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 CONFLICTS \VITH ROl\IE

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reports. 1 A fe\v months later came the necessity for a further distinction bet\veen the Pontiff and the Sovereign. If the doctrines of the Avenir had caused displeasure at Rome, it was only on political grounds. If the Pope was offended, he was offended not as Vicar of Christ, but as a temporal monarch implicated in the political system of Europe. In his capacity of spiritual head of the Church he could not condemn writers for sacrificing all human and political considera- tions to the supreme interests of the Church, but must in reality agree with them. 2 As the Polish Revolution brought the political questions into greater prominence, Lamennais became more and more convinced of the \vickedness of those \vho surrounded Gregory XV!., and of the political incompetence of the Pope himself. He described him as weeping and praying, 'motionless, amidst the darkness which the ambitious, corrupt, and frantic idiots around him \vere ever striving to thicken. s Still he felt secure. When the foundations of the Church were threatened, ,vhen an essential doctrine was at stake, though, for the first time in eighteen centuries, the supreme authority might refuse to speak,4 at least it could not speak out against the truth. In this belief he made his last journey to Rome. Then came his con- demnation. The staff on which he leaned with all his weight broke in his hands; the authority he had so grossly exaggerated turned against him, and his faith was left without support. His system supplied no resource for such an emergency. He submitted, not because he ,vas in error, but because Catholics had no right to defend the Church against the supreme will even of an erring Pontiff. 5 He \vas persuaded that his silence would injure religion, yet he deemed it his duty to be silent and to abandon theology. He had ceased to believe that the Pope could not err, but he still believed that he could not lawfully be disobeyed. In the two years during which he still remained in the Church

1 Feb, 8. 1830. 2 Aug, 15. 18 3 1 . 3 Feb. 10. 18 3 2 . 4 July 6. 1829, ð Sept, IS. 18 3 2 ,

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