The Saint

by Antonio Fogazzaro

“Nothing has as yet been decided,” he repeated. “I, for one, approve of uniting, but I have one special end in view, while the discourses I have heard seem to me to favour a very different end. Intellectual progress is good, renovation of the formulas according to the spirit of the times is also good, a Catholic reform is excellent. I hold with Rafaello Lambruschini, who was a great man; with the ‘Pensieri di un solitario’’; but it appears to me that Professor Minucci is advocating a reform of an eminently intellectual nattire, and that——”

Here Dane lifted his small, white, refined hand,

“Allow me, Father,” he said. “My dear friend Marinier sees that the discussion is reopened. I beg him to resume his seat.” The Abbé raised his eyebrows slightly, but obeyed. The others also sat down, quite satisfied. They had little faith in the Abbé’s discretion, and it would have been a great misfortune had he left ab irato. Father Salvati resumed his discourse.

He was opposed to giving an eminently intellectual character to the movement of reform, not so much on account of the danger from Rome as of the danger of troubling the simple faith of a multitude of quiet souls. He wished the Union to set itself first of all a great moral task, that of bringing back the faithful to the practice of gospel teachings. To illumine hearts was, in his eyes, the first duty of those who aspired to illumine minds. Speaking with all due respect, it was obviously less important to transform Catholic faith in the Bible, than to render Catholic faith in the word of Christ efficacious. It must be shown that, in general, the faithful praise Christ with their lips, but that the heart of the people is far from Him; it must further be shown how much egoism enters into a certain form of fervent piety which many believed to be a source of sanctification.

Here Don Paolo and Minucci protested, grumbling: “This has nothing to do with the question.”

Salvati exclaimed that it had much to do with it, and he begged them to listen to him patiently. He continued, alluding to a general perversion of the sense of Christian duty as regards the desire for, and the use of, riches; a perversion it would be very difficult to eradicate, it having—In the course of centuries, and with the full sanction of the clergy—taken deep root in the human conscience.

“The times, gentlemen,” the old monk exclaimed, “demand a Franciscan movement. Now I see no signs of such a movement. I see ancient religious orders which no longer have power to influence society. I see Christian democracy, both administrative and political, which is not in the spirit of St. Francis; which does not love holy poverty. I see a society for the study of Franciscan thought—simply an intellectual pastime! I believe that we should promote a Franciscan movement; that is, if we desire Catholic reform..”

“But how?” Faré demanded, while Minucci, much vexed, grumbled: “It’s not that at all!”

Selva felt that the souls which had been united by a first impulse were drifting apart again. He felt that Dane, Minucci, and probably also Faré, wished, as did he himself, to initiate an intellectual movement, and that this Franciscan flash had come out of season and was out of place. It was all the more inopportune in that it was hot with living truth. For undoubtedly there was much truth in Padre Salvati’s words: he recognised this, he, who had often debated in his own mind if it had not been wiser and for the greater good of the Church to promote a moral agitation rather than an intellectual one. But he himself did not feel qualified for this Franciscan apostolate, nor could he discover the necessary qualifications in any of his friends; not even in the most zealous of all, Luigi Minucci, a recluse, an ascetic, shunning the world like Selva himself. Salvati’s arguments served to demolish, but not to build up. Giovanni secretly felt the irony of applying them either to Marinier or to Dane, of whom it was well known that their tastes were anything but Franciscan, that their palates were fastidious, their nerves delicate, and their affections lavished on parrots and little dogs. If anything was to be achieved, a line of defence must at once be adopted.

“Dear Padre Salvati must pardon me,” he began, “if I observe that his discourse—so warm with the true Christian spirit—is ill-timed. I gather that he is with us in desiring a Catholic reform. To-night only a proposal is before us; the proposal to form a sort of league among all those who cherish the same desire. Let us then decide this point.”