BY THE REV. CÆSARIUS TONDINI, BARNABITE.
CONCLUDED.
IV.
It is time that our notice of this subject drew towards its close. The return of the Russian Church to Catholic unity is the dearest wish of our heart. A brother in religion (in which we love each other as perhaps nowhere else in the world, because we love each other for eternity) drew us, during the few months we spent together in Italy, to share in his longings and aspirations for the religious future of Russia, his native country. Before quitting Italy Father Schouvaloff went to Rome, and presented himself before the Pope. The Holy Father, Pius IX., engaged him to make a daily offering of his life to God to obtain the return of his country to the unity of the Catholic Church. Father Schouvaloff joyfully obeyed, and God, on his part, accepted the offering. Being sent to Paris towards the end of the year 1857, Father Schouvaloff died there on the 2d of April, 1859.
Upon his tomb we promised to continue, in so far as it would be granted to us under religious obedience, our feeble co-operation in his work; and our writings are in part the fulfilment of this promise.
Father Schouvaloff’s confidence in the return of Russia to Catholic unity was very great; we have fully shared in this confidence, and everything that, since his death, has taken place in Russia, has but served to augment it. This may appear strange, but perhaps more than one among our readers will share it with us when we have said in what manner we look forward to this happy event.
A return of the Russians en masse to Catholic unity we scarcely contemplate. This could not happen except under the hypothesis of political interests which appear to us inadmissible. And even should we, in this matter, be mistaken, and from political interests the Russian people were to accept union with Rome, would a union thus brought about be desirable? Unless we mistake, the words of Jesus Christ might be applied to a faith thus created when he said, Omnis plantatio quam non plantavit Pater meus eradicabitur—“Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up” (S. Matt. xv. 13). Was it by promising the Jewish nation to deliver it from the Roman yoke that Jesus Christ taught his heavenly doctrine? Was it by promising independence, honors, temporal advantages, that the apostles persuaded the pagans to believe in the Crucified? Again, is it by pointing to a perspective of material advantages that any Catholic priest, however moderately cognizant of his own duty and the good of souls, seeks to induce any one to become a Catholic? If to those who aspire to follow Jesus Christ was always held the same language as that which he himself used to them, there might, perhaps, be fewer conversions, but they would be true conversions, and each one would lead on others, as true as themselves. No; a faith created by political interests would never be a real and solid faith, and other political interests would cause it to be cast aside as easily as it had been accepted; it is the tree which the Father has not planted, and which will be rooted up. Besides, history proves it. More than once have the Greeks momentarily reunited themselves to the Catholic Church; their defection has been explained by the fides Græca, and that is all. But let us be just; Greek faith is pretty much the faith of every nation. If we take into account the circumstances under which these reunions were accomplished, the motives which led the Greek bishops, whether to Lyons or to Florence, and the small care they took to cause that that which had agreed happily with their presence in the council—the discussion of the contested points—should remain always the principal end, we shall perceive that the duration of the reunion would have been a prodigy.
In not effecting this prodigy our Lord has perhaps willed to hinder men from finding in history a denial given to his words: Omnis plantatio quam non plantavit Pater meus eradicabitur—“Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.”
Neither have we by any means an unlimited confidence in the action which might be exercised by the emperors of Russia on the bishops and clergy of their church. While retaining the hope that the czars may understand that it is to their interest to dispossess themselves, in great part at least, of the religious power, and not even despairing of their favoring the reunion of the Russian bishops with Rome, our confidence is not based upon their actions. It is difficult for us to believe that they could be moved by other than political interests; that which we have said, therefore, respecting a return en masse of the Russian people, would consequently here again find its application. Besides, if formerly the word of a czar was that of Russia, and his will the will also of his subjects, it is no longer the same in the present day. When Peter I. accepted the scheme of reunion proposed by the doctors of the Sorbonne of Paris, and consented to have it examined by his bishops (1717); when Paul I. took into consideration the plan suggested by Father Gruber (1800), one might truly have said, Russia promises fair to become Catholic. At this present time, however, an emperor of Russia might probably speak and promise for himself alone. We must add that at a period when changes in popular opinion and sympathies are as frequent as they are sudden, the simple fact that the reunion with Rome had been promoted and favored by a czar might, in certain circumstances, furnish an additional pretext for disavowing it afterwards.
But what is it, then, which induces us to hope, which sustains our confidence, and which emboldens us to manifest it openly, though we should seem to be following an utopian idea?