314 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



Secretary of State is a Spaniard by ancestry and knows his 

 country and his countrymen through and through. He is also 

 advised by the best international jurists, experienced in canon 

 and international law, and has fully considered the rights of 

 the Church in the larger sense, in his controversy with the 

 present Spanish government over the Concordat. Force may, 

 with anarchistic elements, prevail over logic and law and 

 order, but if it does so prevail it will be destructive in its char- 

 acter for Spain. On the other hand, he would welcome a sys- 

 tem whereby the Church might work out its mission of saving 

 souls unhampered by State interference, as it does in Canada 

 or the United States. The idea of separation of Church and 

 State, as advocated by the ultra socialistic republican leaders 

 of France, Portugal and Spain, seems to be that the Church 

 shall give up all its vested rights and all the property pos- 

 sessed by it, whilst the State shall still control the Church and 

 people, and the church authorities at every turn, even as to 

 the manner and method of teaching its own religious doctrines 

 and enforcing its precepts. It is needless to say that such a 

 thing would not be tolerated in the United States. 



Cardinal Merry del Val is still a young man as such things 

 go in the great ecclesiastical world. He has already made a 

 great name for himself, and his urbanity, courtesy and frank 

 good-will have made him appreciated by all who have trans- 

 acted business with him or with the Holy See. He has made 

 many more rooms of the Vatican accessible to the general 

 public, has lighted the crypts of the Basilica of St. Peter's 

 with electric light and made the entrance to them compara- 

 tively easy for the visitor, and in general has shown a 

 leaning towards a democratic regime in regard to the 

 treasures, artistic and architectural, in the Vatican and St. 

 Peter's. He has almost entirely changed the rulings of the 

 guardians of the basilica and the palace of the Vatican in that 

 regard. In addition to that, he has shown himself very gra- 

 cious towards Americans, of all denominations, who visit the 

 Holy See. Where, however, it has been sought to use the 

 visit to the Pope as the pretext for assisting the political propa- 

 ganda of local Roman parties opposed to the Holy See, he 

 has sternly set his face against it. It was a consideration of 

 this point of view which led to the Fairbanks and the Roose- 

 velt incidents, and it is to be regretted that neither of those 



