The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES civilizing church, and the savage church; the progressive church, and the stationary church. One is active, the other is passive: one has mastered the nations and governs them always, since kings fear it; the other has submitted to every despotism, and can be nothing but an instrument of slavery. The active church realizes God for men, and alone believes in the divinity of the human Word, as an interpreter of that of God. What after all is the infallibility of the Pope, but the auto- cracy of intelligence, confirmed by the universal vote of faith? In this case, one might say, the Pope ought to be the first genius of his century. Why? It is more proper, in reality, that he should be an average man. His supremacy is only more divine for that, because it is in a way more human. Do not events speak louder than rancours and irreligious ignorances? Do not you see Catholic France sustaining with one hand the tottering papacy, and with the other holding the sword to fight at the head of the army of progress? Catholics, Jews, Turks, Protestants, already fight under the same banner; the crescent has rallied to the Latin cross, and altogether we struggle against the invasion of the barbarians, and their brutalizing orthodoxy. It is for ever an accomplished fact. In admitting new dogmas, the chair of St. Peter has solemnly proclaimed itself progressive. The fatherland of Catholic Christianity is that of the sciences and of the fine arts; and the eternal Word of the Gospel, living and incarnate in a visible authority, is still the light of the world. 59