world with China

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caesar’s

had vanished once and for all. For there was not even a
precise word to distinguish the two : Th.ien hia, ‘ Under
the sky,’ applied equally to both.
“ Once the idea of autonomous nations independent of
the Son of the Sky was accepted, once their power and
nature came to be understood and the character of their
relations with China analysed, the irregularities, excesses,
brutalities, and the injustices in the attitude adopted
by the white nations with regard to China were perceived
with evidence which became clearer and clearer, There
is no better explanation of the pitch to which discontent
grew, once such discoveries were made, and its present
nature, than the title of the ultra-modern newspaper
which is most popular in Shanghai, Sin sze, ‘ The lion
awake.’
“ In truth, the blindness of the Imperial Chinese Govern­
ment was most to blame of all. Instead of abandoning
once and for all its old foolish fancies and entering into
normal relations with foreigners, it preferred to gain time
by playing a card which it used for long with professional
skill : pitting rival interests against one another. But
that could not last for ever, and such time as it gained for
the Government was time irrecoverably lost for China.
“ I deeply regret it, and I am convinced that many of
China’s best friends regret it as much as I do. For the
situation would be very different from what it is at the
moment if the Imperial Government had opened its eyes
a few years earlier. The Boxer Rising (i 900-1901) and its
severe lessons were required to convince it. Then, under
the famous Empress Dowager Tse Hi and the regency
which followed her disappearance, came a fruitful period
during which every hope might be legitimately entertained.
Necessary reforms, even such as ancient China had not
foreseen, were made one after another, without shock or
revolution, thanks to the survival of the traditional authority

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which was everywhere acknowledged and obeyed. We
who were then living in China, had the strong impression
that the great Empire had at last found its feet and that,
after the lapse of a few years, without revolution or catas­
trophe, without breaking with its past, having become
quite naturally master of its destiny, powerful among the
most powerful States, it would see the inequalities of which
it complained spontaneously disappear, with nobody in
the whole world left before it but friends or customers
eager to dispute its favour.
“ Less than twenty years would have sufficed : but that
was too long. Young China had had time to educate
itself : it could not wait. It had received its education
where it could, in the countless schools and universities of
the Protestant missions or abroad, more particularly in
Japan and the U.S.A. It had not yet discovered, as it
since has, the masters of revolution in France. I need not
dwell on the point, but I should like to emphasise one
undeniable fact : the young people I am talking about
were not the product of the Catholic schools.
iC Here you will allow me perhaps to open a parenthesis
and to explain to you why the Chinese youth, which is in
such a state of effervescence to-day, has received only the
smallest fraction of the education given in the Catholic
schools or Catholic training. It was certainly not averse
from such education : it has given ample proof of its liking
for it in the last twenty-five years. Wherever we have
been able to provide it with teachers, it has not only shown
confidence in them, but, I think I may say so, a genuine
preference. This is true not only of China, but also of
Japan, Indo-China and Siam. . . . Now how many
schools have we been able to open for children in the Far
East ? Very much less than a tenth of those required from
us. For every one which they have filled and in which
they fight for places, we should have had twenty.

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“Why? You have nothing to learn from me. At the
very moment when the rush of Chinese youth to rhe new
teaching was at its height, the French laws with which you
are familiar had had time to destroy the French teaching
staff from which the Catholic missions might have derived
an incalculable advantage. In 1901, I had secured for
my clear province of Szc-chwan the precious services of a
teaching community very well known in Lyons, the
Marist Brothers. Three schools were opened. We had a
fine start, for the movement which wc foresaw had not yet
begun. Our schools made a humble beginning : but it was
a beginning, and there was no doubt about the future.
But after a few years, when what had been foreseen
actually happened, the novitiate at Saint-Genis-Laval was
closed and its excellent teachers dispersed. The same
thing happened with regard to every congregation which
might have provided French missionaries with the staff
they required. May associations such as the Amis des
Missions play their part effectively and help to save our
France in the future from the error of a policy which has
withdrawn hundreds of thousands of young people from
the educative influence of French missionaries, with the
result that in Africa ten million fetish-worshippers have
become Mohammedans instead of becoming Christians,
and out of eighteen million Annamites there are only a
million and a half Christians, when there could easily
be three times as many 1
“ But to return to young China. . . . So it had to have
a revolution. It had it in 1911. And ever since then, the
slow but certain development, which had been taking
place gradually for nearly ten years, was succeeded by an
era of confusion, trouble and warfare which continues until
the present day.
“ Shall we soon see the end of it ? It may be so, but in
what form ?

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iC The policy pursued by the powers in regard to China
has, it must be confessed, been nearly always, but more
especially since the revolution of 19 it, a policy of selfish­
ness. Selfishness is not an earnest of happiness. Each of
them has attempted to secure the greatest share of profit
in exploiting a market the like of which is nowhere to be
found. Everything was thought of except the Chinese
nation. It sought to find some support in order to realise
its aspirations. Nobody dreamed of offering it any.
Only one hand was outstretched to find it in the darkness,
and by dint of supple patience in the end clasped it. With
undeniable cunning it gave up groping in the North and
came to set fire in the South, where it felt the tinder lay.
Canton, the famous Canton, raised the red flag. The
slogan for the time being is ‘ Down with Imperialism ! ’
Those who recite it parrot-wise—and nowadays it is every
Chinese—scarcely realise what it conceals. They will
soon. What is certain is that the Bolshevist prescription
has proved its efficacy. The Russian experiment is there
to show its truly sovereign virtue when it is a question of
repudiating treaties and destroying credit. That is all
that is required to begin with. Later wTe shall see. The
prescription is excellent for use abroad, but may perhaps
be worthless for home consumption : once again, we shall
see. And if necessary, a change will be made. But in
the meantime, ‘ Down with the English,’ with the support
of our Russian friends. The rest will follow.
“ There is something to be said for the argument. But
it contains the most formidable elements of the unknown.
It will always be time enough to reject the Muscovite
prescriptions when they have yielded every advantage they
contain. That is what they say, what is in everyone’s
mind. And, I am convinced, in absolute good faith.
But will there always really be time to repent, to make a

fresh start ? That I do not believe.

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experiment is not alone to prove that social movements,
once launched on their career, are not to be stopped
where one likes. There is never a lack of extreme elements
to shout ‘ On, On ! ’ And on they must go.
“ I leave you to draw whatever conclusion you think nest.
For my own part I would end on an optimistic note. We
know that, whatever happens, we must never despair of
the French. I will say that, whatever happens, we must
never despair of the Chinese cither. That nation wants
above all to live. I said so in the beginning. Anti one of
its chief qualities is common sense. It will not allow
itself to be deceived and take for a formula of life what
is a formula of death. Let us preserve the esteem and
sympathy and confidence we have for it. And let us be
prepared for the day when our disinterested support may
be useful to it.”

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ORTHODOXY

“ It is not generally realised,” said Pope Pius XI
recently, “ what valuable, excellent and profoundly
Christian elements still remain in fragments of the ancient
Catholic faith. Boulders loosened from an auriferous
rock are also auriferous. The venerable forms of Eastern
Christianity retain such sanctity in their objects that they
deserve not only respect but also sympathy” (Address to
the Italian University Federation, Osservatore Romano,
10th and nth, and 26th January, 1927, quoted in
Irenikon).
Few incidents in the history of the world have been
pregnant with such a mysterious and tragic importance
as the spiritual ordeal now being undergone by Russia and
the Russian Church. If the Bolshevist revolution, which
is essentially aimed against God, is a precursory sign of
the Man of Sin, may not the vast movement of faith aroused
in the Russian Church, so much suffering, so much blood,
so many martyrs and such heroic testimony, herald and
prepare the way for some great work of Christ and the
Holy Ghost ? It is not for nothing that Providence has
dispersed throughout Europe such numbers of Russian
exiles from their country and a whole youth eager for a
renewal of religion. We should meet them in the name
of Christ and with the love of Christ, so as to make each
other's acquaintance in Him and help one another to piece
together again, in our own selves in the first place, all
that lias been shattered. Leaving out of account the
internal difficulties which may afflict Orthodoxy itself
in a land of emigration, I am well aware of all the obstacles
in the way of unity, the prejudices and stupidities which

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each side may allege against the other, the violent and
unjust animosity which inspires many Orthodox theologians
against the Catholic Church, more particularly die danger
of subjecting the spiritual to the national and political
latent in such theories as Eurasianism. There is only one
Church of which Christ Himself is Head with the Pope for
Vicar on earth : whatever current of divine grace circulates
in the separated churches of Christendom binds them
invisibly (yoto) to that one Church : but that virtual
attachment must be realised in the exterior unity of dogma
and the supreme spiritual government, which will not
be achieved without many difficulties. God, however,
does not inspire His children’s hearts with certain profound
aspirations to leave them ever unsatisfied. However
tedious and prolonged the work He desires may be, obscure
efforts made here and there, in the simplicity of the spirit
of the Gospel, with a view to a more thorough and fraternal
reciprocal understanding, will not remain without fruit.
The Western public is unfamiliar with Russian specu­
lative thought. It has only just heard the names of such
as Khomiakoff, Soloviev and Berdiaeff. Theology,
mysticism and philosophy have, as a rule, been the main
preoccupations of Russian speculation without distinction.
It would, however, appear that there is a desire stirring at
the present time in the intellectual youth of Russia, which
is acutely conscious of the criteriological problem, for a
philosophy in the proper sense of the term. The pheno­
menon is not without importance, and it is desirable that
Catholics, and the disciples of St. Thomas especially,
should show an appropriate interest. Their task would be,
more particularly, to show the Orthodox how completely
the Catholic conception of nature and grace, and the
Thomist idea of a human nature, which is not closed, as
the Stoics thought, but open and perfectible—and in fact
made perfect and super-elevated by grace—are in harmony

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with the genuine requirements of the Christian spirit no
less than ^vith those of philosophy.
The more deeply one considers such questions, the more
clearly one perceives that the chief obstacle to union lies
in a misunderstanding, a confusion between the spiritual
temperament and the culture of one or other and the Church
which is universal. The spirit of Orthodoxy is not the
same thing as the Russian spirit ; the spirit of Catholicism
is not the same thing as the Latin spirit. Once these
things are well and truly realised on both sides, unity
will not be far to seek. The most genuine and irreducible
differences (they are to be found everywhere : “ The East,”
said Mgr. Szepticky, “ differs from the West even in
questions where there is no difference at all ”) are
legitimate differences, and they ought to remain : differ­
ences not only in rite, but also and above all in psychology
and spirituality. If due proportion be observed, such
differences no more prevent unity in faith and discipline
than differences in the West between, e.g., Benedictine and
Franciscan spirituality. And besides, the nearer they get
to God, the closer are souls brought together. In teaching
that the object of Christian life is the acquisition of the
Holy Ghost, a staretz such as Seraphim is inculcating the
same doctrine as a St. John of the Cross, and they are both
preaching the same doctrine as St. Paul. The best, the
most urgent way of knowing one another, is for Orthodox
and Catholic to know and to love one another in the most
saintly representatives of their spirituality.
I was pleased to find some of these points of view in an
article on The Spirit of Orthodoxy published by Père Tsébricov,
a deacon of the Orthodox Church, in the periodical
IrenikonO
1 I would draw the attention of persons interested in such questions
to this most instructive review published by the Benedictines of Amaysur-Meuse in Belgium, and also to two pamphlets by Père Woroniecki.
The number I quote from (No. 7) also contains a summary biblio-

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“ To get to know Catholicism,” he writes, “ it is saints
such as St. Francis of Assisi and the Cure d’Ars whom we
Orthodox should consider. To get to know Orthodoxy,
Western Catholicism should study with love and care its
genuine initiates. . . .
“ The very prevalent idea amongst Russians is that union
with Catholicism means at bottom a spiritual and material
domination by Rome, a foreign domination which would
involve denationalisation and the loss of their individuality :
that is the origin of the animosity which persists in the
mass of the faithful.
“ Nevertheless, the admission that such is the point of
view7 of the Orthodox Church, even though many of its
dignitaries should be found to share it, would be another
gross confusion of the spiritual and the psychological
provinces.
“ Consequently, it might be said that the spirit of
hostility to Catholicism is the result of a tragic mis­
understanding, the source of which is not of a religious
nature. . . .
“ To sum up, I would say that it is not so much the idea
of reunion among the Churches which can attract Eastern
minds, as that of creating an atmosphere of understanding
and charity, so as to make room for the spirit of God,
which will be the sole author of unity. And it must be
said that the tendency towards union ought to be envisaged
from this point of view, if it is to find adherents among
the Orthodox. A definite distinction must be drawn
between Christ and His Kingdom and the Latin, German,
Greek and Slav spirit, all problems must be transported
into the heavenly region, and it should never be forgotten
graphy of the chief works which may be usefully consulted on the
subject of Russian Orthodoxy and the Eastern Churches. Père Woroniecki’s pamphlets are entitled Les malheurs de la Russie and Le
Catholicisme et ΓAvenir de la Russie. The latter first appeared in Études
religieuses, Liège, i oth November, 1926.

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that the most characteristic feature of Orthodoxy and,
I believe, of all Christianity, is the strongly rooted idea
that ’ We have not here a lasting city, but vve seek one
that is to come’ (Hebrews xiii. 14).
“ That is all very well, it may perhaps be objected, but
with that spirit you appear to forget the fact of the dogmatic
differences dividing the Churches ! You can create
whatever atmosphere you please, but at any given
moment all the dogmatic quarrels will emerge. . . .
“Such an objection-I would answer—argues a lack
of faith in God and His power. What men find impossible
is possible for God. But for God to come and act in our
midst, we must be worthy of His presence.”
Before coming, as it will be necessary to some day, to
the question of these dogmatic differences and the question
of unity of government and jurisdiction essential to the
unity of the mystic Body of Christ,1 it is necessary—and the
aspirations of Père Tsébricov in this respect agree with
those to which Pius XI has given such frequent expression
—to work in the first place for reciprocal understanding
and acquaintance in an atmosphere of intelligence and
charity. The spirit of God will do the rest.
“ In this matter,” the Pope writes, “ it is important that
the Eastern Dissenters, on the one hand, should give up
their ancient prejudices and strive to become acquainted
with the true life of the Church, and not blame her for
the mistakes of individuals which the Church condemns
and endeavours to set right : and that the Latins, on the
other hand, should inform themselves more generously
and profoundly of Eastern practices and customs, bearing
1 Cf. Vladimir Soloviev’s admirable book La Russie et ΓEglise universelle.
Soloviev was of opinion that, as a result of historical circumstances,
the Russian Church, although separated from the Catholic Church
de facto, unlike the Patriarchate of Constantinople, was not separated
from it de jure. (Cf. also Dom Lev Gillet’s article in Irenikon, No. 1,
April, 1926.)

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in mind the advantage which St. Josaphat derived from
such knowledge.
“ This is the reason which determined Us to give a
fresh impulse to the Pontifical Oriental Institute founded
by Our greatly regretted predecessor Benedict X\ ; for
We are convinced that a more complete knowledge will not
tail to widen mutual esteem and sympathy, and that these,
combined with charity, will by the grace of God very
effectively serve the cause of unity ” (Encyclical hcclesiam
Dei. on St. Josaphat, 12th November, 1923).1
“ We firmly hope that the pious resolutions of such
Congresses will powerfully assist in dissipating many doubts
and errors, often of a monstrous sort, which have taken
root in the public mind with regard to everything affecting
the history and religious life of the East ” (Letter of the
21st June, 1924, to Mgr. Precan, Archbishop of Olomucz,
with reference to the Congress of Velehrad which periodi­
cally brings together Catholic specialists in Eastern
questions and Orthodox professors and men of learning from
Slav and Eastern countries).
“ The work of reconciliation,” said Pius XI again,
“ can be attempted with a firm hope of success only on
three conditions ; we must rid ourselves of current errors
accumulated in the course of centuries with regard to
the beliefs and institutions of the Oriental Churches.
The Easterns, on the other hand, must devote themselves
to considering the identity of teaching of the Greek and
Latin Fathers. Thirdly, there must be an exchange of
views between both sides in a high spirit of charity ”
(Consistorial Address of the 18th December, 1924, quoted
in Irenikon, No. 1, April, 1926).
1 On the occasion of the third centenary of his martyrdom.
Josaphat was Archbishop of Polotsk and of the Oriental Rite.

180

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NOTES
[1] Père Humbert Clérissac, Le Mystère de V Eglise,
3rd ed., Saint-Maximin, 1925. This book should be read
or re-read, as well as Joseph de Maistre’s two books Du
Pape and E Eglise Gallicane. On the honours paid to the
Christian Emperors, cf. Batiffol-Bréhier, Les survivances
du culte impérial.

[2] A similar distinction is drawn in certain Scholastic
text-books between the jus naturae individuate, the jus naturae
sociale, and ethica generalis—law (private or social), which
considers one’s actions in relation to an intermediate end
(other men considered as individuals or as constituting a
social whole), thus being, as opposed to Kant’s theory, sub­
ordinated to morality and part of it, morality considering
our actions in relation to the ultimate end. (Cf. Gredt,
Elementa philosophiae aristotelico-thomisticae, 3rd ed., vol. ii,
No. 826.)

[3] So also they had no clear knowledge of creation.
There is a striking analogy here. As they never succeeded
in liberating the divine action completely from matter, so
they never succeeded in liberating ethics completely from
politics.

[4] Imitation, iii, 31.
[5] Une opinion sur Charles Maurras et le devoir des
Catholiques, pp. 30-31.
[6] Cf. John of St. Thomas, Curs. Theol., disp. xxii,
a. 3 (vol. iv in Vivès edition).

[7]

The mystic Body of the Church consists not only of
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men but also of angels : but the head of the whole multi­
tude is Christ.” St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., iii, 8, 4.

[8] Étienne de Tournai. Cf. Gierke, Political Theories
of the Middle Ages, translated with introduction by F. W.
Maitland ; Carlyle, R. W. and A. J., J History of Medieval
Political Theory in the li7est ; G. de Lagarde, llecherches sur
Tesprit politique de la Déforme ; Jean Rivière, l.e Problème
de V Eglise et de Γ État au temps de Philippe le Bel.
[9] “ There are two things by which this world is chiefly
governed : the sacred authority of the pontiffs and the
power of kings. In which the burden of the priests is all
the heavier, inasmuch as they will have to render an
account to the Lord for the conduct of kings as well as for
their own.” (Letter of St. Gelasius I to the Emperor
Anastasius, a.d. 494. Migne, PL, lix, 42, A.)

[10] Leo XIII, Encyclical Immortale Dei. Cf. the
Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae : “ The limits of rights and
duties once and for all defined, it is abundantly clear that
rulers of States are free to administer their own affairs and
that not only with the passive toleration of the Church but
plainly with her active co-operation. . . . Church and
State have each its own province in which each is supreme :
therefore neither owes obedience to the other in the
administration of its own affairs within the boundaries
appointed to each.”
[11] “States cannot, without committing a crime, so
conduct themselves as though God were utterly non­
existent or refuse to take any interest in religion as some­
thing exotic and profitless, or adopt from various kinds
indifferently whatever they choose ; they have an absolute
duty to follow the use and custom of worship according to
which God Himself has revealed His desire to be wor182

NOTES

shipped ” (Leo XIII, Encyclical Immortale Dei, tst Novem­
ber, 1885).
[12] Cf. Pope Pins XI, Encyclical Quas Primas : “ He
would be guilty of a disgraceful error who denied the
authority of the Man-Christ over any civil matter whatso­
ever, for He was given by the Father the most absolute
authority over all created things, so that all things are
within His jurisdiction.” Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum.
Theol., iii, 59, 6, ad 3 ; B. Lavaud, “ la Royauté tempo­
relle de Jésus-Christ sur l’univers,” Vie Spirituelle, March,
1926 ; C. V. Héris, “ la Royauté du Christ,” Revue des
sciences philosophiques et théologiques, July, 1926. This
temporal sovereignty of Christ is exercised over nations by
the intermediary of the civil, not the religious power.

[13] St. Ambrose, Serm. contra Auxent.
[14] “A Christian, be he king or emperor, cannot
remain outside the kingdom of Christ and oppose his power
to God’s. The supreme commandment, ‘ Render to
God the things that are God’s,’ is necessarily binding on
Caesar himself, if he wants to be a Christian. He also
must render to God the things that are God’s, that is to
say, in the first place, supreme and absolute power on
earth ; because for the full understanding of the observa­
tion w’ith regard to Caesar made by Our Lord to His
enemies before the Passion, it must be completed by this
more solemn observation made after His Resurrection to
His disciples, the representatives of His Church : ‘ AH
power is given to me in heaven and in earth ’ (Matthew xxviii.
18). Here is a formal and decisive text which cannot be
interpreted with a good conscience in two ways. Those
who really believe in the words of Christ will never admit a
State separate from the Kingdom of God, an absolutely
independent and sovereign temporal power. There is
only one power on earth and that power belongs not to

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Caesar but to Jesus Christ. If the observation with
regard to the coin deprived Caesar of his divinity, the
second observation deprives him of his autocracy. If he
wants to rule on earth, he can no longer do so in his own
right, he must constitute himself the delegate of Him to
Whom all power on earth is given. . . .
“ In revealing to humanity the Kingdom of Cod, which
is not of this world, Christ provided all the means necessary
for realising such a Kingdom in the world. Proclaiming
in His pontifical prayer the perfect unity of all as the end
of His work, Our Lord intended to give that work a real
organic basis by founding His visible Church and
appointing, to preserve her unity, a single head in the
person of St. Peter. If there is any delegation of power
in the Gospels, it is that. No temporal power received
any sanction or promise whatever from Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ only founded the Church and He founded it on
the monarchical power of Peter : ‘ Thou art Peter and
upon this rock I will build my Church.’
“ The Christian State must therefore depend on the
Church founded by Christ and the Church herself depends
on the chief appointed to her by Christ. ... If the
State is to be Christian, it must be subject to the Church of
Christ, but if this subjection is not to be fictitious, the
Church must be independent of the State, must have a
centre of unity outside the State and above it, must be in
truth the universal Church ” (V. Soloviev, La Russie et
ΓÉglise universelle^ pp. 74—6).
[15] Theologians (cf. C. V. Héris, op. oit.) tell us that the
spiritual kingship of Christ has its proximate foundation in
His capital grace, as His temporal kingship has its proxi­
mate foundation in His infused knowledge. And in the
last analysis, it is, as the Encyclical Ubi arcano teaches, on
the hypostatic union itself that this double kingship rests.

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The capital grace of Christ is the grace He possesses as
head of the Church, and this grace derives from Him to all
whom He justifies : it is substantially identical with His
personal grace : “ And of His fulness we have till received ”
(St. John i. 16). (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol.,
iii, 8, 5.)
[ 16] Cf. C. V. Héris, op. cit.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Père Garrigou-Lagrange, “ Les exigences divines
de la fin dernière en matière politique,” Vie Spirituelle,
March, 1927.
[rg] Bossuet, Notes sur PEglise, Lebarq’s ed., vol. vi.
[20] “ For the object of men in associating is to live a
good life together, which it would be impossible for each
living by himself to attain : the good life, however, is the
virtuous life ; therefore, the object of human association
is to live the virtuous life ” (St. Thomas Aquinas, De
Regimine Principum, i, 14).
[21] Ibid.
[22] “ But inasmuch as, living a virtuous life, a man is
ordered to an ulterior end which consists in the enjoy­
ment of the Godhead, as we have said above, the end of the
human multitude must be the same as that of the indi­
vidual man. Therefore, the virtuous life is not the ultimate
end of the associated multitude, but through a virtuous life
to attain to enjoyment of the Godhead ” (St. Thomas
Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, i, 14).
[23] “ Inasmuch, therefore, as the end of the good life
we lead in this world is happiness in Heaven, it is the duty
of the king to devise such means for the good life of the
multitude as shall conduce to their attainment of happiness
in Heaven : he must therefore prescribe such things as
lead to happiness in Heaven and as far as possible proscribe

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the opposite ” (St. Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine Principum,
i, 15). Leo XIII seems to have had tiiis passage in mind
in the Encyclical Immortale Dei :
It is therefore necessary
that civil society, born to serve the common need, in
protecting the prosperity of the State, should have such
regard for the citizens as not only never to place any
obstacle in the way of their pursuing and obtaining that
supreme and inconvertible good they spontaneously
desire, but should even afford them every opportunity
it can.”

[24] “ For he who is concerned with the ultimate end is
always found to be in a position of authority over those who
are doing such things as are ordered to the ultimate end.
. . . But as man does not attain the end which is enjoy­
ment of the Godhead by human virtue, but by divine,
according to the Apostle’s ‘ Grace of God, life everlasting ’
(Romans vi. 23), to lead to such an end will not be of human
governance, but divine. Governance, therefore, of that
kind pertains to that king who is not only man, but also
God, sc., to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who by making men
the sons of God, brought them to glory in Heaven. . . .
Therefore, to secure that spiritual things should be dis­
tinct from temporal things, the administration of that
kingdom was entrusted not to earthly kings but to priests,
and in the first place to the Highest Priest of all, the
successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff,
to whom it behoves all Christian kings and nations to be
subject as to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
“ For even as those whose province is the care of
antecedent ends ought to be subject to him whose province
is the care of the ultimate end and be governed by his
authority ... so kings should be subject to priests in the
law of Christ ” (St. Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, i, 14).

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[25] Innocent III, Letter Novit ille to the bishops of
France with reference to the dispute between Philip
Augustus and John Lackland. “ To judge spiritually of
temporal things,” was the expression used by Innocent IV.
(Cf. Gierke’s Political Theories of the .Middle Ages, note
25 ; quoted by G. de Lagarde, Recherches sur Vesprit
politique de la Réforme, p. 77.)
[26] Bcllarminc, De Summo Pontifice, lib. v ; De potestate
summi Pontificis in rebus temporalibus (against William
Barclay’s De potestate Papae, published in 1607 by William’s
son, John. William Barclay had died two years earlier).
[27] Suarez, Defensio fidei catholicae et apostolicae adversus
Anglicanae sectae errores, lib. iii.
[28] “ There should, therefore, exist between the two
powers an ordered connection which may be not improperly
compared to the union which binds the soul to the body in
the case of man. . . . Whatsoever, therefore, in human
affairs is in any degree sacred, whatsoever pertains to the
salvation of souls or the worship of God, whether it be such
of its own nature or be conceived to be such because of
the cause to which it is referred, is all within the power
and under the authority of the Church ” (Leo XIII,
Encyclical Immortale Dei).
“ The Church,” writes Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical
Ubi arcano Dei, “ was established by her Founder as a
perfect society, the mistress and leader of other societies :
such being the case, she will not encroach upon the
authority of other societies which are each of them legiti­
mate in their own sphere, but she will be able felicitously
to complete them as grace perfects nature ; and through
her such societies will be the more able to help men to
attain the ultimate end which is eternal happiness and the
more certain to procure for citizens happiness even on
this earth . . .” And further on : “ But if the Church

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considers it improper to meddle without reason with the
government of worldly affairs and purely political matters,
she is within hex' rights in seeking to prevent the civil
power making that an excuse to oppose in any way what­
soever the superior interests which involve man’s eternal
salvation, to endanger or injure those interests by unjust
laws or commands, to attack the divine constitution of the
Church, or tread underfoot the sacred rights of God in the
civil society of men.”
[29] . . · “ Church and State have each its own pro­
vince in which each is supreme : therefore neither owes
obedience to the other in the administration of its own
affairs within the boundaries appointed to each ” (Leo
XIII, encyclical Sapientiae Christianae).
[30] The Bull Unam Sanctam, 18th November, 1302,
Denz.-Bannwart, 469. Cardinal Matteo d’Aquasparta
made the following declaration in the consistory held on the
24th June, 1302 : “ It is also clear that nobody must cast
doubt upon his competence to judge all temporal affairs
ratione peccati. . . . For there are two jurisdictions, the
spiritual and the temporal. . . . Nevertheless, the Supreme
Pontiff has cognisance of all temporal affairs and can
judge them ratione peccati ” (Jean Rivière, op. cit., p. 77).
[31] In his address to the consistory held on the 24th
June, 1302, Boniface VIII vehemently protested against
Philip the Fair’s allegation “ that We had ordered the
king to admit that he had received his kingdom from Us.
We have had forty years’ experience of law and We know
that there are two powers ordained by God : ought
anybody, can anybody believe that such nonsense, such
folly is, or ever could have been, in Our head ? We declare
that in no particular do We desire to encroach upon the
jurisdiction of the king and so much Our brother Porto
has already said. Neither the king nor any other member
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of the Faithful can deny that he is subject to us ratione
peccati.” (Cf. Denz.-Bannwart, p. 205, note.)

[32] Sum. Theol., ii— ii, 60, 6, ad 3 : “ The secular
power is subject to the spiritual, as the body is subject to
the soul.” Such an analogy had often been suggested
before, more particularly by St. Gregory of Nazianzen.
(Cf. Bellarmine, De Summo Pontifice, lib. v, cap. 6.) It was
adopted by Leo XIII in the encyclical Libertas : “ And
such harmony has been not inaptly described as similar
to the union between the soul and the body to the benefit
of both,” and in the encyclical Immortale Dei {vide supra,
note 28).
[33] Bellarmine also founds his whole doctrine of the
indirect power on the subordination of ends : “ For this
subordination [must not be understood in the sense] that
one is divided from the other, but that one is subject and
subordinate to the other, for the sole reason that the end
of the one is subject and subordinate to the end of the
other, like the subjection and subordination of the various
arts to the art of governing nations which may be described
as kingship ” (Bellarmine, De potestati Papae in rebus
temporalibus, cap. ii).
[34] “ Infidelity by itself is not incompatible with
sovereignty, for the reason that sovereignty is imported by
the law of nations which is human law : the distinction
between faithful and infidel, however, is of divine law which
does not abrogate human law. But one committing the
sin of infidelity may lose the right of sovereignty by
sentence, as also occasionally for other transgressions. It
is not, however, the business of the Church to punish
infidelity in those who have never adopted the faith, as the
Apostle says (1 Corinthians v. 12) : ‘ For what have I to do
to judge them that are without ? ’ But the Church can punish
by sentence the infidelity of those who have adopted the

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Faith, and such are most appropriately punished by being
deprived of theii' sovereignty over their subjects who arc
of the Faith : for their infidelity might turn to a great
corruption of the Faith ; because, as it is said | in Proverbs
vi. 12-14], ‘ A man that is an apostate . . . with a wicked
heart he deviseth evil and at all times he sowelh discord.' scheming
to lead men away from the Faith : therefore as soon as
anyone is by sentence pronounced excommunicate by
reason of apostasy from the Faith, his subjects arc by the
very fact absolved from his sovereignty and the oath of
allegiance by which they were bound to him ” {Sum. Theol.,
ii-ii, 12, 2).

[35] The Church, although considering lawful authority
to be derived from God and therefore to be devoutly
obeyed, even when exercised by a pagan (cf. Appendix V),
can also, nevertheless, by sentence of a court of law
deprive an infidel prince of his authority over men whom
baptism has made members of Christ. “ Because infidels
by reason of their infidelity deserve to lose their authority
over the faithful, who are transformed into the sons of God ”
(St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., ii—ii, 10, 10).
[36] “ Nullas minas timemus, quia de tali curia sumus quae
consuevit imperare imperatoribus et regibus ” (PL, cxc, 720
D. Cf. Jean Rivière, op. cit., p. 19).
[37] “
m;1y be stated with certainty that such is the
normal theory of the Middle Ages. It may have suffered
distortion in times of crisis, it has ever afterwards been
precisely defined and restored in its integrity ” (G. de
Lagarde, op. cit., p. 77).
[38] In his book on the Pope {Du Pape, bk. ii, ch. vii)
Joseph de Maistre points out that in their quarrels with
kings there were never more than three objects invariably
pursued by the Popes : (1) The resolute maintenance of
the laws of marriage against every assault of omnipotent

19°

NOTES

licence ; (2) the preservation of the rights of the Church
and the morals of the clergy : (3) the freedom of Italy
(that is to say, of the Holy See itself, which they were
absolutely determined to remove from German influence).

[39I “ Can anyone doubt that the priests of Christ are
to be considered the fathers and masters of kings and
princes and the whole body of the faithful ? ” {Episl.
ad Herimannum episc., (1080). PL·, cxlviii, 597 a).
[40] “ He . · . would have us sit above kings and in
judgement over kings.”
(Innocent III, Epist., PL,
ccxiv, 74θ·) “ Whence it follows,” observes M.
Jean Rivière {op. cit., p. 33, note 6), ‘‘that the famous
clause, ‘ Inasmuch as the King of France acknowledges no
superior in temporal matters ’ (the Decretal Per venerabilem')
must clearly be taken to refer to a feudal superior, not
excluding the sovereign jurisdiction of the Pope.”
[41] More particularly, the case of the Emperor, an
elective sovereign and Emperor only through the Church,
was altogether exceptional and his (indirect) temporal
dependence in regard to the Church much closer than that
of hereditary kings.
[42] Man being a political animal, it is so dangerous
for nations, even from the point of view of the attainment
of the supernatural last end, not to be at least tolerably
governed in the temporal order, that the very institution
of civil authority may in that sense be considered as falling
within the domain of the indirect power, at all events when
provision has to be made for the absence of any lawful
authority and a means of escape devised from a state of
political chaos as in the late Middle Ages, when bishops
instituted kings. ” For the truth is there to testify that
the spiritual power has the right to institute the earthly
power and to judge it, if it be not good ” (Bull Unam
Sanctam, Denz.-Bannwart, 469).

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For a similar reason and because war of itself involves
consequences injurious to the good of souls, the attempt
to restrict wars or to impose the rules of Christian law on
the conduct of them also,normally falls within the province
of the indirect power. The part played by the Church
in the Middle Ages in the institution of the Truce of God
is well known.

[43] Cf. on this incident, which is in the highest degree
symbolical of Gallican servility in regard to the temporal
power, chap, xxi of Dom Guéranger’s Institutions Litur­
giques. Austria did not suppress but was content to mutilate
the legend of St. Gregory VII. (It also excised from the
breviary of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine the
following passage from the lesson of St. Zacharias : “ Con­
sultus a Francis, regnum illud a Chilperico viro stupido et ignavo
ad Pipinum pietate et fortitudine praestantem auctoritate Apostolica
transtulit."') In France it was only towards the middle of
the nineteenth century that the right of Gregory VII to
be a Saint and enjoy his lessons in the breviary in their
integrity was finally acknowledged.
[44] “ We do not conceal the fact that We shall shock
some people by saying that We must necessarily concern
ourselves with politics. But anyone forming an equitable
judgement clearly sees that the Supreme Pontiff can in
no wise violently separate the category of politics from the
supreme control of faith and morals entrusted to him.”
Pius X, Consistorial Address, 9th November, 1903.
[45] Quoted by J. de Maistre, De ΓEglise Gallicane,
bk. ii, chap. xiv.

[46] Jean Rivière, op. cit., p. 261 (with reference to the
“ Dialogue entre un clerc et un chevalier ”).
[47] The very important political part played by the
Reformation in this respect should be emphasised. (Cf.

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G. de Lagarde’s admirable book Recherches sur l’Espril
politique de la Réforme.')

[48] Cf. Innocent III, Letter Novit ille (1204) to the
bishops of France ; Boniface VIII, Bull Ausculta fili (5th
December, 1301) and his Consistorial Address of the 24th
June, 1302 ; the Bull Unam Sanctam (18th November,
1302) : “ We arc taught by the Gospel that there are
two swords in this power of his [the Supreme Pontiff’s],
namely the spiritual and the temporal. . . . Both then
are in the power of the Church, namely the spiritual and
the material. The latter, however, is to be drawn in the
defence of the Church, the former by the Church. . . . One
sword must be under the other and the temporal authority
subject to the spiritual power. . . . We must the more
emphatically declare that the spiritual power takes
precedence in dignity and nobility over any earthly power
whatever, as things spiritual excel things temporal ”
(Denz.-Bannwart, 469) ; Alexander VIIl’s condemnation
{Inter multiplices, 4th August, 1690) of the four articles
of the Gallican clergy, the first of which declared :
“ . . . Kings and princes, therefore, are not subject in
temporal matters to any ecclesiastical power by any
ordinance of God ; neither can they be deposed directly
or indirectly by the power of the keys of the Church nor
their subjects dispensed from loyalty and obedience
and released from their pledged oath of allegiance ”
(Denz.-Bannwart, 1322).
Pius Vi’s condemnation
{Auctorem fidei, 28th August, 1794) of the errors of the
Synod of Pistoia, one of which declared that “ it would be
an abuse of the authority of the Church to transfer it
beyond the limits of doctrine and morals and to extend
it to outside matters ” (Denz.-Bannwart, 1504) ; Pius IX’s
condemnation and inclusion in the Syllabus of modern
errors (8 th December, 1864) of the following proposition :

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“ The Church . . . has no direct or indirect temporal
power” (Denz.-Bannwart, 1724) ; finally, the encyclicals
before mentioned of Leo XIII, Pius X and Pius XI,
Immortale Dei, Pascendi, Ubi arcano Dei.

[49] Λ Scholastic would say more precisely that every­
thing in exterior and temporal things which has any
reference to the agibile, of itself affects the subject matter
in which the indirect power may have to be exercised.
Things which refer to the factibile are only accidentally
involved (to the extent that every artistic or technical
operation is at the same time a human act). Politics not
being a mere technique, but part of morals, exterior and
temporal things within the competence of the prince and
the citizen of their very nature come within the jurisdiction
of the indirect power.
[50] “ Every human action, the product of deliberate
reason, considered individually, is necessarily either good
or bad ” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., i-ii, 18, 9).
[51] The mixed sphere properly so called is concerned
with matters which, themselves bordering on the spiritual
order, as, for example, public worship, religious instruction,
marriage, the religious state, and being subject also to
civil legislation, simultaneously, of their very nature,
concern the province of the Church and civil society.
The Church acts and legislates in this mixed sphere in
virtue of Her direct power over the spiritual. (Cf. L.
Choupin’s Valeur des décisions doctrinales et disciplinaires du
Saint-Siège, more particularly pp. 221-2, with reference
to Proposition xxiv of the Syllabus.)
It may, however, be observed that the specifically
temporal elements in this mixed sphere, considered apart,
then fall within the jurisdiction of the indirect power ;
e.g., a law enacted by the civil power in a mixed matter
which, as a civil law, is a temporal thing, may be quashed

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and annulled by the Pope acting in virtue of his direct
power (as regards the matter to which the law applies)
and secondarily in virtue of his indirect power (as regards
the law itself qua civil law).

[52] So, to quote a few examples, Benedict XIII, on
the 19th December, 1729, quashed the Decree of the
Parliaments of Paris and Bordeaux prohibiting the oHicc
of St. Gregory VII. “ We declare,” said the Pope, “ the
edicts, decisions, resolutions, decrees and ordinances
promulgated even by supreme magistrates and every
official and secular minister of any lay power whatsoever
against Our said decree extending the office of St. Gregory
VII ... to be for ever null, void, invalid, of no force or
effect. ... We revoke, quash, invalidate, annul and
abolish them for ever ” (Dom Guéranger, op. cit., p. 434).
On the 30th September, 1833, Gregory XVI declared the
decrees of Dom Pedro of Portugal null and void, and on the
1st February, 1836, the laws passed by the Spanish Regency
in opposition to the rights of the Church ; he condemned
and annulled (encyclical Commissum. Divinitus} the articles
of Baden which the canton of Berne had raised to the dignity
of cantonal laws. So, on the 27th September, 1852,
Pius IX annulled the oppressive laws passed by the
Republic of New Granada (United States of Colombia)
and declared “ the above-mentioned decrees enacted by
that government utterly null and void ” (Consistorial
Address Acerbissimum} ; on the nth February, 1906,
Pius X annulled (encyclical Vehementer} the French law
of Separation : “ In virtue of the supreme authority
which God has conferred upon Us, We disapprove and
condemn the law passed in France separating Church
and State . . . because it is profoundly insulting to God,
Whom it officially repudiates, by laying down the principle
that the Republic acknowledges no form of worship,

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because it is a violation of natural law, the law of nations
and public fidelity to treaties, because it is opposed to the
divine constitution of the Church, her essential rights and
liberty . . . and We declare that it in no way affects
the rights of the Church which are not to be changed by
any act of violence or assault on the part of men ” (I)enz.Bannwart, 1995).
In the various cases here quoted, the subject matter being
mixed, the Pope intervenes in virtue of his direct power
over the spiritual, but, also, secondarily, in virtue of his
indirect power over the temporal, inasmuch, as Père de
la Brière observes (cf. his article Pouvoir pontifical dans
V ordre temporel in the Dictionnaire Apologétique), as the
law itself, the very act of the temporal authority, is quashed
and annulled, deprived, by the authority of the Pope, of
all juridical value (cf. note 51).

[53] The non expedit whereby, as a consequence of the
despoliation of the Papal States, Pius IX and Leo XIII
had forbidden Italian Catholics to take part in political
elections in their country, may be recalled. The ban was
subsequently raised by Pius X and Benedict XV.
[54] Père Clérissac, Le Mystère de ΓÉglise. The Pope
is not thereby accorded an unlimited power over the temporal.
It is not a direct, but only an indirect power over the
temporal that he is acknowledged to possess : it would be
impossible for the Pope to intervene directly in military
matters to teach generals lessons in strategy, or in civil
affairs to prescribe to the legislature the most economical
method of keeping up the highway or putting down
phylloxera. . . . We have seen that the indirect power
is perfectly delimited in its formal object. There must
be a ratio peccati. But the subject matter in which such a
formal object may be encountered is unlimited and it is
for the Pope alone to decide in every particular case.

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Î55] Cf. Père Garrigou-Lagrange, op. cil.
[56] Were all his barons animated by the same senti­
ments ? Was it not they who began to show the first
signs of the state of mind which was to be predominant
under Philip the Fair ? What is here important is the
conduct of the saintly king himself. It was always truly
filial. From the fabrications of Matthew Paris to the
Pragmatic Sanction (the invention, as is known, of the
fifteenth century), all the allegations to the contrary of
the enemies of the Holy See were pure calumnies. Cf.
H. Wallon, Saint Louis et son Temps, and the complementary
observations of Père Ch. Verdière, Saint Louis et la monarchie
chrétienne, St. Louis et Γ Eglise de France, Saint Louis et les
papes du treizième siècle (Etudes, June, August, November
and December, 1875).
[57] In 1887, the German Centre Party declined the
invitation made to it by Pope Leo XIII to vote the military
credits (the septennate) which Bismarck required of the
Reichstag. It will be observed that this was a quite excep­
tional political contingency with regard to which the Pope
merely expressed a wish, hoping so to facilitate the fight
against the anti-religious legislation which had followed
the Kulturkampf. Windhorst cannot be said to have
disobeyed. The incident has nothing in common with
a categorical order issued by the Church with the object
of preserving the Catholic spirit and morals.
[58] Cf. Père Clérissac, Le Mystère de l’Eglise, 3rd ed.,
Saint-Maximin, 1925 ; preface, p. xxii.

[59] 14 As for infallibility, too many Catholics
imagine that it is confined to the dogmatic definitions
promulgated ex cathedra by the Pope to the universal
Church and forget that besides this extraordinary teaching
there exists an ordinary teaching of the Church bearing
on a certain number of truths which, although they have

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never been the subject of an ex cathedra definition by the
Church, nevertheless constitute, as it were, the dogmatic
patrimony of the Church, nourish the faith of its members
and brook no contestation ” (Père Gillet, Revue des
Jeunes, ioth-25th March, 1927, “ Les enseignements de
Pie XI ”). “ In tracing the limits of obedience due to
pastors of souls and to the Roman Pontiff especially, it
must not be thought that they include only defined dogmas,
the obstinate rejection of which constitutes the crime of
heresy. Nor is it enough to give a sincere and unqualified
assent to doctrines which, without ever having been
defined by any solemn declaration of the Church, are
nevertheless proposed to our belief by her ordinary and
universal magistracy as of divine revelation and, since the
Vatican Council, to be believed with a divine Catholic
faith . . .” (Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae). The
teaching of the Church is also infallible with regard to
truths which, although not formally revealed, are never­
theless in close and necessary connection with revealed
dogma. This point was emphasised with reference to
certain moral truths in the natural order by Mgr. Ratti
and his suffragans in their letter on the Rules governing
Catholic action (1921).
[60] “ Catholics are not only bound in conscience to
accept and respect defined dogmas, but must also obey
both doctrinal decisions proceeding from pontifical con­
gregations and points of doctrine which, by common and
constant consent, arc regarded in the Church as theological
truths and conclusions of such certainty that opposite
opinions, even though they cannot be described as hereti­
cal, yet deserve some other theological censure ” (Pius
IX, Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, 21st December, 1863).

[61] “ . . . Christians, moreover, must consider it a duty
to suffer themselves to be directed, governed and controlled

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by the authority of the bishops and above all by that of
the Apostolic See ” (Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae).
“ And we cannot pass over in silence,” declared Pius
IX in the Encyclical Quanta cura (8th December, 1864),
“ the audacity of those who, intolerant of sound doctrine,
maintain with regard to the judgements of the Holy See
and its decrees, whose avowed object is the general good
of the Church, her rights and discipline, that, if these are
not concerned with the dogmas of faith and morals, they
need not be obeyed and may be rejected without sin and
without detriment to the profession of Catholicism.”
Anyone can perceive and immediately realise how con­
trary such pretensions are to the Catholic dogma of full
authority divinely given by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
to the Roman Pontiff to feed His sheep and govern the
universal Church.
[62] Cf. the preceding note and on all these points
Lucien Choupin’s Valeur des decisions doctrinales et dis­
ciplinaires du Saint-Siège. 3rd ed., Paris, 1928.

[63] It is well known that besides the absolute adhesion
required by infallible definitions, certain decrees of the
Church require from us an interior assent of varying
degree according as they bind the Church. The degree
of assent is for the canonists to determine—from adhesion
to an instruction of the utmost importance (such as the
Encyclicals, even when they do not involve infallibility
by an ex cathedra definition) to adhesion to a mere counsel
of prudence in the actual state of our knowledge (e.g.
the decisions of the Biblical Commission).
[64] St. Gregory the Great, Homil. in Evangel., ii, 26,
n. 6. Unjust laws, we know, are not binding in conscience ;
that is to say, we are not bound to obey laws which are
unjust because of what they enjoin, whether it be a duty imposed
or allotted in such a way as is certainly contrary to the

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common good, or a sin, an act intrinsically bad. (Cf.
Sum. Theol., i-ii, 96, 4 ; Leo XIII, Encyclical Diuturnum
illud (29th June, 1881) : “ Men have only one reason
for refusing obedience, namely, if they are required to do
something in flagrant opposition to natural or divine law.”)
With regard to an order or censure, unjust by reason of the
human subject from whom it proceeds, I mean to say,
inspired by an evil motive, the older school of theologians
considered that it was nevertheless as a general rule to be
obeyed, once it was decreed by a lawful superior acting
within the scope of his lawful authority ; for such an act
of injustice concerns the superior alone and he will be
held responsible by his superior. (Cf. the testimony of
Oldoricus at the Synod of Limoges in 1031. Canonists
in the time of Innocent III made no distinction between
the juridical validity of just and unjust censures.) Modern
opinion is that resistance to an unjust censure is permissible,
but on condition that it be absolutely clear and beyond doubt
that there be no reason for it. With this exception, the
only recourse left is to appeal to a more exalted superior.
And the Pope is the most exalted superior in the world.
Cf. Canon 2219, § 2, of the new Code of Canon Law :
“ At si dubitetur utrum poena, a superiore competente inflicta,
sit justa necne, poena servanda est in utroque foro excepto casu
appellationis in suspensivo.”
Clement XI condemned (Constit. dogma., Unigenitus,
8th September, 1713) (jnter alia) the three following propo­
sitions of the Jansenist, Pasquier Quesnel :
“91. Fear of unjust excommunication ought never
to prevent us from doing our duty : we never leave
the Church, even when we seem to be expelled from
it by the wickedness of men, when we have once been
attached to God, Jesus Christ and the Church itself
in charity.
“92. To suffer excommunication and an unjust

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condemnation [anathema} in resignation rather than
betray the truth is to imitate St. Paul : so far is it
from rebelling against authority or destroying unity.
“ 93· Jesus often heals wounds which the headlong
haste of the Chief Pastors inflicts without His order :
Jesus restores what their inconsidered zeal shatters ”
(Denz.-Bannwart, 1441-1443).

[65] “ The privilege of inerrancy or infallibility guaran­
teed to the magistracy of the Church is not therefore to
be understood in a purely negative and passive sense, such
as would have God intervene only just in time to prevent
a misunderstanding. The magistracy of the Church
proceeds by positive judgements which imply a profound
understanding, an unlimited discernment. The very
formulae in which the Church sets the diamond of dogma
are marvellous precious stones. But how much more
precious the judgement they enclose ! There indeed is
that superior form of prophecy which makes the Church
a marvellous contemplative : Manifestatio veritatis per
nudam contemplationem ” (Sum. Theol., ii-ii, 174, 2 ;
H. Clérissac, Le Mystère de P Eglise}.

[66] The Holy Office made an astronomical mistake in
condemning Galileo, but it is not impossible, even in
this classic error, to perceive the divine intention referred
to in the text : physico-mathematical science, a good and
true thing in itself, when perverted from its true nature and
erected into a system of metaphysics, of absolute knowledge of
reality (and therefore of mechanistic philosophy of which only
Spinoza was later to provide the perfect form) was bound to
turn into heresy and so constitute a great danger to the
human mind. The condemnation by the Church of the
principal authors of this science, however regrettable
in itself, gave us an obscure warning of this danger.
Galileo in terms asserted the absolute character of the

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mathematical knowledge of the sensible world which
required three centuries to know its own nature and free
itself from all heretical metaphysics. The judges in 1633
may have been blinded by human prejudice : their very
mistake was far-seeing.
Galileo, moreover, would, as is well known, have been
left in peace, if he had put forward the Copernican theory
as a mere mathematical “ hypothesis,” in the sense in
which the word was understood at the time. Cf. on the
condemnation of Galileo, which in no way involved the
infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff and was also in itself,
canonically, merely a disciplinary measure, Grisar,
Galileistudien, Regensburg, 1882 ; Jaugey, Le procès de
Galilée et la théologie, Paris, 1888 ; Vacandard, La Condam­
nation de Galilée, in Etudes de Critique et d’Histoire religieuse,
Paris, 1906 (cf. Revue du Clergé Française 1st and 15th
October, 1904) ; Sortais, Le procès de Galilée, Paris, 1905 (cf.
Revue pratique d’apologétique, 15th December, 1905) ; and
above all Lucien Choupin, Valeur des décisions doctrinales et
disciplinaires du Saint-Siège. 3rd ed., Paris, 1928.
This doctrine is not an excuse for such positive mistakes
as have been made : acts of human imprudence and errors,
when a government so exalted as that of spiritual things is
concerned, cause incalculable damage and are of momen­
tous importance. But I contend that, even so, there is an
action of God transmitted through such human decisions,
and, in spite of shortcomings which He does not desire,
pursuing in a more or less obscure mystery a purpose of
salvation.
[67] We so see how inadequate and defective is the
comparison sometimes drawn between the obedience
which is due to the Church and military obedience.
[68] Joseph de Maistre, Du Pape, pp. 161 and 204.
[69] “ Being infallible and making a mistake, when no

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right of appeal exists, are in practice the same thing,” said
Joseph de Maistre (ibid., p. 212). “All Catholics are
agreed . . . that when the Pontiff, either alone or in
private council, issues an order in regard to some matter
in doubt, he is to be obeyed by all the faithful, whether he
may be right or wrong ” (Bellarmine, De Summo Pontifice,
lib. iv, c. ii).
[70] “ Therefore, if the earthly power goes astray, it
shall be judged by the spiritual power : and if a lesser
spiritual power goes astray, by its superior : if however
the supreme power goes astray, it can be judged by God
alone, not by man ” (Boniface VIII, Bull Unam Sanctarn,
Denz.-Bannwart, 469. Boniface then proceeds to quote
I Corinthians ii. 15).
[71] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., i-ii, 96, 4.
The cases so contemplated by theologians (Turrecremata,
Cajetan, Jacobazio, Vittoria, Bellarmine and Suarez)
are theoretically possible, considered in the controversies
which raged round the Pope and the Council. They are
far from corresponding to any realities in history.
[72] “ Of the precepts contained in the divine oracles,
some refer to God, the rest to man himself and the means
which lead him to eternal salvation. Now it is the
province by divine right of the Church and, in the Church,
of the Roman Pontiff to govern these two orders, by
prescribing what ought to be believed and what ought to
be done. For this reason the Supreme Pontiff must
[in the order of belief] be able to judge authoritatively the
content of the word of God, what doctrines are in harmony
therewith and what in opposition thereto. And for the
same reason [in the order of human actions], it is for him
to show what is good and what is evil, what is necessary
to do and to avoid doing, in order to attain salvation.
Otherwise he could be neither the certain interpreter of the

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word of God nor the sure guide of human life ” (Leo XIII,
Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae, loth January, 1890).
[73] It will be more particularly observed that the
decrees of the Index, for instance, although not infallible,
have the force of universal law. “ Benedict XIV, in his
Brief Quae ad Apostolicae of the 23rd December, 1757,
formally declared that the decrees of the Congregation of
the Index had the force of universal law, while Leo XIII
in his Constitution Officiorum, which lays down the law on
the matter, explicitly renews this declaration ” (Lucien
Choupin, op. cit., p. 73). The orders contained in certain
consistorial addresses are also of universal validity to the
extent indicated in the words used by the Pope to signify
his will.

[74] Theologians teach that the disciplinary decrees
of the Holy See imposing a rule of strict obligation on the
universal Church can never prescribe anything contrary
to moral good. (“ Hence the Church cannot define
whatever is honourable to be vicious or on the contrary
that to be honourable which is shameful ; nor can she
approve anything in her published law which is contrary
to the Gospel or reason. For if the Church were to give
her express approval by judgement in law to things shame­
ful or disapprove what is honourable, this undoubted
error would not only be a plague and a menace to the
faithful, but also a danger to the faith, which commends
every virtue and condemns all vice. The words : ‘ What­
ever they tell you, do,’ and ‘ Whoso hears you, hears me ”
suggest themselves ... by which we are ordered to obey
the laws of the Church. So that if the Church errs, Christ
is the cause of our error ” (Melchior Cano, De locis theologicis,
lib. v, cap. v ; cf. Père Wernz, Jus Decretalium, i, n. 139).
The same is true as regards a decree of the Supreme Pontiff
having equivalently the force of universal law. As

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Bellarmhie wrote {De potestate Summi Pontificis in rebus
temporalibus, cap. xxxi) with reference to the solemn deposi­
tion of kings, to think that an order so made could direct
the commission of a sin would be to condemn the universal
Church. “ Therefore anyone who says that such orders of the
Vicar of Christ are not to be obeyed condemns the universal Church
and ought to be described not as a canonist but really as a corrupter
of canons.”
The following further observation may be made : the
theologians engaged in the case for the rehabilitation of
Joan of Arc, having to give an explanation of Joan’s
declaration “ that she left everything she had done and said
to the judgement of the Church, provided that the Church
did not order her to do something impossible ” (that is to
say, provided that the Church did not order her to deny
her voices), reject the possibility of the Church—that is to
say a General Council [or the Pope making a solemn
declaration]—ever ordering the commission of a sinful
act, even by a private individual, and even in a case in which
such an act derived its sinful character not from its specific
nature but from the particular circumstances determining
it (such was Joan’s certitude of divine faith in the truth of
her voices that if she had denied them she would have ,
sinned against faith). These theologians exclude even
the hypothesis that the Church could possibly have ordered
Joan to commit such a sin. Joan, they say, spoke correctly
in making a supposition per impossibile ; a conditional
proposition, as such, in no way affirms the possibility of
the condition supposed. Joan no more declared that the
Church could have ordered her to commit a sin than St.
Paul when he wrote, “ But though ... an angel from
Heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached
to you, let him be anathema ” (Galatians i. 8), affirmed that
an angel from Heaven could in reality possibly lie. “ If a
man, even an educated man,” the Chancellor Robert

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Gybolc explained in his memoir, “ advanced the following
conditional proposition : ‘ If the Council ordered me to do
anything contrary to one of God’s commandments, I would
not do it,’ I do not think that he could therefore be con­
sidered as entertaining doubtful opinions with regard to
the Church and the General Council : logic ians teach
that a conditional proposition remains true even though
the antecedent proposition is impassible ” (Ayroles, Jeanne
d’Arc et l’Eglise, vol. i, bk. iii, cap. io; cf. vol. v, bk. iv,
cap. 4). “ Nor docs she admit the possibility of any con­
flict between Our Lord and the Church : ‘ They are all
one,’ she says. ... In Joan’s opinion it is such an ele­
mentary truth that no difficulty ought to arise : ‘ Why do
you see any difficulty in their being all one ? ’ ” (ibid., vol. v, bk. iii,
cap. 14, p. 281). “ She knew very well,” concludes
Père Ayroles, “ that the true Church could not condemn
her, but she felt, or the divine Spirit which made her speak
knew, that she was in the presence of people who usurped
the honour of being the Church” (ibid., p. 382). Nothing,
therefore, could be more outrageous to the Church than to
compare one of her authentic deeds to the action of men
who diabolically aped the Church and refused Joan the
right of appeal to the Pope in Rome on the pretext that he
was too far away. The regalian and schismatical tenden­
cies of these Churchmen revealed themselves finally at the
Council of Bâle.
[75]
Now, therefore, if we are bound by the law of
nature to love and cherish above all things the State in
which we have been born and have first seen the light to
such an extent that the good citizen should have no hesi­
tation in even laying down his life for his country, it is the
duty of Christians to a far greater extent constantly to feel
such sentiments with regard to the Church. For the
Church is the holy State of the living God, born of God
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Himself and founded by Him : she sojourns in the world
but her call is to mankind whom she instructs and leads to
eternal happiness in Heaven. We should therefore feel
a passionate love for our country, the source of our mortal
life : but love of the Church must take first place, for to the
Church we arc indebted for the everlasting life of the
soul ” (Leo XIII, Encyclical Sapientiae Chris lianas, 10th
January, 1890).
[76] Cf. Pius IX, Encyclical Cum Catholica Ecclesia,
26th March, i860 ; Syllabus, 8th December, 1864, props.
75 and 76 ; Leo XIII, Encyclical Inscrutabili Dei Consilio,
21 st April, 1878 ; Encyclical Etsi Nos, 13th February,
1882 ; Letter to Cardinal Rampolla, 15th June, 1887;
Pius X, Encyclical E Supremi Apostolatus, 4th October,
1903 ; Benedict XV, Encyclical Ad Beatissimi, 1st Novem­
ber, 1914 ; Encyclical Pacem Dei, 23rd May, 1920 ; Pius
XI, Encyclical Ubi arcano Dei, 23rd December, 1922.

[77] With reference to the Action Française Catholics,
“ It is of supreme importance,” I wrote at the time (19th
September, 1926), “ both for them and for the future of
France to bear in mind the supernatural quality which
should inform Christian obedience. I would here recall
the general doctrine which I merely echoed elsewhere.1
The Church is simultaneously human and divine. Leave
her infallible decisions out of account. Even though, in
another sphere, the precept or counsel imparted by the
Church were to appear to the individual mind of any one
of us inopportune or ill-founded, even though we had the
most excellent reasons to complain of the series of events
determining it in the human order, such a series of subor­
dinate causes is in the circumstances entirely of secondary
importance ; there is always a divine message, a certain
1 In the Γηface to Père Clérissac’s book Le Mystère de VÉglise srd
ed., Saint-Maximin, 1925.
* ’ 0

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intention of the spirit of God transmitted through the
intermediary of such human events which the spirit of
faith can always discover. ‘ Père Clérissac declared that,
even without the intervention of an express injunction, it
was always possible to distinguish the pure spiritual line
in accordance with which the order inspired from above
became binding on the virtue of obedience. He added
that so respectful a deference to authority required the
nicest discernment according to the kinds and degrees of
subordination and injunction ; for it related to a living and
free docility of the practical judgement, not to a servile
and mechanical compliance.’ Such a doctrine is of
absolutely capital importance. It is the great error of
Catholics that they forget it only too often.
“ What is important to avoid is greater evils, and in such
a case the greatest misfortune for a son of the Church would
not be disobedience (there could be no question of that),
but an obedience controlled and regulated by motives and
reasons of the human and natural order, not by the spirit
of faith : a scmi-obedicnce unworthy of a Christian ”
(Une Opinion, etc., pp. 58-9 and 62-3).
[78] Père Clérissac, Le Mystère de ΓEglise.
[79] What is described as the spirit offaith implies not
only the theological virtue of faith, but the gift of the Holy
Ghost which is called the gift of understanding and which
makes us give our assent to the invisible truth of divine
things without risk of error or scandal, in spite of the
obstacles which may arise from appearances. (Cf. John
of St. Thomas, Curs. Theol., vi, De Donis. A French transla­
tion of this treatise, Les Dons du Saint-Esprit, by Mme
Jacques Maritain, with a preface by Père GarrigouLagrange, has been published, January, 1930.)
[80] Pius X, speech to the priests of Γ Union Apostolique
(quoted from Henri Brun’s “ La Société Chrétienne,” p. 312).

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It is important to observe with the distinguished and
learned Fr. Faber that the Pope in the Christian economy
is entitled not only to respect and filial love but also to
devotion in the proper sense of the term : “ Devotion to the
Pope is an essential part of all Christian piety. It is not
a matter which stands apart from the spiritual life. ... It
is a doctrine and a devotion. It is an integral part of Our
Blessed Lord’s own plan. He is in the Pope in a still
higher way than He is in the poor or in children. What
is done to the Pope, for him or against him, is done to
Jesus Himself. All that is kingly, all that is priestly, in
Our dearest Lord, is gathered up in the person of His
Vicar, to receive our homage and veneration. A man
might as well try to be a good Christian without devotion
to Our Lady as without devotion to the Pope, and for the
same reason in both cases. Both His Mother and His
Vicar are parts of Our Lord’s Gospel.” Cf. Devotion to the
Pope (a tract published in i860), being the substance of a ser­
mon preached in the church of the London Oratory on the occasion
of the solemn Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament for the intention
of the Pope on the first day of the New Tear, i860. Cf. also
Life of Father Faber, by J. E. Bowden, priest of the Oratory,
London, 1869,
PP· 368-9.
[81] Cf. more especially Pius Xi’s letter to Cardinal
Andrieu of the 5th September, 1926: “Your Eminence
is therefore well advised to leave out of account purely
political questions, such as, for example, the form of
government. In that regard the Church allows everyone a
proper freedom ” ; and the consistorial address of the 20th
December, 1926 : “ Let everyone retain the right and
proper freedom to prefer whatever form of government he
likes, provided it be not at variance with the order of things
established by God.”
[82] Père Garrigou-Lagrange, op. cit.

p

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[83] I referred to such dangers in my pamphlet in the
following terms :
From the point of view of political
science, there is also a danger of confining oneself entirely
to empiricism as a sufficient doctrine and rejecting higher
syntheses which alone can lead to science in the proper
sense of the term. The error into which there is then a
risk of falling is the error of political ‘ naturalism.'
“ From the religious point of view, there is a danger of
considering the Church in the supernumerary benefits
she dispenses as being the strongest bulwark of the social
good rather than in her end and function and essential
dignity which are to provide mankind with supernatural
truth and the means to eternal salvation, and in virtue of
which she acquires the right to intervene in temporal
matters. An apologetic which would lay most stress upon
the human and social aspect, such an apologetic as Brunetière and Paul Bourget have developed, is certainly
legitimate but utterly inadequate. And, if it is true, and
we have the direct testimony of Leo XIII for it, that one
indication of the divine mission of the Church is to be found
in the fact that the Church alone offers a supreme and
effective guarantee for the upright temporal life of nations,
it is also true that the supernatural life here introduced by
the Church, the kingdom of Heaven in our midst, is of
such a transcendent nature, so peculiarly divine, that
Catholicism, as Paul Claudel recently observed with
such force,1 will never be able to find itself really at home
among the kingdoms of the earth and that the order of
charity will always infinitely transcend the best established
human order. The State, as such, has duties to God, and
Church and State must, because of such duties and for the
good of souls, be united. Such is the law, what justice
requires, and that is what is of most importance. In fact,
however, and with a few saintly exceptions, whom she
1 In his preface to Jacques Rivière’s book, A la trac ede Dieu.
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proposes for our admiration, the Church has almost
suffered as much at the hands of Christian kings in defence
of her independence as from anti-Christian governments
in defence of her existence. Christ is King in every sense
of the word, King of nations as of Heaven, but on being
offered the temporal sovereignty which is I lis by right,
He refused to exercise it, thereby indicating to us a great
mystery of the historic life of His mystical Body. If the
truths above mentioned concerning the necessary political
conditions of an upright human life are to be preserved
intact, a certain pessimism regarding the course of human
events and politics in the first place befits the Christian,
who has no dwelling place here below, a pessimism in­
clining him to place but little reliance on the establishment
of political conditions wholly and permanently good, and
to hope but little from the best of governments : nolite
confidere in principibus. But what he must hate in his capacity
as citizen 1 and strive to overthrow, unless some greater
evil must befall the State, is a political sovereignty not
accidentally, but essentially in law and principle opposed
to Christ” {Une Opinion, etc., pp. 47-51).

[84] “ And so all these poor children allowed them­
selves to be carried away by fables, fables about documents
forged and burned, fables about anti-patriotic, anti­
French conspiracies, fables about some dream of restoring
1 It is the very good (spiritual and material) of the human State,
considered both in the order of its peculiar (temporal) life and as
destined to prepare for the attainment of the supernatural life of
souls (eternal life), which makes the temporal and political struggle
against persecution unavoidable. The Christians of the early cen­
turies did not attempt to overthrow the persecuting Empire because,
being absolutely powerless to establish a Christian State, they had the
good fortune to be obliged to devote their minds only to eternal life
and supernatural interests (considered solely in themselves and not in
the temporal preparations they normally require). Their rebellion,
even supposing it could have been successful, would have succeeded
simply in jeopardising the existence of the State. They were left with
martyrdom and martyrdom is not the worst solution.

p*

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the Holy Roman Empire : fables so absurd that in the
face of them there was nothing to be done but repeat the
prayer of good St. Philip Neri that God would keep His
holy hand upon his head ” (Pope Pius XI, Address to the
Superiors and Pupils of the French Seminary, 25th March,
1927). “ . . . They say again that We are working in a
party spirit for the restoration of an Empire, or else that,
carried away by Our devotion to one nation more than
another, We arc exceeding the limits of Our authority and
ordering what is contrary to patriotism. Such allegations
are supremely insulting to Us, and are not merely in con­
tradiction with Our repeated formal declarations and the
most manifest truth : they border on mania. To these
insubordinate children We have no hesitation in addressing
the admonition of the Apostle : ‘ But to me it is a very
small thing to be judged by you or by man’s day ; but neither
do I judge my own self . . . but he that judgeth me is the
Lord' ” (Pius XI, consistorial address of the 20th June,
1927)·
[85] “ The Pope did that as he does everything within
the sphere of his apostolic ministry, with the sole object of
fulfilling his duty which is to procure the glory of God and
the salvation of souls, to prevent evil and to procure good
outside and above all political parties ; that is the great
rule which he never ceases to recall to everyone and which
he is the first to follow ” (Address of Pius XI to the
French pilgrims, 25th September, 1926). “ Although We
consider it superfluous, nevertheless We add ‘ out of the
fullness of the heart,’ as they say, that Our past and
present observations have not been and are not inspired
by prejudice or party zeal or human considerations or
imperfect inappreciation of, or insufficient regard for, the
benefits which Church or State has derived from certain
men or associations of men or political schools, but simply

NOTES

and solely out of respect to, and in the consciousness of, an
obligation imposed by Our office to protect the honour of
the divine King, the salvation of souls, the good of religion
and the future prosperity of Catholic France itself” (Pius
XI, consistorial address of the 20th December, 1926).
[86] Cf. Mercure de France, 1st April, 1927.

[87] The same observations may be made with reference
to the condemnation of ΓAvenir by Gregory XVI. Cf.
H. A. Noble, Lacordaire et la condamnation de “ ΓAvenir.”
Ed. Revue des Jeunes. Lacordaire being accused by Baron
d’Eckstein “ of having abandoned his father,” “ beaten
his nurse,” “ trodden the weak and the oppressed under
foot,” retorted as follows : “ My nurse in the spiritual order
was the Church : my father was Jesus Christ. I preferred
them to a man, because a Christian never pledges himself
but saving the allegiance he owes them. I had solemnly
promised, when we set out for Rome, to listen with the
docility of a child to the slightest word of the Vicar of
Christ. That word was spoken : I never hesitated for a
moment ; I bowed before it, logical with myself, faithful
to that respect for the Holy See so loudly proclaimed in
the school which I had embraced. ... I am, however,
accused of kicking a man on the ground. No ; courage
ever consisted in defending the weak, the oppressed and the
victims of circumstance ; in the present case it is truth
which is weak : the oppressed is the Church to whom nobody
gives a thought and upon whom they seek to impose the
ideas of a man under penalty of being considered ungrateful
and persecuting ; the victims are all those young men who
are compromised by a solidarity the extent of which it was
impossible to foresee.” 1
“ Your error, my dear friend,” he wrote again to
Montalembert,2 “ lay in following a man instead of author» Univers religieux, 28th June, 1834.

213

2 2nd December, 1833.

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ity and in believing in talent more than in the Holy Ghost.
. . . Do you know what will happen to-morrow ? Are
you aware of the fate of Europe ? Arc you sure that this
liberalism you are so fond of will not beget the most
formidable kind of slavery which ever oppressed the human
race ? Are you quite certain that it will not re-establish the
slavery of antiquity, that your children will not groan under
the godless whip of the all-conquering republican ?
You may be blaspheming what is preserving your children
from shame and misery. In an ephemeral certainty
of conviction, which you may regret in ten years’ time,
you are rebelling against the highest authority there is in
the world, against the vessel of the Holy Ghost ! You are
relying upon trifling distinctions between the spiritual
and the temporal to escape the consequences of your
faith ! ”
[88] Père Garrigou-Lagrange, op. cit.

[89] “ Man is subject both in relation to natural
happiness, either individual or political, and in relation to
supernatural happiness.” Cajetan in Sum. Theol., i-ii,
92, i ; cf. Appendix V, ante, On Liberalism.
[90] Without drawing any comparison with the nation­
alism of the Action Française, it may be observed that a
certain form of nationalism, Polish “ radical nationalism,”
was condemned by Pius Xin 1905 on account of the violent
demonstrations it provoked (Pius X, Poloniae Populum,
3rd December, 1905).
[91] St. Thomas considers the regimen mixtum to be
the best system (Sum. Theol., i—ii, 95, 4). Cf. Marcel Demongeot, La Théorie du Régime mixte chez Saint Thomas d'Aquin,
a thesis maintained before the Faculty of Law of the
University of Paris, 1927, and since published under the
title of Le meilleur régime politique selon St. Thomas, Paris,
Blot, 1928.

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[92] This is the title of a pamphlet written in defence
of Richelieu’s policy at the Cardinal’s request by Jeremie
Ferrier, a former Calvinist professor of theology who
became converted and was “ nominally a Catholic but
more preoccupied with the claims of the State than the
rights of the Church ” : Le Catholique d’Estât, ou Discours
politique des alliances du Roy très-chrestien contre les calomnies
des ennemis de son Estât. The name which the “ good
Catholics ” at the Roman Curia and in France used to
stigmatise the Cardinal thus became a rallying word.
Cf. H. Fouqueray’s Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France
des origines à la suppression, vol. iv, ch. i.
[93] Père Clérissac, La Messagère de la politique divine,
No 2 of Chroniques in the Roseau d’Or, 1926.
[94] Such calumnies are long lived. Dante, as is well
known, has no tenderness for the memory of Boniface VIII;
but Dante is not a particularly reliable source of informa­
tion in matters of ecclesiastical history. With regard to
the charges he makes against the Popes, cf. Bellarmine, De
Summo Pontifice, Appendix (in reply to the Aviso piacevole
data alia bella Italia da un nobile giovane Francese). “ The
animadversions of Dante, a member of the Ghibelline
faction, against the Popes and the clergy ought rightly to
be regarded as suspect, for Dante seems to have applied
his mind to writing rather out of hatred for his enemies
than for love of truth” (cap. 14).
[95] The formula of the liberal error later condemned
by the Church and then invoked by a king who dreamed
of becoming supreme over the Church and “ revived in
the heyday of Christendom the tradition of the Byzantine
Empire” (Jean Rivière, op. cit., p. 121).
[9θ] “ A long time already before war, through the
fault of individuals (and nations, set Europe ablaze, the
principal cause of so many misfortunes was developing

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its action : this cause would have been removed and des­
troyed by the very fear of war, if the significance of those
appalling events had been generally understood. Who is
there who does not know the words of Scripture . . . they
that have forsaken the Lord shall be consumed (Isaias, i. 28).
The momentous words of Christ, the Redeemer and
Master of men, are equally familiar : ... without me
you can do nothing (John xv. 5), and again ... he that
gathereth not with me, scattereth (Luke xi. 23).
“ These divine judgements have been realised at all
times ; now they are being verified more than ever before
the eyes of all. It is because they have pitiably strayed
far from God and Jesus Christ that men have fallen from
their former prosperity and now welter in this morass of
troubles ; and for the same reason all their attempts to
repair the loss and preserve what remains of so many
ruins are rendered for the most part vain and fruitless.
God and Jesus Christ being therefore excluded from law
and government, authority seeks its source no longer in
God, but in man ; the first consequence is that laws are
deprived of the real substantial guarantees and the supreme
principles of justice which even pagan philosophers,
such as Cicero, conceived to be solely situate and enclosed
within the external law of God ; the very foundations of
authority are thereby sapped and the primary reason
justifying in one case the right to command and in the
other the duty to obey is abolished. . . .
“It must be observed that the doctrine and the rules
laid down by Christ with regard to the dignity of human
personality, the purity of morals, the duty of obedience, the
organisation by God of the human society, the sacrament
of marriage and the sanctity attaching to the Christian
family, His teaching and all the truths He came to bring
from Heaven to earth, have been entrusted by Christ to
the exclusive custody of His Church. . . .

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“ The Church alone having, by reason of the truth and
power of Christ invested in her, the task of forming souls
to virtue, can alone at the present day restore the true
peace of Christ and guarantee it for the future by removing
the fresh danger of war to which we have referred. The
Church alone, by her mission and the order of God,
teaches that the eternal law of God ought to serve for rule
and measure to every human activity, public or private,
individual or social ” (Pius XI, encyclical Ubi arcano Dei,
23rd December, 1922).
[97] Dom Guéranger, Institutions Liturgiques.
[98] Père Garrigou-Lagrange, op. cit.
[99] St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., ii-ii, 26, 7 and 8.
If it leaves this order, it becomes corrupted. The 64th
proposition of the Syllabus condemned by Pius IX may
be recalled : “ The violation of an oath however sacred
and every criminal and shameful action opposed to the
eternal law are not only not reprehensible, but absolutely
lawful and worthy of the highest praise, when inspired
by love of country” (Denz.-Bannwart, 1746). “Love
of country and the race to which we belong is certainly a
powerful incentive,” wrote Pius XI, “ to excite manifold
virtues and noble exploits, provided it be governed by
the Christian law ; but it becomes a source of innumerable
injustices and disorders when it transgresses the bounds
of justice and law and proceeds to extravagances in an
unbridled nationalism. Those who allow themselves to
be carried away by it necessarily end by losing sight of
the fact that all nations, being members of the great single
human family, are bound together in fraternal relations
and that other nations also are entitled to live and work
for their prosperity ; they also forget that it is neither
permissible nor useful to separate interest and morality.
Justice exalteth a nation : but sin maketh nations miserable

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(Proverbs xiv. 34;. That a family, a city, a State, should
secure its own advantage by injuring others, men may
consider a clever and glorious feat ; but such grandeur
is unstable and should dread a catastrophe, as St. Augustine
wisely warns us : Happiness, fragile as glass, for which a man
should tremble and be afraid lest it suddenly break.” De Civ.
Dei, iv, c. iii. (encyclical Ubi arcano Dei).
[100] I may be permitted to refer to some words of
mine in a recent essay on La Politique de Pascal : “ Real
not feigned justice is the ‘ mystic foundation ’ of the
authority of law as of peace in the state. If this first order,
which consolidates human affairs by the divine stabilities
of the universe, is shattered, the strongest empirical
defences of the social order will be of little avail. How
infinitely more enlightened, more genuinely realist was
the statecraft of St. Catharine of Siena than Pascal’s,
when she exclaimed to the leaders of the people : Sacred
justice is the strongest bulwark of preservation. Pascal did not
perceive that it was an outrage on the author of all
being to banish justice and therefore the order of eternal
wisdom from the principle of human laws and the State.
He did not perceive that, the State being intended for the
fulfilment of the ends of human nature in accordance with
that eternal order, it was a pure and simple contradiction
in terms to pretend to ensure the good of the State on
a basis of injustice ” {Réflexions sur I’intelligence, ch. v,
Paris, 1924). This is as applicable to the interior govern­
ment of the State as to its relations with other States.
To maintain relations of justice between nations, the
Church has always desired the existence of a community
of nations (the political organisation of Christendom)
which, without injury to the rights of the various States
or societies capable of being self-sufficient (“ perfect
societies ”), should play a controlling and pacificatory

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part among them. “ Modern states have attained such a
degree of interdependence,” M. Le Fur wrote recently
(Lettres, ist March, 1927), “that life in society is almost
as much a necessity for them as for individuals. ... It
becomes increasingly apparent that an organised com­
munity of nations (with a Court of international justice
which is the concrete translation of the spirit of international
justice) is the only means of saving the world from the
ruins which an unbridled nationalism fatally brings in its
train.” But such an international temporal organism (of
positive, not natural, law, as some people are inclined to
think) is not only incapable of taking the place of the
supranational spiritual unity of the Church of Christ, but
will also always run the risk of being more dangerous
than beneficent, if it does not admit the principles of
Christian law and the genuine subordination of the tem­
poral to the spiritual.
“ Moreover there is no human institution capable of
imposing on all nations a sort of code of common laws
adapted to our times, as was the case in the Middle Ages
for that true league of nations which the community
of Christian nations was. In that Christendom justice was,
no doubt, only too often violated in fact : but the sanctity
of justice, at all events, remained intact in principle as an
infallible rule to which the nations themselves were
answerable.
“ There is, however, a divine institution which can
preserve the sacred character of the law of nations, an
institution which affects all nations and is superior to all
nations, invested with a supreme authority, with the
religious prestige of a supreme and perfect magistracy :
that institution is the Church of Christ. She alone seems
to be capable of coping with such an arduous task through
the mandate she has received from God, by her very
nature and constitution and, not least, by that incom-

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parable secular majesty which the storms of war, so far
from destroying, have merely strengthened to a marvellous
degree” (Pius XI, encyclical Vbi arcano Dei, 23rd
December, 1922).
[101 ] “ Exclusivism and universality arc the charac­
teristics of the Church of the Old Testament (and they will
be continued, in a completed sense, to the Church of the
New).
“ Exclusivism in the present : universality in the future.
“ Exclusivism on the part of God, Who encloses in Israel
His manifestations and promises, Who cloisters His people
and seals its flesh with the seal of His union. Exclusivism
on the part of Israel, which appropriates to itself a God
Whose transcendence it yet perfectly realises, and considers
all nations with a nobler and loftier contempt than that
which the Greeks and Romans had for the Barbarians.
“ Universality, most intelligent and most human, if
one may say so, on the part of God as on the part of
Israel ; for the Decalogue appeals not to a local conscience,
but to the conscience of all mankind ; and the Jerusalem
of Messianic times is the vision of a country which is chiefly
spiritual, the country of souls. The prophets speak and
strive with the sole object of securing this predominance
of the kingdom of God which is in men’s hearts to begin
with and embraces all nations.
“ Such exclusivism and universality will in time become
Catholic Unity, which is forever the absolute characteristic
of the Work of the Lord Jesus ” (Père H. Clérissac, Le
Mystère de l'Église).
[102] Bull Unam Sanctam. “ Furthermore We declare,
affirm, define and proclaim that submission to the Roman
Pontiff is absolutely of the necessity of salvation for every
human creature” (Denz.-Bannwart, 469). The formula
here adopted by Boniface VIII was already to be found
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in St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra errores Graecorum, ii, 27.
“ For it is shown that submission to the Roman Pontiff
is of the necessity of salvation.” Souls born in schism
or not incorporated within the Church by means of the
sacraments but in a state of grace, nevertheless, by reason
of their good faith, belong virtually and invisibly (voto) to
the visible Church and are therefore under the spiritual
jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff.
[103] Chroniques of the Roseau d’Or series, No. 1, 1925.
[104] A remarkable application of the doctrine of the
indirect power of the Sovereign Pontiff over temporal
things may be found, let it be observed in passing, in the
ideas of Las Casas on the right of colonisation. [On Las
Casas cf. Marcel Brion’s Bartolomé de Las Casas, Père des
Indiens, No. 28 of the Roseau d’Or series, Paris, 1928.]

[105] It would be altogether unjust not to associate
the names of other Spanish missionaries with the great
name of Bartolomé de Las Casas. In this connection, in
their Pastoral Letter of the 12th December, 1926, on the
persecution then raging in Mexico, the U.S. Bishops, after
observing that the ancient pagan civilisation of Mexico
had disappeared long before the missionaries set foot in the
New Continent, continue as follows : “ Murder and
cannibalism had attained the dignity of religious rites.
The ancient civilisation, long since extinct, had left part
of its history behind in legend and ruin. As for the new
civilisation introduced by the Spanish missionaries, its
monuments are still standing, its achievements are inscribed
in historical records. Now the laws governing the Indians
have been considered as the most just code ever devised
for the protection of aborigines (Lummis, Awakening of
a Nation, Introduction). A comparison of the situation of
the Mexican Indian in the early nineteenth century with
that of his Northern brother shows at once that the work
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of the Catholic missionary was both beautiful and good.
The results of his work are seen to continue to this day.
The praise and honour which have been heaped on
Juarez, for example, arc not undeserved, at all events so
far as his intelligence and ability are concerned. But such
praise and honour are properly attributable to the (Torch
which he persecuted, for it was she who made such as
Juarez possible. An Indian such as Juarez would be a
prodigy in the United States. He was not so in Mexico,
where great men have sprung and continue to spring from
the native population.
“ The Church had laid the foundations before her
action was thwarted and calumniated. Miguel de
Cabrera was the greatest painter in Mexico ; he was an
Indian. In the same sphere, Panduro and Velasquez are
still reckoned among Indian glories. Altamirano, the
great orator, novelist, poet and journalist, was also an
Indian. Juan Esteban, a simple lay brother of the Society
of Jesus, was a teacher of such eminence that Spanish
families made their children cross the Ocean to enjoy
the original methods and effective instruction of that
Indian. Amongst orators, an Indian bishop, Nicholas
del Puerto, occupies a distinguished place. In the sphere
of high philosophy, the world has produced few men like
the Archbishop Munguia de Michoacao. Francisco
Pascual Garcia was a great jurist, Ignacio Ramirez a
distinguished journalist, Rodriguez Gavan a distinguished
poet and at the same time a journalist ; Bartolomé
de Alba was a sound and convincing preacher ; Diego
Adriano and Agustin de la Fuente were master printers ;
Adriano de Tlaltclolco, an accomplished Latinist. They
were all Indians.
The historians Ixtlilxochitl and
Valeriano were also Indians. Rincon was the author of
the best grammar of the Aztec language. He, like De
Alba, was descended from the kings of Texcoco, The

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bibliography of works written by Mexicans before the
first revolution fills many stout volumes ; the Indians take
up considerable room. To whom is the honour due ?
To that Church which the Mexican government accuses
before the world of having contributed nothing to its
country” {Revue Catholique des Idées el des Faits, 18th March,
1927 ; Documentation Catholique, 26th March, 1927).
The sufferings heroically borne by the Church in Mexico
in our day during the last persecution recall the virtues
of her founders. In his Praxis theologiae mysticae, Fr.
Michel Godinez, himself an admirable missionary and
famous spiritual director, testifies to their labours and their
sanctity and to the fruitful nature of the contemplation
which sustained them. “ I was acquainted with some of
those missionaries to whom God had communicated
the highest degrees of infused contemplation. One I knew
well remained rapt in ecstasy for three days and nights on
end ; others, whom I also knew, enjoyed the vision of
celestial things in the highest contemplation for four or
six consecutive hours. There is the source of abundant
harvests. . . .”

[106] This war ought to be more exactly described as
a war of hucksters. With reference to the waves of xeno­
phobia which have passed over China, “ their origin may
be ascribed,” Mgr. Beaupin recently wrote, “ to the very
circumstances which compelled China about 1840 to open
her frontiers to foreign invasion. Until that date, only
the Russians had succeeded, in 1689, in signing a treaty
with China authorising merchants in the possession of
passports to trade freely throughout the Empire. A
century and a half later English cannon compelled the
government of Peking to receive English ships and dealers
in some of their harbours. This was what is improperly
described as the Opium War, because the import of
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that commodity into China was not the sole cause of the
conflict” {Documentation Cath., 21st May, 1927). That
opium was not the sole cause of the war is of small import­
ance : one of its objects was to compel China to open her
doors to trading in that commodity ; but what is of very
great importance, no law, human or divine, sanctions the
making of war on a people to compel them to import and
export and not to withdraw their natural resources from
the universal circulation of riches. War so waged in the
name of the divine Rights of Trade can only be considered
as a sin and a disgrace.
“ Two agents of the East India Company,” writes M.
Hue in his famous Memoirs, “ were the first who, in the
beginning of the eighteenth century, conceived the deplor­
able thought of sending to China the opium of Bengal.
Colonel Watson and Vice-President Wheeler are the
persons to whom the Chinese are indebted for this new
system of poisoning. History has preserved the name of
Parmentier ; why should it not also those of these two
men ? Whoever has done either great good or great
harm to mankind ought to be remembered, to excite
either gratitude or indignation.
“ At present, China purchases annually of the English
opium of the amount of seven millions sterling : the
traffic is contraband, but is carried on along the whole
coast of the Empire and especially in the neighbourhood of
the five ports which have been opened to Europeans.
Large fine vessels, armed like ships of war, serve as depots
to the English merchants, and the trade is protected not
only by the English government, but also by the mandarins
of the Celestial Empire. The law which forbids the
smoking of opium under pain of death, has indeed never
been repealed, but every one smokes away quite at his ease
notwithstanding. Pipes, lamps, and all the apparatus for
smoking opium are sold publicly in every town, and the

224

NOTES

mandarins themselves are the first to violate the law and
give this bad example to the people, even in the courts of
justice. During the whole of our long journey through
China, we met but with one tribunal where opium was not
smoked openly and with impunity” {The Chinese Empire,
A Sequel to Recollections of a Journey through 1 artary and
Thibet, by M. Hue, formerly missionary apostolic in China,
Longmans, etc., London, i860, pp. 18—19).
[107] Pius XI, as is known, himself consecrated six
Chinese bishops on the 28th October, 1926 (cf. the article
by Leopold Levaux on la Chine et les Missions, in Chroniques
of the Roseau d’Or series, No. 2).

[108] Bulletin des Missions, published by the Benedic­
tines of Saint-André, January-February, 1927.
[109] Chroniques of the Roseau d’Or series, No. 1, 1925.
[110] C. H., Abrégé de toute la doctrine mystique de Saint
Jean de la Croix, preface (Saint-Maximin, 1925).

[in] Cf. the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XI approving
the statutes of the Carthusian Order revised in accordance with the
provisions of the Code of Canon Law, 8th July, 1924. The
following passage is an extract from that document :
“ Those who profess to lead a life of solitude far from the
worries and the follies of the world—not only with the
object of applying the whole force of their minds to the
contemplation of the divine mysteries and eternal truths and
making unceasing supplication to God for the daily
increasing expansion and extension of His kingdom, but
also to efface and do penance for their sins and the sins also
of their neighbours by mortifications of the spirit and the
body voluntarily determined and prescribed by their Rule,
have, certainly, like Mary of Bethania, chosen the better
part. If the Lord grants such a vocation, no more perfect
state or condition of life can be proposed to the choice and

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ambition of men. . .
Then, after recalling the life
of the early anchorites and thcii' gathering together, in the
train of Anthony, in rude huts in the desert, whence the
institution of communal life imperceptibly arose : “ It is
astonishing,” the pontifical document continues, “ to
sec what services were rendered to Christian society by
such an institution which was entirely based upon the
exclusive application of the monks to the contemplation of
the heavenly realities, each living in the secrecy of his cell,
free and independent of every exterior duty. It was
impossible for the clergy and the people of the time not to
consider such men as a magnificent example, from which
they might derive great profit, who, drawn by the love of
Christ to what was most perfect and austere, reproduced
the interior hidden life which the Lord Himself had led in
the house at Nazareth and so completed, like victims
consecrated to God, whatever was lacking in the sufferings
of the Passion. Nevertheless, this absolutely perfect in­
stitution of the contemplative life lost in course of time
some of its primitive ardour and strength : for, although
the monks refrained from the direction of souls and other
exterior duties, gradually, little by little, they came to
combine the works of the active life with meditation and
the contemplation of divine things. . . . Now God, in
His goodness, Who never ceases to supply the needs and
tend the welfare of His Church, then raised up Bruno, a
man of eminent sanctity, to restore to the contemplative
life the lustre of its primitive sanctity. With that object
Bruno founded the Carthusian Order” {Acta, 15th
October, 1924).
The teaching contained in this very important document
is not opposed to the classical doctrine of St. Thomas on
the superiority pure and simple of the mixed life. But
the latter, in which action ought to overflow entirely from
the superabundance of contemplation, really implies in

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its concept perfection itself, so that the state most fully
answering it is the episcopal state or perfection possessed.
The religious state is the state not of acquired perfection but
of perfection to be acquired : if the divers forms of religious
life are to be judged according to their object considered in
itself, it must be admitted with St. Thomas that that is
the most perfect which, implying works per se proceeding
from contemplation, approximates most to the episcopal
state or acquired perfection, but if they are to be judged
according to the conditions in which they put the subject to
progress to perfection, it cannot be denied that the greatest
progress towards perfection is made in the purely contem­
plative forms of religious life, in which the redemption
of souls is achieved only through penance and love, so that
from this point of view, “ no more perfect state or condition
of life can be proposed to the choice and ambition of men.”
The insistence with which Pius XI dwells in the ency­
clical Rerum Ecclesiae on the desirability of establishing
contemplative communities in missionary countries may
also from this same point of view be noted.

[112] Vol. ii, p. 314, of the critical edition (French
translation by H. Hoomaert, Paris, 1922—3).
[113] Une Opinion, etc., p. 39.

Ç114] St. John of the Gross, Spiritual Canticle, str. 29 ;
Spiritual Maxims.

227