On this particular afternoon, however, his mind had been occupied with matters of more than ordinary import. It happened that a Bishop from the United States had arrived in 64 Rome the preceding day to pay his decennial visit to the Vatican and report on the spiritual condition of his diocese. While awaiting the return of the Papal Secretary, he had engaged in earnest conversation with a Cardinal-Bishop of the Administrative Congregation, in a small room adjoining the one where Josè was occupied with his clerical duties. The talk had been animated, and the heavy tapestry at the door had not prevented much of it from reaching the ears of the young priest and becoming fixed in his retentive memory.
“While I feel most keenly the persecution to which the Church must submit in the United States,” the Bishop had said, “nevertheless Your Eminence will admit that there is some ground for complaint in the conduct of certain of her clergy. It is for the purpose of removing such vantage ground from our critics that I again urge an investigation of American priests, with the view of improving their moral status.”
“You say, ‘persecution to which the Church must submit.’ Is that quite true?” returned the Cardinal-Bishop. “That is, in the face of your own gratifying reports? News from the American field is not only encouraging, but highly stimulating. The statistics which are just at hand from Monsignor, our Delegate in Washington, reveal the truly astonishing growth of our beloved cause for the restoration of all things in Christ. Has not God shown even in our beloved America that our way of worshiping Him is the way He approves?”
“But, Your Eminence, the constant defections! It was only last week that a priest and his entire congregation went over to the Episcopal faith. And––”
“What of that? ‘It must needs be that offenses come.’ Where one drops out, ten take his place.”
“True, while we recruit our depleted ranks from the Old World. But, with restricted immigration––”
“Which is not restricted, as yet,” replied the Cardinal-Bishop with a sapient smile. “Nor is there any restriction upon the inspiration, political as well as spiritual, which the American Government draws from Rome––an inspiration much more potent, I think, than our Protestant brethren would care to admit.”
“Is that inspiration such, think you, as to draw the American Government more and more into the hands of the Church?”
“Its effect in the past unquestionably has been such,” said the Cardinal-Bishop meditatively.
“And shall our dreams of an age be fulfilled––that the Holy Father will throw off the shackles which now hold him a prisoner within the Vatican, and that he will then personally direct the carrying out of those policies of world expansion which shall gather all mankind into the fold of Holy Church?”