Abstract
More than most statesmen, Popes lead a schizophrenic existence, straddling life as it ought to be and life as it is. Leo XIII had rephrased this dual existence as the thesis and the hypothesis. The thesis was the ideal, while the hypothesis was the melancholy approximation with which the Church had to be content at any particular given point in history. Indeed the fanciful visitor to St Peter’s may choose to see the difference symbolised in the two clocks that face him as he crosses the great disc of the piazza, the one always ten minutes faster than the other. After absently readjusting his watch a number of times, he may experience a sense of fellow feeling with the Faithful, as he wonders which of the two should guide his life for the present.
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© 1974 Maurice Larkin
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Larkin, M. (1974). Catholics and the Separation. In: Church and State after the Dreyfus Affair. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01851-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01851-2_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-01853-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-01851-2
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