It was not the sort of interview to win the hearts of men who were ready to give their lives to set right what they believe to be the greatest outrage that has ever been inflicted upon Christendom, that is to say the forty-three years of military preparation and of diplomacy by threats that culminated in the ultimatum to Serbia, the invasion of Belgium and the murder of the Vise villagers.  It was adorned with a large portrait of “Benoit XV.,” looking grave and discouraging over his spectacles, and the headlines insisted it was “La Pensee du Pape.” Cross-heads sufficiently indicated the general tone.  One read: 

"Le Saint Siege impartial...  Au-dessus de la bataille...." The good Cardinal would have made a good lawyer.  He had as little to say about God and the general righteousness of things as the Bishop of London.  But he got in some smug reminders of the severance of diplomatic relations with the Vatican.  Perhaps now France will be wiser.  He pointed out that the Holy See in its Consistorial Allocution of January 22nd, 1915, invited the belligerents to observe the rules of war.  Could anything more be done than that?  Oh!—­in the general issue of the war, if you want a judgement on the war as a whole, how is it possible that the Vatican to decide?  Surely the French know that excellent principle of justice, Audiatur et altera pars, and how under existing circumstances can the Vatican do that...?  The Vatican is cut off from communication with Austria and Germany.  The Vatican has been deprived of its temporal power and local independence (another neat point)....

So France is bowed out.  When peace is restored, the Vatican will perhaps be able to enquire if there was a big German army in 1914, if German diplomacy was aggressive from 1875 onward, if Belgium was invaded unrighteously, if (Catholic) Austria forced the pace upon (non-Catholic) Russia.  But now—­now the Holy See must remain as impartial as an unbought mascot in a shop window....

The next column of Le Journal contained an account of the Armenian massacres; the blood of the Armenian cries out past the Holy Father to heaven; but then Armenians are after all heretics, and here again the principle of Audiatur et altera pars comes in.  Communications are not open with the Turks.  Moreover, Armenians, like Serbs, are worse than infidels; they are heretics.  Perhaps God is punishing them....

Audiatur et altera pars, and the Vatican has not forgotten the infidelity and disrespect of both France and Italy in the past.  These are the things, it seems, that really matter to the Vatican.  Cardinal Gasparri’s portrait, in the same issue of Le Journal, displays a countenance of serene contentment, a sort of incarnate “Told-you-so.”

So the Vatican lifts its pontifical skirts and shakes the dust of western Europe off its feet.

It is the most astounding renunciation in history.