ROLE OF THE POPE.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1915, Page 5

ROLE OF THE POPE.

POSITION OF THE VATICAN, TEE UONOR OF STATIONS. An interesting article in the Dublin Review is entitled "The Guarantees of International Honor." It is to some extent a defence of the attitude of the Vatican with regard to the war and a repudiation of the charges of indifference, or of something worse than indifference, that have been made against the Pope. The writer is Cardinal Gasquet, and he gives a brief summary of the part that the Papacy played in tho Middle Ages in promoting the resistance that saved European civilisation from the inroads of the Saracen. Ho refers to a number of petitions that were presented to the Vatican Council, 45 years ago, to obtain from the Pope some official declaration of the principles which should guide the nations of Europe as to war, and restrain them amid the passions likely to be aroused in any conflict of cations, And he argues that reliance on conventions that cannot be enforced —The Hague Convention, for instancehas proved itself a failure.

No outcome of the present' conflict of nations is more certain than the entire failure of these solemn conventions. Principles of Christian morality and civilisation have been simply swept aside, and the world has stood amazed to see reintroduced some of the worst horrors of the savage and barborous warfare, which it had fondly trusted were things of the past and which could never be known in our civilised days. At first it was difficult even to credit reports of the repudiation by any one of the contracting parties of the solemn engagements entered jnto by the treaties and conventions to which their national word was pledged. To-day there can be no doubt whatever about the utter failure of such treaties and conventions when made under the old system. When it does not suit the purposes of a contracting party, as we have seen, they become mere "scraps of paper." Not "only does honor and the word of a nation apparently in these days count for nothing in international politics, but even neutral nations, who have given their adhesion to such restraints of war and its horrors as are embodied in The Hague conventions, have not thought themselves morally called upon to protest to the world at the breaking of these laws by other contracting parties. What then is the value of such agreements ? Is it not a mere absolute farce for nations to meet in solemn congresses and promise to respect the laws of humanity, when directly they are called upon to put them into execution they refuse to be bound by them. j This much at least is obvious; 'agreements and contracts of this kind have at present no binding force whatsoever. The names "international law" have been shown to be a mere misnomer and misleading. ■ Without some authoritative voice, arid of this one obvious result is that nations are badly handicapped which' desire to abide by their pledges and are restrained by plain reasons of humanity and Christian morality from themselves abandoning conventions which were intended to give expression to them:— The use made in the present war of poison is a case in point. If one belligerent makes use of such an inhuman method, it places others in a false and perilous position. It is obviously almost impossible to expect soldiers to face the unequal combat, with their hands tied by obligations which they have taken upon themselves, but which their adversaries, though equally •pledged to their observance, have abandoned. ' "What is true to-day of the failure of conventions must also be said of international guarantees intended to safeguard the existence of small nations and peoples. Where honor is disregarded when it suits the politics of any one of the contracting parties, there can be no permanent safety in such guarantees. The violation of the neutrality of Belgium has shown this to the world quite conclusively. Even Germany confesses the injustice of which it has been guilty in regard to a small nation, which had done it no harm, which it had solemnly pledged itself to safeguard, but which unfortunately stood in the way of its chosen plan of attack upon France. The martyrdom of heroic Belgium to-dav calls to heaven for vengeance, for no attack could be more unjust. Belgium Ims been made to suffer, ns the child said, because, being a nation, it refused to be considered merely '.i ronu' by one of the very Powers which had promised to protect its interests and existence."

"To-day the world very generally looks to the Pope, as the natural defender of Christian morality and justice and as the guardian of the rights of nations.. It is indeed most remarkable that, in the appalling catastrophe which has fallen on Europe in the past months, people of all kinds—those who respect his spiritual authority quite as much as those who Acknowledge it—should be found claiming his judgment and guidance in matters so intimately connected with the civilisation of Europe. They have even loudly blamed his silence in regard to many facts which he could not justly determine without inquiry. This attitude is ail the more remarkable seeing that the papacy was expressly excluded from participation in the Congresses of the Hague by the nations which took part in them. It seems hardly too much to say that by this exclusion these conventions" in fact deprived themselves of the very element of moral authority which might have given them security and permanence and saved them from the failure which is now manifest to the world.

This much at least is obvious. Of ol! other powers in this world the Tope alone possesses some international authority and influence. "What was done by the Papacy in the past to save Europe," Cardinal Gasquet contends, "may be done in the future."

The Pope, by his office, affords to the nations precisely that international principle of morality Which the world seeks for to-day to save it from theaters which it has witnessed in ti<§HRW months, and which, unless the tenopicy*. to lawlessness be checked, must result in a relapse into barbarism and the trinmph of ithe principles of paganism over those of Christianity. There is here no question of spiritual jurisdiction, but of authority to speak on questions of morality and justice, and of the rk'ht in God's name to protect the weak from the aggression of the powerful. No combination of nations, directed by treaties and conventions, as lias been abundantly proved of late, can secure this, for it lacks that international moral authority which the Papacy certainly possesses. The. '-""-» «< the Pope in this regard would not, of course, supersede in any ■way the armed forces of the nations, which would be pledged to support these principles of justice and humanity, but it would afford them the morel sanation ruedei- ta m>k« tlwio jwwenLiHtoWhl*

in maintaining the civilisation e*t*l*" lished. under Christian teaching. We, Itave, let us hope, learnt from the pre* sent war the lesson that the world etiH not without peril abandon the ipiritnal, values of religion and morality. Wfli have come to see clearly that the Ten! ' Commandments of God, with aD that they imply, intuit still rule tite world fat the world's sake, and that for nations, us well as for .individuals the same etar* nal principles of justice and morality must be the supreme law if civilisation as we kno>v it is to be saved Iw t&fr coming generations.