Hadrian the Seventh

impossible. Yet⁠—: there were people whom He could like, if not love: people in His Own environment. These He would make easy, happy. To these He could set an example. They, in turn, would do as much for the rank below them: and so on, and so on. Thus, perhaps, by Nature’s own method, might Love be brought down among men. So with a stern and trenchant rebuff He rebuked presumption. On the following Sunday, a Pontifical Breve was read from every Catholic pulpit in the Kingdom of England at home and beyond the seas. It proclaimed the dogma of Equality as scientifically, historically, and obviously false and impracticable: as a diabolical delusion for the ruin of souls. Hadrian did not soar away in metaphysical intricacies, but confined His argument to the broad highway whereon the ordinary man might walk at ease. Infinite difference, He said, was the note of the Divine Creator’s scheme. Not equality, but diversity, of physique, of intellect, of condition, was man’s birthright. One man was not as good as another: he generally was a great deal better⁠—as every man well knew. The claim to equality was so indecently unjust that it only could emanate from inferiors who hoped to gain by degrading their superiors. Socialists, who claimed equality, solely were actuated by the lust of improving their own condition at the expense of their brother. That was selfishness, and unchristian, and (by consequence) damnable heresy. The servants of God were bidden to avoid it. The Vicar of Christ repeated Christ’s commands “Love one another⁠—Love your enemies.” Only by Love could be attained the happiness which all desired. That the classes did care for the masses, futile and indolent though their method might be, was undeniable: but the attitude of the masses to the classes was unmitigated hatred. The accident of birth to poverty or wealth was not a fault, for it was inevitable. The principle of Aristos “The Best” was to be upheld. The strength of Aristos was incalculable because it acted through the relations of private life, which were permanent: whereas the political excitement of socialism was essentially ephemeral. Rights, inherited, meritorious, conferred by legitimate authority, were sacred. Only the holders of such rights of their own free will could depose themselves or abdicate their rights; and, as Christians, they were expected to behave themselves Christianly: but to deprive them of such rights, at the will of those who did not confer them, would be an outrage. The socialistic idea, which suggested such iniquity, was essentially selfish and venal. Hadrian severely denounced the newspapers in which the “Open Letter to the Pope” appeared. He said that the thoughtful reading of a newspaper was one of the most solemn and painful studies in the world, for it was little more than a category of sin and suffering, of incitements to sin, of efforts to acquire filthy lucre honestly and dishonestly. He copiously quoted the advertisements, the Cyclorama page, the Motor Notes page, the Stageland, the Woman’s Letter, and the Leaders, of the one, in order to show that the socialistic outcry by no means was the bitter groan of oppressed poverty, but rather the grumbling vituperation of envious discontented mediocrity anxious to affect an appearance, which was sham and not its own, and to wallow in luxurious conditions which it had not earned. Especially He noted the Socialistic Programme, “We suggest that the nation should own all the ships all the railways all the factories all the buildings all the land and all the requisites of national life and defence,” as a plain declaration that robbery of private property created by individual industry and genius⁠—robbery, pure and unadulterated, was the basis of the socialistic scheme. He denounced the paper as being written for amateur agnostics by dilettante atheists. He pungently derided attempts made, by pseudoscientists of the obsolete school of Haeckel, to popularize among mistaken but serious secularists the science of yesterday and the destructive criticism of the day before that. As for the other paper, He likened it to a cloaca wherein filth of all kinds is committed and collected. The news of the day was reported only in so far as it was susceptible of filthy presentation. Pages were devoted to diffusing refuse from police-courts; and, (under the head of Secret History) to calumnious inventions or distortions of fact connected with any and every man or woman who was not of the dregs of humanity. As a method of earning a living by journalism, this pandering to the basest passions was disgraceful, and damnable in the full sense of the word. Not by such means were the bodies and souls of men to be improved or profited. Not by such means could happiness, here or hereafter, be attained. “Let men raise themselves if they will; and let each man help himself by helping his brother to the utmost: there shall be no limit to your resurrection, well-beloved sons, if ye rise, not on other men but, upon your own dead selves,” the Pope concluded.

In accordance with instructions, the Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation of Sacred Rites presented to the Pontiff certain completed processes and petitions for the beatification of the Venerable Servants of God, Alfred the Great, King and Confessor⁠—Henry VI of Lancaster, King and Confessor⁠—Mary Stewart of England, France, and Scotland, Queen and Martyr. Assent was deigned to these petitions; and pictures, each with a golden nimbus, were unveiled in the Vatican Basilica. The bull of beatification decreed the addition of the following words to the Roman Martyrology, the official roll of sanctity:⁠—

This day, in England, is kept the festival of the Blessed Alfred, King and Confessor, who by the acclamation of his own people is named Great: memorable as a father of his fatherland, a lover of his brother, a true servant of God.

This day, in England, is kept the festival of the Blessed Henry VI of Lancaster, King and Confessor: memorable for meekness, for suffering, for purity of heart,