“No, Holiness.”
“Our influence is over particulars, is sentimental, is ideal. The influence of the King’s Majesty is over universals, is practical, is real—”
“Yes, I see that.”
“Well, then—”
“You mean that Your influence and the King’s—”
“Could do a great deal more for this dear delightful country than—”
“Do you think that this King knows of Your desire for reconciliation?”
“Victor Emanuel is one of the four cleverest men in the world. It is impossible that he should not have understood the Regnum Meum. Besides, We addressed him by name. He owes Us the civility of a response.”
“Holiness, let me have that news conveyed to him. Guido Attendolo—”
“No. We Ourself have not yet seen clearly the next move. We believe that His Majesty of his own initiative ought to have approached Us—the son to the Father—before now. We have given him a token of Our goodwill. There the matter rests. He cannot have a doubt as to what Our purpose is. But—His Majesty must do as he pleases. We think that We have done Our part so far. At present, We are not moved to proceed further. When We are moved—and that is what occupies Us now. An idea seems to be forming in Our mind: but as yet—Percy, do ask Our friends to tea in the Garden of the Pine-Cone at half-past sixteen o’clock today.”
The same afternoon after siesta, Hadrian sat at one end of the great white-marble arc-shaped seat. A yard away sixteen cardinals spread their vermilion along the same seat. Little tables stood before them with tea, goat’s milk, triscuits and raisins. The Pope preferred to sit here where the pavement was of marble: because lizards avoided it, and their creepy-crawly jerks on grass or gravel shocked his nerves. He was sure that reptiles were diabolical and unclean; and His taste was for the angelic and the clean. He smoked a cigarette; and flung a subject to His Court, as one flings corn to chickens.
“Was not the question of requiems for Non-Catholics settled two or three years ago?” replied Courtleigh.
“Yes:” said Talacryn. “It was declared impossible, profane, inconsistent.”
“Why?” Hadrian’s predilection was for the inconsistent, rather than for that undevelopable fossil which goes by the name of consistency.
“It would be inconsistent, Holiness, for the Church to proclaim, by the most solemn act of Her ministry, as a child submissive to Her, one who always refused; or certainly never consented, to recognize Her as a mother—one who, while alive, would have rejected any such recognition as a grave insult and an irreparable misfortune;” Talacryn responded.
“I don’t follow Your Eminency,” said Whitehead: “it’s eloquent—but it’s only eloquence.”
“Isn’t Cardinal Talacryn rather begging the question, Holiness?” Leighton enquired. “Who spoke of proclaiming as a submissive child one who never was submissive?”
“Holy Mass is the public and solemn testimony of visible communion; the tessera communionis, if I may use the term; and, therefore, the Church can only offer publicly for those who have departed this life as members of that visible communion:” Talacryn persisted.
“Holy Mass is a great deal more than that!” interjected Carvale.
“Yes?”
“Holiness, it is not for me to tell Cardinal Talacryn that Holy Mass is not only a sacrament for the sanctification of souls, but a sacrifice—the Real Sacrifice of Calvary, offered by our Divine Redeemer and pleaded in His Name by us His vicars. It is not another sacrifice, but the Sacrifice of the Cross applied. It is the Clean Oblation, offered to God for all Christians quick and dead, for all for whom Christ died.”
“Would not the bonafides of the Non-Catholic in question come in?” said Semphill. “Take for instance the Divine Victoria—”
“ ‘Divine’?” queried della Volta.
“Yes, ‘Divine.’ You say ‘Divus Julius’ and ‘Divus Calixtus,’ meaning ‘the late Julius’ and ‘the late Calixtus.’ Very well, then I say ‘the Divine Victoria’ for a more thoroughly, worthy woman—”
“Well, but that would mean that on the death of such and such a Non-Catholic, we should have to institute a process of inquisition, and adjudicate on his or her life and career:” Ferraio ventured.
Hadrian threw His cigarette-end at a lizard on the gravel, and laughed shortly. “ ‘Pippety-pew, me mammy me slew, me daddy me ate, me sister Kate gathered a’ me baines—’ ” He quoted with deliciously feline inconsequence. “How you theological people do split straws, to be sure! Go on, though. You’re intensely interesting.”
The Patriarch of Lisbon slapped his knee.
“Holiness, there are several decrees which are supposed to bear on the subject,” Gentilotto gently put in.
“Can Your Eminency remember them?”
“Innocent III ruled that communion might not be held with those deceased, with whom it had not been held when they were alive.”
“I concede it. But it doesn’t touch the point. I distinguish. Holy Mass is more than mere communion. Besides, we don’t communicate with, but on behalf of, the deceased. It’s not a concession to the deceased. It’s our duty to God and to our neighbour,” Carvale persisted.
“Then there was the case of Gregory XVI and Queen Caroline of Bavaria,” Gentilotto continued. “The argument is the same: but perhaps it has been expanded a little. It definitely prohibits persons, who have died in the eternal and notorious profession of heresy, from being honoured with Catholic rites.”
“Another point occurs to me,” Talacryn went on. “Supposing that we sing requiems for Non-Catholics, we should imply that one religion is as good as another.”
“I guess I deny the consequence,” Grace retorted. “Of course people would infer all sorts of things which ought not to be inferred: but I can’t see that that need concern us.”
“One might imperil the salient and sacred aloofness which marks off God’s Work from man’s work,
