The Pope in Politics

Extract

It is a dangerous thing to describe the present in terms of the past. The pontificate of Pius XI is not yet history; nor are we sufficiently removed from certain great political events in which the Holy See has been involved in the last fifteen years, to judge them without passion and with due proportion. Mr. Teeling has made an ambitious attempt to describe and to account for the apparent trend of Vatican diplomacy, which, especially since the beginning of the Abyssinian war, has been the object of so much unflattering attention in this country. In so doing he has sought to place this prickly subject in its proper setting by describing the manifold moral, political and social problems with which the Catholic Church is confronted in every part of the world. It is a cross between history and guess-work; but it is not without value to non-Catholic readers for whom the book seems to be mainly intended. On balance it may be that it will do more good than harm in those circles where ignorance of the immensity and complexity of the Church's task is as monumental as is, on the other hand, that Catholic prejudice which the author has so rashly challenged.