THE PAPACY DURING THE 

 RENAISSANCE 



BY JOSEPH McCABE 



IWTACAULAY'S famous prediction of the future of the 

 -^ Papacy does not to-day impress the observer of the 

 decay of the Church of Rome, but it was grounded on very 

 respectable historical evidence. The way in which that 

 institution has survived the shocks and changes of European 

 life during fifteen turbulent centuries will ever attract the 

 attention, and will often command the admiration, of the 

 historian. When, moreover, we reflect that, contrary to a 

 popular impression, the Church of Rome has not in its crises 

 been ruled with astuteness or statesmanship, we understand 

 that this remarkable power of resistance easily confirms the 

 faith of the imperfectly educated Catholic that his Church 

 was founded, guarded, and sustained by a divine spirit. 



It is, however, precisely from the strength of one of these 

 blows at Papal prestige that one derives the most deadly 

 refutation of the Catholic claim. To have survived the 

 onslaught of Roman and Goth, of Hun and Turk, of 

 German and French, may well seem a creditable perform- 

 ance ; but to have merited the fiery invectives of the 

 Reformers and the colder and more piercing strictures of 

 historians is utterly inconsistent with the claim of a divine 

 foundation and guidance. No candid historian can look 

 back over certain long stretches of Papal history and not 

 exclaim that, if Christ ever did live, he certainly died. The 

 Catholic, steeped in sophistry from his infancy, parries the 

 thrust by protesting that what he calls the Holy Spirit 

 guards the Popes only against errors in their official 

 teaching, not against personal vice. But such a claim is 

 a mockery of human intelligence. To say that a God may 

 be content to watch a Pope's very rare declarations on 

 doctrine a privilege, moreover, which was not known to 

 the Popes themselves until the year 1870 and remain 

 indifferent to his moral influence is a piece of that boldness 

 which is born of despair. 



