THE NEXT POPE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 25, 8 April 1892, Page 23

THE NEXT POPE.

(From the New York Sun.)

(Concluded.)

This moral complicity of the Triple Alliance and of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns is an important feature in the appreciation of this theme. If it was isolated, if Russia and France did not bind tbeir interests to those of the Triple Alliance, it would be reasonable to suppose that the force of things aided by circumstances wonld bring abont a removal. Therefore, the Vatican has its eyes fixed upon the intentions of these two Powers, whose influence upon the situatic □ has become sincerely enhrged since the Paris Exposition and the splendid festivals at Cronstadt. Leo XIII. has been brought naturally by the violence of M. Crispi to interest himself in the friendship of these two nations. As the Triple Alliance means for ihe Vatican the maintenance of the status quo and the consolidation of the Italian State against the Vatican, the Pope could not resist the impulse to lean internationally on Paris and St Petersburg. In an outrageous manner the Triple Alliance has accused Leo XIII. and Cardinal Rampolla of manifesting sympathies for schismatic Russia and republican France. It is performing its part. Just as the Vatican appreciates the Triple Alliance, the latter dreads a friendly understandiug between the Holj See and France arid Russia. Where there is a community of interests, doctrinairism loses its sway. The tyranny of situations is stronger thau the tyranny of political ideas. It is not without reason th*t Cronstadt was coincident with the letter of Cardinal Rampolla, and followed the republican orientation of the Pope toward France. Ooe prodaced the other. There was a triple ideal in the thought of Leo XIII. : to make peace with France, to take his place m that future which belongs to republican democracy and to render radical Franco, always ready for alliances, disposed to favour international marriages. It is only this last point which interests us in this study. There is no doubt that between M, Carnot, Leo XIII , and Alexander 111. there has been an exchange of views, * reciprocity of services rendered. The Cabinet of Paris mast know the part Leo XLII. has taken in the union of the two Powers. Alexander 111., mysterious as a sphinx and patient as a Pope, has long kuown the value of a Frencu and Pontifical alliance ; bat his traditions, his principles, his character as an autocrat, forbade any sort of promiscuity with western radica ism. But when, through an Inspiration of genius and thorough knowledge of historical laws and international necessities, Leo XIII. called the Church and the Conservative party to place themselves upon republican ground, when the voice from Algiers was re-echoed upon the banks of the Neva, the Czar felt i hat a new period was opening up, and that all the old traditions must be changed and rqad« to conform with the metamorphoses of the present. Jules Simon made a bright remark when he Baid : "If a Pope offers his hand to the republic, why can't an emperor do the SHtne ? If a cardinal orders the playing of the Marseillaise, bow can a czar hesitate ?"

Tbis mysterious solidarity of interests muat exercise a considerable influence upon the subject we are dealing with. It is certain that if France and Russia, predisposed by the opposing attitude of the Triple Alliance, ehould favour an exodus of the B acred College, the last remaining hesitation of the Pope would disappear at once. We are permitted to believe that the Czar has not yet manifested hi a

intimate thought on this matter. One day this very winter he called for the recordß of the Conclave. He is studying »he question at tha present moment. It is probable that he will remain undecided, to say the least. Russia, flanked with France, has all the reasons in the world for continuing the actual immobility of Europ~. Bat the immobility of Kurope cannot exist without the immobility of the Vatican. Parliame nary corruption, the financial decadence of Italy, th« difficulties with which Prussia and Austria are grappling, the moral conquests which Bussia continues to make in the Bast and the advances which she is gaining every day over her competitors ; tha entire ensemble of the general situation allows the Czar to favour the status quo np to the day when he shall feel that the Bast, without too much commotion and bloodshed, is about to adorn bis half European and half Asiatic crown with new diamonds. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that Russia will hardly be faTourabla to the exodus of the Conclave. But the Vatican, on the other hand, knows that if Bussia has her motives for maintaining the policy of expectation, this policy is contrary to the interests of the Papacy If all danger of war is averted, the Pope sinks more and more to the level of a vassal of Italy, and degrades himself in a corrupting promiscuity. The Holy See can also wait for centuries, but when it considers the actual transformation of the Italian atmosphere and the progress of the usurping State, it must feel its confidence weakening with time as well as the serenity of its judgment. France is at the mercy of contrary currents. She understands the advantages of an exodus, but she fears ths perils of the change. Nevertheless, there was a time when she visibly encouraged ideas of initiative and projects of departure. Since M. Ribot came into power this encouragement has perhaps been transformed into contradictory counsels. Every Republican Ministry fears a European complication because any war would be the death of the prespnt regime, in the dictatorship of a victorious or extraordinary general: A fortunate Massena or triumphant Napoleon would soon put his iron gauntlet, his mighty sword, at the head of uffairs. The sceptre of France would naturally slip in*o his hands. There is in French diplomacy a great dtal of precocity, too much timidity, and a confusion that can be easily understood, together with an amount of gropiog in the dark, all of which is the lesult of the fact that the republican system has not yet created a political selecion; Leo XIII., I am told, has a fall appreciation of this moral and psychological state of the political world in France. If a resolute man, having a synthetic concept! n of the condition of Europe and of the Holy See, were directing the destinies of nations, we should already have seen Leo XIII. try bis coup d'etat, and bring upon the political scene one of those historical decisions which influence for centuries the political forms of mankind.

These are the principal reasons botb for tbe removal of the Con. clave and for keeping it in Rome. I shall not speak of the influence which the Consulta, aided by its friends, will endeavour *o exercise upon the Conclave. This pressure will have no re-action upon the decision of the Holy See, because the latter will accept no a Ivice either from Governments or sovereigns. The right of exclusion was * favour of the middle ages, graciously granted by the Popes to a Catholic Emperor. It was a sort of communication of power ; but as that faithful Christianity sank in the vicissitudes of revolutions, the Vatican cannot communicate to the outside bishops this participation in its power. It is only in times of complications, external and internal, that these attempts to influence and intimidate could infallibly determine the Sacred College to seek an asylum in a foreign land.

In Rome all the tlite, all those who regard with knowledge the nevitable transformations of the Papaoy as a human power and a historical institution, incline more and more to tha exodus of the Conclave. It would be a mistake to suppose that the higher spheres have confined their preoccupations and their decisions to the case of war. A new world is moving in the great Roman brain. AH wideopened intelligences feel that a future different from the past is coming on. They know that to allow this time of change in social forces to pass by without taking up a position would be to lose the empire over souls. Now, with the system of Sixtua V. and the antique traditions, it is impossible to take this place fn history. We must have a renewal of forms and methods, and an adaptation to the needs and conditions of the time. The rejuvenation must not be postponed. If the Papacy does not get out of its present situation ; if it endures without acting the indirect protectorate of the Italian State, it will no longer be possible for it to bring about the modirifon which the bureaucratic system of the central government of Church stands in need of. An exodus would be the signal, the starting point of this metamorphosis, which has become necessary. These are the "thoughts from behind the head," as Pascal says, which are boiling now in the Roman brain. It is true that the old Cardinals and traditions are opposed to a departure except in case of war or revolution. In the world that loves peace and dreads all change it is said that the Conclave should be in Rome if Europe retains its present physiogomy, and if a riot is not to be dreaded in the city. To set out fjr a foreign country has no charm for the timid, for the ferocious sticklers for cuitom ; but if this view has the majority for it, it

has no other merit. When the vacancy of the Holy See shall occur, a man of decision, imbued with new ideas and of a superior atmosphere, may carry the majority with him and make the coup d'etat of the Papacy. It is said in the last Cooßistory the Holy Father spoke of these new conditions of the Conclave, and it is probable that Leo XIII. will define the conduct to be followed. If the Pops was a younger man, he would long since have taken the road to exile, because he has in an eminent degree the prescience of the future, and a thorough understanding of the radical changes that must be made

From all these considerations, in conformity with the ideas which are expressed around the Vatican, the impreesion is derived that the more we get away from 1870 the more the movement of events and the development of the situation will exercise their influence in the direction of a transformation : and, consequently, the necessity, or at least the utility, of a departure of the Conclave seems apparent. It is the prelude to a foreign Pope.