“Rome lives on Jesuitism. Indubitably, without Loyola, Catholicism would have rotted away much sooner. It is obvious that this would have been better, but we are not talking about that. A good general is not one who defends just causes, but one who wins battles.
“The Borgias, Luther, and Saint Ignatius, between them, killed the predominance of the Latin race.
“The Borgias threw discredit on the free Renaissance life, before the face of all nations; Luther removed the centre of spiritual life and philosophy to Germany and England; Saint Ignatius prevented Roman Catholicism from rotting away; he put iron braces on the body that was doubling over with weakness, and inside his braces the body has gone on decomposing and has poisoned the Latin countries.
“On hearing this opinion here, they asked me:
“‘Then you think Catholicism is dead?’
“‘No, no; as to having any civilizing effect, it is dead; but as to having a sentimental effect, it is very much alive... and it will still unfortunately keep on being alive. All this business of the Virgin del Pilar and the Virgin del Carmen, and saints, and processions, and magnificent churches, is a terrible strength.... If there were an emancipated bourgeoisie and a sensible working class, Catholicism would not be a peril; but there are not, and Catholicism will have, not perhaps an overpowering expansion, but at least moments of new growth. While we have a lazy rich class and a brutalized poor class, Catholicism will be strong.’
“Leaving the utilitarian and moral questions aside, and considering merely the amount of influence and the traces left by this influence, one can see that Rome is living on Loyola’s work and still dreaming of Borgia’s. Those pilgrims in the Piazza di San Pietro who enthusiastically yell, Viva il Papa-re! are acclaiming the memory of Cæsar Borgia. Thus you have the absurd result, people who speak with horror of an historic figure and still hold his work in admiration.
“This Spanish influence that our country gave to the Church in two ways, spiritual and material,—to the Church which now is an institution not merely foreign but contrary to our nature,—Spain ought today to try to use in her own behalf. Spain’s work ought to be to organize extra-religious individualism.
“We are individualists; therefore what we need is an iron discipline, like soldiers.
“This discipline established, we ought to spread it through the contiguous countries, especially through Africa. Democracy, the Republic, Socialism, have not, essentially, any root in our land. Families, cities, classes, can be united in a pact; isolated men, like us, can be united only by discipline.