Carmen Ariza Part 8

"Excellent!" exclaimed the Cardinal-Bishop. "Your voice thrills me like a trumpet call."

"I would it were such," cried the Bishop excitedly, "summoning the faithful to strike a blow which shall be felt! What right have the United States, or any nation, to educate the young? None whatever!

Education belongs to the Church! Our rights in this respect have been usurped! But they shall be restored--if need be, at the point of the--"

"You positively make my old heart leap to the fray," interrupted the smiling, white-haired churchman. "But I feel a.s.sured that we shall accomplish just that without violence or bloodshed, my son. You echo my sentiments exactly on the pregnant question. And yet, by getting Catholics employed in the public schools as teachers, and by electing our candidates to public offices, we quietly accomplish our ends, do we not?"

"But when will the Holy Father recognize the time as propitious for a more decisive step in that respect?"

"Why, my son, I think you fail to see that we keep continually stepping. We are growing by leaps and bounds in America. At the close of the War of Independence the United States numbered some forty-five thousand adherents to the Catholic faith. Now the number has increased to twelve or fifteen millions. Of these, some four millions are voters. A goodly number, is it not?"

"Then," cried the Bishop, "let the Holy Father boldly make the demand that the States appropriate money for the support of our parochial schools!"

Jose's ears throbbed. Before his ordination he had heard the Liturgy for the conversion of America recited in the chapel of the seminary.

And as often he had sought to picture the condition of the New World under the religio-political influence which has for centuries dominated the Old. But he had always dismissed the idea of such domination as wholly improbable, if not quite impossible in America.

Yet, since coming into the Papal Secretary's office, his views were slowly undergoing revision. The Church was concentrating on America.

Of that there could be no doubt. Indeed, he had come to believe its success as a future world-power to be a function of the stand which it could secure and maintain in the United States. Now, as he strained his ears, he could hear the aged Cardinal-Bishop's low, tense words--

"There can be no real separation of Church and State. The Church is _not_ inferior to the civil power, nor is it in any way dependent upon it. And the Church can never be excluded from educating and training the young, from molding society, from making laws, and governing, temporally and spiritually. From this att.i.tude we shall _never_ depart! Ours is the only true religion. England and Germany have been spiritually dead. But, praise to the blessed Virgin who has heard our prayers and made intercession for us, England, after long centuries of struggle with man-made sects and indefinite dogma, its spiritually-starving people fast drifting into atheism and infidelity because of nothing to hold to, has awakened, and in these first hours of her resurrection is fast returning to the Holy Church of Rome. America, in these latter days, is rousing from the blight of Puritanism, Protestantism, and their inevitable result, free-thinking and anarchy, and is becoming the brightest jewel in the Papal crown."

The Bishop smiled dubiously. "And yet, Your Eminence," he replied, "we are heralded from one end of the land to the other as a menace to Republican inst.i.tutions."

"Ah, true. And you must agree that Romanism is a distinct menace to the insane license of speech and press. It is a decided menace to the insanity of Protestantism. But," he added archly, while his eyes twinkled, "I have no doubt that when Catholic education has advanced a little further many of your American preachers, editors, and Chautauqua demagogues will find themselves behind the bars of madhouses. Fortunately, that editor of the prominent American magazine of which you were speaking switched from his heretic Episcopal faith in time to avoid this unpleasant consequence."

The Bishop reflected for a moment. Then, deliberately, as if meditating the great import of his words, "Your Eminence, in view of our strength, and our impregnable position as G.o.d's chosen, cannot the Holy Father insist that the United States mails be barred against the infamous publications that so basely vilify our Church?"

"And thereby precipitate a revolution?" It was the firm voice of the Papal Secretary himself, who at that moment entered the room.

"But, Monsignor," said the Bishop, as he rose and saluted the newcomer, "how much longer must we submit to the gross injustice and indignities practiced upon us by non-believers?"

"As long as the infallible Holy Father directs," replied that eminent personage. "Obey him, as you would G.o.d himself," the Secretary continued. "And teach your flock to do likewise. The ballot will do for us in America what armed resistance never could. Listen, friend, my finger is on the religious pulse of the world. Nowhere does this pulse beat as strongly as in that part which we call the United States. For years I have been watching the various contending forces in that country, diligently and earnestly studying the elements acting and reacting upon our Church there. I have come to the conclusion that the success of Holy Church throughout the world depends upon its advance in the United States during the next few years. I have become an American enthusiast! The glorious work of making America Catholic is so fraught with consequences of vastest import that my blood surges with the enthusiasm of an old Crusader! But there is much still to be done. America is a field white for the harvest, almost un.o.bstructed."

"Then," queried the Bishop, "you do not reckon Protestantism an obstruction?"

"Protestantism!" the Secretary rejoined with a cynical laugh. "No, I reckon it as nothing. Protestantism in America is decadent. It has split, divided, and disintegrated, until it is scarcely recognizable.

Its adherents are falling away in great numbers. Its weak tenets and senile faith hold but comparatively few and lukewarm supporters. It has degenerated into a sort of social organization, with musicals, pink teas, and church suppers as attractions. No, America is _bound_ to be cla.s.sed as a Catholic nation--and I expect to live to see it thus. Our material and spiritual progress in the United States is amazing, showing how n.o.bly American Catholics have responded to the Holy Father's appeal. New dioceses are springing up everywhere.

Churches are multiplying with astonishing rapidity. The discouraging outlook in Europe is more, far more, than counterbalanced by our wonderful progress in the United States. We might say that the Vatican now rests upon American backs, for the United States send more Peter's Pence to Rome than all other Catholic countries together. We practically control her polls and her press. America was discovered by Christopher Columbus, a Catholic in the service of a Catholic ruler. It is Catholic in essence, and it shall so be recognized! The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always will be the sole and _only_ Christian authority. The Catholic religion by rights ought to be, and ultimately shall be, the exclusively dominant religion of the world, and every other sort of worship shall be banished--interdicted--destroyed!"

For a while Jose heard no more. His ears burned and his brain throbbed. He had become conscious of but one all-absorbing thought, the fact of his va.s.salage to a world-embracing political system, working in the name of the Christ. Not a new thought, by any means--indeed an old one, often held--but now driven home to him most emphatically. He forgot his clerical duties and sank into profound revery on his inconsistent position in the office of the highest functionary of Holy Church aside from the Supreme Pontiff himself.

He was aroused at length from his meditations by the departure of the American Bishop. "It is true, as you report," the Papal Secretary was saying earnestly. "America seems rife with modernism. Free-masonry, socialism, and countless other fads and religious superst.i.tions are widely prevalent there. Nor do I underestimate their strength and influence. And yet, I fear them not. There are also certain freak religions, philosophical beliefs, wrung from the simple teachings of our blessed Saviour, the rapid spread of which at one time did give me some concern. The Holy Father mentioned one or two of them to-day, in reference to his contemplated encyclical on modernism. But I now see that they are cults based upon human personality; and with their leaders removed, the fabrics will of themselves crumble."

He took leave of the Bishop, and turned again to address the Cardinal-Bishop within. "A matter of the gravest import has arisen,"

he began in a low voice; "and one that may directly affect our negotiations in regard to the support which the Holy Father will need in case he issues a _p.r.o.nunciamento_ that France, Spain, and Austria shall no longer exercise the right of veto in papal elections. That rumor regarding Isabella's daughter is again afloat. I have summoned Father Rafael de Rincon to Rome to state what he knows. But--" He rose and looked out through the door at Jose, bending over his littered desk. Then he went back, and resumed his conversation with the Cardinal-Bishop, but in a tone so low that Jose could catch only disconnected sc.r.a.ps.

"What, Colombia?" he at length heard the Cardinal-Bishop exclaim.

"Yes," was the Secretary's reply. "And presumably at the instigation of that busybody, Wenceslas Ortiz. Though what concern he might have in the _Infanta_ is to me incomprehensible--a.s.suming, of course, that there is such a royal daughter."

"But--Colombia elects a President soon, is it not so?"

"On the eve of election now," replied the Secretary. "And if the influence of Wenceslas with the Bishop of Cartagena is what I am almost forced to admit that it is, then the election is in his hands.

But, the _Infanta_--" The sound of his voice did not carry the rest of his words to Jose's itching ears.

An hour later the Secretary and the Cardinal-Bishop came out of the room and left the office together. "Yes," the Secretary was saying, "in the case of Wenceslas it was 'pull and percuniam' that secured him his place. The Church did not put him there."

The Cardinal-Bishop laughed genially. "Then the Holy Ghost was not consulted, I take it," he said.

"No," replied the Secretary grimly. "And he has so complicated the already delicate situation in Colombia that I fear Congress will table the bill prohibiting Free-masonry. It is to be deplored. Among all the Latin Republics none has been more thoroughly Catholic than Colombia."

"Is the Holy Father's unpublished order regarding the sale and distribution of Bibles loyally observed there?" queried the Cardinal-Bishop.

The door closed upon them and Jose heard no more. His day's duties ended, he went to his room to write and reflect. But the intense afternoon heat again drove him forth to seek what comfort he might near the river. With his notebook in hand he went to the little park, as was his frequent wont. An hour or so later, while he was jotting down his remembrance of the conversation just overheard, together with his own caustic and protesting opinions, his absorption was broken by the strange child's accident. A few minutes later the notebook had disappeared.

And now the thought of all this medley of personal material and secret matters of Church polity falling into the hands of those who might make capital of it, and thereby drag the Rincon honor through the mire, cast the man prostrate in the dust.

CHAPTER 10

Days pa.s.sed--days whose every dawn found the priest staring in sleepless, wide-eyed terror at the ceiling above--days crowded with torturing apprehension and sickening suggestion--days when his knees quaked and his hands shook when his superiors addressed him in the performance of his customary duties. No mental picture was too frightful or abhorrent for him to entertain as portraying a possible consequence of the loss of his journal. He cowered in agony before these visions. He dared not seek the little park again. He feared to show himself in the streets. He dreaded the short walk from his dormitory to the Vatican. His life became a sustained torture--a consuming agony of uncertainty, interminable suspense, fearful foreboding. The cruelty of his position corroded him. His health suffered, and his ca.s.sock hung like a bag about his emaciated form.

Then the filament snapped and the sword fell. On a dismal, rainy morning, some two months after the incident in the park, Jose was summoned into the private office of the Papal Secretary of State. As the priest entered the small room the Secretary, sitting alone at his desk, turned and looked at him long and fixedly.

"So, my son," he said in a voice that froze the priest's blood, "you are still alive?" Then, taking up a paper-covered book of medium size which apparently he had been reading, he held it out without comment.

Jose took it mechanically. The book was crudely printed and showed evidence of having been hastily issued. It came from the press of a Viennese publisher, and bore the startling t.i.tle, "Confessions of a Roman Catholic Priest." As in a dream Jose opened it. A cry escaped him, and the book fell from his hands. _It was his journal!_

There are sometimes crises in human lives when the storm-spent mind, tossing on the waves of heaving emotion, tugs and strains at the ties which moor it to reason, until they snap, and it sweeps out into the unknown, where blackness and terror rage above the fathomless deep.

Such a crisis had entered the life of the unhappy priest, who now held in his shaking hand the garbled publication of his life's most sacred thoughts. Into whose hands his notes had fallen on that black day when he had sacrificed everything for an unknown child, he knew not. How they had made their way into Austria, and into the pressroom of the heretical modernist who had gleefully issued them, twisted, exaggerated, but unabridged, he might not even imagine. The terrible fact remained that there in his hands they stared up at him in hideous mockery, his soul-convictions, his heart's deepest and most inviolable thoughts, details of his own personal history, secrets of state--all ruthlessly exposed to the world's vulgar curiosity and the rapacity of those who would not fail to play them up to the certain advantages to which they lent themselves all too well.

And there before him, too, were the Secretary's sharp eyes, burning into his very soul. He essayed to speak, to rise to his own defense.

But his throat filled, and the words which he would utter died on his trembling lips. The room whirled about him. Floods of memory began to sweep over him in huge billows. The conflicting forces which had culminated in placing him in the paradoxical position in which he now stood raced before him in confused review. Objects lost their definite outlines and melted into the haze which rose before his straining eyes. All things at last merged into the terrible presence of the Papal Secretary, as he slowly rose, tall and gaunt, and with arm extended and long, bony finger pointing to the yellow river in the distance, said in words whose cruel suggestion scorched the raw soul of the suffering priest:

"My son, be advised: the Tiber covers many sins."

Then pitying oblivion opened wide her arms, and the tired priest sank gently into them.

CHAPTER 11

Rome again lay scorching beneath a merciless summer sun. But the energetic uncle of Jose was not thereby restrained from making another hurried visit to the Vatican. What his mission was does not appear in papal records; but, like the one which he found occasion to make just prior to the ordination of his nephew, this visit was not extended to include Jose, who throughout that enervating summer lay tossing in delirium in the great hospital of the Santo Spirito. We may be sure, however, that its influence upon the disposition of the priest's case after the recent _denouement_ was not inconsiderable, and that it was largely responsible for his presence before the Holy Father himself when, after weeks of racking fever, wan and emaciated, and leaning upon the arm of the confidential valet of His Holiness, the young priest faced that august personage and heard the infallible judgment of the Holy See upon his unfortunate conduct.

On the throne of St. Peter, in the heavily tapestried private audience room of the great Vatican prison-palace, and guarded from intrusion by armed soldiery and hosts of watchful ecclesiastics of all grades, sat the Infallible Council, the Vicar-General of the humble Nazarene, the aged leader at whose beck a hundred million faithful followers bent in lowly genuflection. Near him stood the Papal Secretary of State and two Cardinal-Bishops of the Administrative Congregation.