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CREATIVE OMNIPOTENCE 151
Calvinists? If the Pope were to concede, in principle, liberty of conscience, he would declare that, to him, his truth was doubtful. Now, to him, truth does not belong to a system, it does not belong to a sect, it does not belong to an imaginary religion, it belongs to believing humanity, it belongs to Hermes and Moses, to Jesus Christ, to Saint Paul, to Saint Augustin, to Fénelon and Bossuet, all of them greater thinkers and greater men than Proudhon, Dr Gamier, the sceptic Girardin and the nihilists Tartempion orJohn Bonhomme, do you understand? ... Do you understand?
No, the Pope must not say that in matters of religion we are free to think what we please. It is a strange way of interpreting liberty when the supreme head of an absolute Church is compelled to be tolerant when it is evident that tolerance would be the suicide of his spiritual authority. It is indulgence not tolerance that the representative ofJcsus Christ owes to men and their errors. The Church is charity; everything which is uncharitable is contrary to her. Her only way of sustaining and perpetuating herself is by charity. That is to say, by the continual miracle of her good works which must prove her divinity to the world.
To assure her reign on earth, she must not enlist the zouaves, she must create saints. She must never forget this great saying of the master: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.’
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