The menace. [volume] (Aurora, Mo.) 1911-1920, 1919-06-28

vine right" and military might. The hui
man race has suffered as never before in
its successful effort to repudiate autocracy.
And now the disorganized world is try
ing to re-organize itself in peace that
must be sound and sane if it is to be per-
manent. Change is the order Of the day;
and the demand for readjustment comes
from every imaginable source. 1t is not
within the province or power of a few
crowned heads to dispose of the ex-kaiser
and the vast problems his activities have
raised.
Reform, with the alternative of revolu-
ton, stare statesmen in the face with an in
sistence that cannot be evaded but Ro-
man kaiserism, popery, the papal system,
the alleged church of Rome, still asserts it's
divine right to persist unchanged until this
moment. Roma Semper eGdem is sick of
the prevailing fever. Rome always the
same has become an impossibility. Rome
must change or die. Even the senile pope,
Of reactionary traditions, hastens to make
peace with the inevitable.
The way Benedict goes about this COM
promise with world he is no longer able
to bluff is as interesting as the situation
which makes such extraordinary change Of
tactics necessary.
Even he has quit prattling about at
tacks upon Christianity. That bogie has
been worn threadbare. Christianity is
rising from the ruins of war to serve man
kind with a closer union of it's sincere
champions. The danger is not to Chris
tian religion; but that the Christian reli-
gion may get away from papal domination
1t is not Socialism or Bolshevism or syn
dicalism or any of the turbulent isms that
challenge Rome to prove it's fitness for the
coming time; but it is worldwide demo-
cratic sentiment, calm and determined,
that questions popery as boldly and as un-
sympathetically as it has challenged
kaiserism.
Christianity is not in danger 1t is the
pope's authority that is in danger. You
will notice in the message from Rome that
the pope is prepared to give up some of his
dogmaS to prevent Catholic communities
febelling and joining the great interna-
al religious movement which seems about
to move on and leave the papacy alone with
its dead past and decayed notions.
Pope Benedict first admonished the
rebel Modernists whom his predecessor had
S1lueted by that means in the piping times
Of peace; but the effect in Bohemia is
probably duplicated in other Catholic
strongholds. There is too much excitement
Sver realities to heed such vaporings; and
they fall flat with peoples who are deadly in
earnest concerning matters of pressing i'm
portance.
Then the spirit of the pope became dar-
ing enough to evolve something new
whereby leadership of the international re-
hgious movement wostld revert to Rome as
IN the middle ages. His first care is to save
the leadership to himself. Dogmas not es-
sential to his leadership and authority can
pe sacrificed in order to preserve his power
is religious dictator. This is more than
interesting.
! His effort is not so much to save the faith
in its pristine purity as to save the power
perqrlisites, authority and position Of his
papal self. He places his new departure
not in the hands Of his theologians but in
the hands of his expert politician and dip,
lpnat, Cardinal Gasparri, papal secretary
Of state.
1t is not to save Rome's, theology and
traditional faith; but to save or preserve
fhe political ascendancy of its pope. Poll.
sics demands that if anything papal is tC
besaved from thewreck of war, Rome must
become more in harmony with the times. Il