APPENDIX
299 "All progress achieved within Christendom has been achieved in spite of the Church of Rome and in inverse ratio to its power". MACAULAY. "The 'scala segreta' the secret staircase, is one of the government's great resources. . . . It is the stagedoor entrance of this pompous theatre called the Papacy, a thousand times more fertile in lies, dupery and immorality than any other theatre in the world." c. s. VOLPI (Privy Chamberlain to the Pope).
THE DEATH OF PIUS XII
As this book (French edition) was going to press, the death of His Holiness Pius XII, on 9 October 1958, was bringing to a close the most tragic pontificate of all times. And it may be said that the pomp of the funeral was equal to such a fate. Moreover, this "great pope" who was so keenly aware of the power of modern publicity could not pass away without a powerfully orchestrated concert of hyperbolic praises. The fact that the Vatican controls "a thousand papers and reviews" in France made the event even less likely to be overlooked.1 It is well known just how excessive was this "popolatry" during his lifetime. In 1954, when the Holy Father was seriously ill, l'Express published a letter from a Catholic lady who was shocked by the "exhibitionist nature of certain demonstrations", and Father Avril2 wrote on the subject: "The authors of these dithyrambs do not realize that the effect produced is exactly contrary to what they intended. The chief complaint against them is that, because they do not always evade the ridiculous, they expose the very person they claim to glorify to the ridicule of ill-intentioned minds. . . . My colleague. Father Deman . . . remarked in this connexion . . .: 'The Pope would do well to spurn this type of homage'. I have often since been reminded of those words." 1
Jean Meynaud: Les groupes de prcssion en France (Cahiers de la Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques) Ed. Armand Colin, Paris 1958, p. 135. L'Express, 25 December 1954. 2