The importance of Pius X's pontificate lies neither in his struggle against Modernism nor in his attempt at a religious revival of the Catholic spirit. In dealing with the contemporary popes we are very likely to forget that in the history of the papacy the institution has shown itself far greater than the men. Whatever the intentions and the immediate goal of the activity of a pope, his importance historically depends on this only in part, since the value of a pontificate must be judged from

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... e higher standpoint of historical continuity in the realization of the purpose of the church. The intentions and the personal program of a pope may be in real antithesis to the natural course of the events in the life of the church, and then the importance and the historical value of such a pope cannot actually be found in what he deemed the most important part of his activity, but exactly in what seemed to him only secondary and less valuable. This criterion, however, can hardly be applied to the history of a contemporary pope, because we are inclined to judge the institutions through the personalities rather than the personalities through the institutions. The pontificate of Pius X offers a good illustration of these cases of historical misrepresentation. It was boasted at the very beginning of his pontificate that Pius X was to be a religious rather than a political pope; he himself announced that this was exactly his ideal; he outlined a program with such a basis; he worked sincerely with such a purpose.' And we believed in him; we came to discuss I "With the help of God, putting our hand to work in the administration of the Church, we declare that this will be our sole purpose, namely, that Christ is to be in everything and for everyone. Certainly there will be some people who, measuring things divine by human standards, will endeavor to distort our intentions and turn them to earthly uses and to the interests of parties. To destroy this hope at once 175 This content downloaded from 198.164.044.064 on FROM LEO XIII TO BENEDICT XV I77 power beyond the control of either personal or collective authority.' Furthermore, a centralized government, to be efficient, requires fundamental unity of method, and unity of method calls for unity of mentality. The mental unification of the Catholic clergy, through common methods of education and common philosophical doctrines, was the great task of the pontificate of Leo XIII. All his vaunted political activity, all his dreams of a new temporal kingdom, all that in his judgment was preparation for a high place in the history of the papacy, was but useless dispersion of energies, even a dangerous adventure in the light of the real interests of the Roman policy. This part of his personal program was destined to failure because it was not in accord with the natural and logical development of the life of the church. But what he accomplished toward the unification of the clergy and the organization of the Catholic laymen was the most effective, although the least apparent, achievement of his pontificate.2 On the contrary, Pius X, who desired a religious pontificate, was constrained by the events of his reign to spend most of his energies in political struggles, all of which ended in defeat. And yet these defeats helped him to continue the unifying work of his predecessor. Only through the failure of his French policy could Pius destroy forever the last remnants of the old liberties of the Gallican church; and through a series of apparent failures and blunders in his admin-1 Catholic theology limits the concept of infallibility exclusively to the definitions ex cathedra. There is no doubt about the doctrine; but the pope practically claims the right to interfere with social, political, and national matters of the believers and does ask full obedience in these matters as well as in question of faith. Pope Pius X, in his address to the French pilgrims, April, 1909, said: "Those who are rebels to the authority of the Church, assuming that the Church invades the dominion of the State, they impose limits to the truth." And Benedict XV in his first Encyclical says: "No private person, either in books or in daily papers, or in public speeches, has a right to act as a teacher in the Church. It is well known by all who is the One to whom God confided the magistry of the Church: let then the field be free for him, so that he may speak when and how he thinks suitable to speak. It is the duty of all to listen to him with obsequious devotion and to obey his words" (November I, I914). 2 On the activity of Pope Leo XIII toward the unification of the clergy through a common system of education, and of the Catholic laity through the organization of a Catholic political party, see the article "A Review of Italian Modernism," Harvard All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). appointed was Fr. Chiaudiano, both of them now dead. Fr. Brandi, whose death was announced a few months ago, was for a long time connected with the Catholic Church of America. He lived in this country for almost thirty years, teaching in several Catholic colleges of the Jesuits. By Leo XIII he was appointed a member of the commission to examine the question of the validity of Anglican orders, and he wrote on that topic an extensive memorandum which decided the commission to give a negative answer to the question. Fr. Brandi's death passed almost unnoticed by American Catholic papers.