RELIGION AND THE INTELLECTUALS
337
political conditions, which did not put the morality to a severe test
by confronting it with repugnant alternatives. Since the Salvation
Army and Christian Science there have been no considerable mass
movements of that kind. The established religions, particularly the
Catholic Church, have suffered no important splits. They have
shown no great religious vitality, such as in the Middle Ages and
the subsequent centuries produced the new monastic orders, the
Franciscans, the confraternities, the dissident sects and finally the
Protestant reform with its many independent groups. In recent times
the religions have formed or attracted to themselves some noble per–
sonalities; their members have shown the value of the old virtues
and disciplines and have included some excellent
~riters
and scholars;
but they have been unable to give better answers to the difficult
questions of the time than have secular groups or individuals; and
in most cases they have obviously lagged behind these.
As
religious
life has grown more tepid and inert, the most powerful of the
churches has become increasingly totalitarian; the story of the
Vatican council of 1870 which voted the infallibility of the pope
should be read by everyone who is concerned with institutional power
and its methods and the problem of moral reform through the Church.
The weakness of new sect movements since Christian Science is
paralleled by the increased activity of the churches in non-religious
fields, in politics, the trade-unions, sports, recreation and various
cultural sectors. This is a sign of the essentially non-religious trend
of these institutions. For this reason, among others, individuals with
strong religious feelings, have stressed a private, unchurchly and
undogmatic conception of religion, generally mystical, or have in–
clined to prophetic religion as an action of deeply convinced, in–
spired persons who appeal outside as well as inside the churches to
the conscience of the group. Such individual forms of religious life
cannot, however, change the common morality or attitudes, unless
they constitute new groups or influence the character of existing ones.
But we have seen that the Western religions are largely impervious
to such influences today, even when these issue from distinguished
orthodox members. Catholics moved by a Bernanos against Spanish
fascism do not thereby change their Church's support of Franco;
a Don Sturzo is helpless in the Vatican; it should be said, finally,
that where individual conscience operates today in social and cul-
