THE PRESENT POSITION OF CATHOLICS IN FRANCE. 187 



abuses, viz., a bureaucracy. Through the steady growth of 

 Vaticanism since 1814, through modern methods of communica- 

 tion, through the decline of lay influence and of public control, 

 this ecclesiastical bureaucracy has become more powerful and 

 centralised. It has encroached upon all the churches, and 

 absorbed all the jurisdiction which used to be inherent in the 

 episcopate. The religious orders, too, are now centralised, and 

 every conventual organisation has a superior in Eome. The 

 bureancracy of the Vatican is, moreover, not only centralised but 

 ubiquitous, and is in immediate contact with the whole of its 

 international organisation. The mediaeval popes may seem 

 terrifying, as we idealise them ; but a modern pope, almost 

 deified in his shrine, relieved from political anxieties and fetters, 

 speaking through a myriad newspapers, communicating with 

 an universal hierarchy through telephones and wireless 

 telegraphy, and commanding the abject obedience of those with 

 whom he deigns to communicate, would be far more dangerous 

 if he could rely, as his predecessors did, on the secular arm and 

 on popular support. But these two essential elements of power 

 are no longer with the papacy, and popular support is receding 

 from it more and more. Besides, Vaticanism is tending incA'it- 

 ably to destroy such elements of strength as it may still command. 

 Its principles compel it to sterilise and emasculate its own 

 subjects. Men cannot be governed like slaves and children 

 with impunity. The Society of Jesus would have proved 

 irresistible long ago, in a loose and divided world, if the very 

 process which moulds a Jesuit did not weaken him intellectually 

 and morally by tampering with the qualities on which his 

 individuality and strength depend. The Society has had the 

 pick of roman catholic material ever since it was founded, it 

 has never degenerated like the other orders, its effort has been 

 unceasing and its zeal heroic, and yet it has never produced a 

 single genius, or a man of the first rank in any line. Its 

 general standard is wonderfully high, but everything is sacri- 

 ficed to that standard ; and thus, the Society, in spite of all its 

 talent and zeal, has been little more than a vast machine for 

 the production of mediocrity. Failure is writ large over its 

 history, much larger than success. A similar process is now at 

 work throughout the papal hierarchy and the priesthood : and 

 in both, it will be far more destructive than in the case of a 

 religious order, which starts with picked men ; for the average 

 parochial minister is not a picked man. He is, perhaps, below 

 the general average of laymen ; and the present centralised 

 methods of ruling the Church will keep him below that 



