In the leading Catholic periodical of this country there has been some
nervous discussion of the attitude of the Pope. A new man, a strong and
enlightened man, happens to have mounted the chair of Peter in the midst
of the war. For more than a century his predecessors have bemoaned the
increasing wickedness of the world: Pius VII, tossed like a helpless
cork on the waves of the Revolution; Leo XII and Pius VIII, the
associates of the Holy Alliance; Gregory XVI, eating sweetmeats or
mumbling his breviary while young Italy sweated blood; Pius IX, grasping
eagerly his tatters of sovereignty; Leo XIII, the unsuccessful
diplomatist; Pius X, the medieval monk. They saw their Church shrink
decade by decade, and they witnessed the prosperity of all that they
denounced. Benedict XV came to save the Church, and a great moral
opportunity awaited him. But, while claiming to be the moral arbitrator
of the world, he avoids his plain duty, and is content to repeat the
worn phrases about the iniquity of the modern spirit. His apologists say
that the war is politics, and that Popes must not interfere in politics.

I have earlier explained in what sense this war presents a political
aspect to Benedict XV, and given the reason for his reluctance. It is
typical of the whole failure of Christianity. A little over nineteen
centuries ago, it is said in the churches, a star shone over the cradle
of the Saviour, and choirs of angels announced his coming as a promise
of "peace on earth and good-will among men." I am not in this little
work examining the whole question of the influence of Christianity. But
it is well to recall that, according to its own records, its first and
greatest promise to the world was peace; and to that old Roman Empire,
and to Europe at any stage in its later history, no greater blessing
could have been brought. Has Christianity succeeded?