CARDINAL RAPHAEL MERRY DEL VAL 313 



traordinary, for several news-clipping bureaus are busy at 

 his behest, and there is a great deal besides in the Vatican tra- 

 dition that much is to be learned by patiently listening to the 

 visitors who come to receptions. He has in addition a corps 

 of correspondents and responsible confidential advisers in va- 

 rious coimtries. He is necessarily obliged to make personal 

 enemies by his decisions, since he cannot decide in favor of 

 both opponents ; and in addition, all the enemies of the Church 

 are his enemies. The most trifling demand upon him may 

 mask important moves ; the acts of the Holy See nowadays in 

 the fierce searchlight levelled by the Press of the world are 

 commented on with peculiar assiduity; and a secret signifi- 

 cance, a malevolent import, is often imputed to the simplest of 

 them. Before he allows himself to issue one word in the 

 name of the Pope, Cardinal Merry del Val has to divine what 

 deductions will be made from it by commentators in good or 

 bad faith ; and in order to write with safety what he wishes to 

 say, he has to think not only what his words do mean, but 

 what by any unfortunate twist they can be made to mean. 



In order to get at the root of matters, he must take ex- 

 traordinary precautions and unusual advice. In the matter of 

 the separation of Church and State in France some of the most 

 astute French lawyers were employed to take up the entire 

 legal situation created by the new French legislation creating 

 the so-called conseils, or boards of trustees, for the churches 

 and church property. When it was clearly demonstrated that 

 the only effect the law would have was to throw the ultimate 

 control of church property, church worship and the entire 

 teaching and sacramental system of the Church under lay 

 governmental officialdom, he would have none of it. This 

 legal advice and the opinion then formed by him have been 

 amply sustained by the trend of events in France since that 

 time. When we consider that a French Protestant Church of 

 New York City has just had to take upon itself the financial 

 support and direction of two Protestant Churches in France, 

 bereft of their sustenance by the law of separation, we can 

 well appreciate the clear-headed judgment Cardinal Merry del 

 Val possessed at the time, to save the Catholic Church from 

 becoming little more than an obsequious lackey to government 



bureaus. 



The same is true of the matters in Spain. The Cardinal 



