Let the Pope be congratulated for his tenacious keeping of the idea of Theocracy. But let him consider this idea only as the starting-point in the social science of the Church. His Theocracy has been refused because it was not at the same time Christocracy and Sanctocracy. The saints in Christ are alone infallible. Let the Vatican be filled with saints, and infallibility then will not need to be preached and ordered but only to be silently shown. Nobody believes infallibility upon authority, but everyone will accept it upon Saintliness.
The way of authority is a fallible way.
The way of knowledge is quite as fallible.
But the way of saintliness is infallible.
Every spirit is fallible but the spirit of saintless. The Church is infallible not by any talisman but by her saintliness. The Bishop of Rome or of Canterbury will be infallible only if they are saints. The saints are detached from everything and attached to Christ, so that Christ incarnates His spirit in them. Not we, but Christ in us, is infallible.
Let the people of the Eastern Church stick to their Christian ideal of saintliness. Their interpretation of the Christian spirit may be the best and truest. Yet the ideal must become flesh. Let them not be proud of their not having pride, and exclusive because God chose them to understand the bottomless deepness of the esoteric Christianity. By pride towards the proud and by exclusiveness they may spoil and darken their ideals and remain in the dark.
Let all the Churches feel their unity in the ideal spirit of saintliness. But if that is difficult for them, let them first feel their unity in sinfulness, in committed sins and crimes, in their nakedness and poverty. Just to start with, this first step seems absolutely necessary. Never any great saint became saintly unless he first thought himself equal in impurity and sinfulness with all other human beings. The Churches must go the way of the saints. Their way is the only infallible one.
THE ONLY NECESSARY EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE CHURCH
When you deeply search in history about the causes of the strength of the primitive Church and of the weakness and decay of the modern Church, you will come to a very clear and simple conclusion.
1. The primitive Church was inclusive as to its forms, but exclusive as to its spirit.