John, the true author of the Fourth Gospel, or the two
Isaiahs? When, gathered there, you unite yourselves to Christ in the
sacrament, are you disturbed by the decrees of the Index, or of the Holy
Office? When, lying there, you pass into the shadows of death, is the
peace it sheds about you any less sweet because a Pope is opposed to
Christian Democracy?
"My friends, you say 'We have rested in the shade of this tree, but now
its bark is splitting, is being dried up, the tree will die; let us seek
another tree.' The tree will not die. If you had ears you would hear the
movement of the new bark which is forming, which will have its span of
life, which will crack, will be dried up in its turn only to be replaced
by another coat of bark. The tree does not perish, the tree grows."
Benedetto sat down, exhausted, and was silent. There was a movement
among the audience like the shuddering of waves surging towards him.
Raising his hands, he stopped them.
"Friends," he said, in a weary, sweet voice, "listen to me once more.
Scribes and Pharisees, elders and princes among priests, have striven in
all times against innovations, as they strive to-day.
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