"Holiness, it is not for me to tell Cardinal Talacryn that Holy Mass is not only a sacrament for the sanctification of souls, but a sacrifice--the Real Sacrifice of Calvary, offered by our Divine Redeemer and pleaded in His Name by us His vicars. It is not another sacrifice, but the Sacrifice of the Cross applied. It is the Clean Oblation, offered to God for all Christians quick and dead, for all for whom Christ died." "Would not the bonafides of the Non-Catholic in question come in?" said Semphill. "Take for instance the Divine Victoria----" "'Divine'?" queried della Volta. "Yes, 'Divine.' You say 'Divus Julius' and 'Divus Calixtus,' meaning 'the late Julius' and 'the late Calixtus.' Very well, then I say 'the Divine Victoria' for a more thoroughly, worthy woman----" "Well, but that would mean that on the death of such and such a Non-Catholic, we should have to institute a process of inquisition, and adjudicate on his or her life and career:" Ferraio ventured. Hadrian threw His cigarette-end at a lizard on the gravel, and laughed shortly. "'Pippety-pew, me mammy me slew, me daddy me ate, me sister Kate gathered a' me baines----'" He quoted with deliciously feline inconsequence. "How you theological people do split straws, to be sure! Go on, though. You're intensely interesting." The Patriarch of Lisbon slapped his knee. "Holiness, there are several decrees which are supposed to bear on the subject," Gentilotto gently put in. "Can Your Eminency remember them?" "Innocent III. ruled that communion might not be held with those deceased, with whom it had not been held when they were alive." "I concede it. But it doesn't touch the point. I distinguish. Holy Mass is more than mere communion. Besides, we don't communicate with, but on behalf of, the deceased. It's not a concession to the deceased. It's our duty to God and to our neighbour," Carvale persisted. "Then there was the case of Gregory XVI. and Queen Caroline of Bavaria," Gentilotto continued. "The argument is the same: but perhaps it has been expanded a little. It definitely prohibits persons, who have died in the eternal and notorious profession of heresy, from being honoured with Catholic rites." "Another point occurs to me," Talacryn went on. "Supposing that we sing requiems for Non-Catholics, we should imply that one religion is as good as another." "I guess I deny the consequence," Grace retorted. "Of course people would infer all sorts of things which ought not to be inferred: but I can't see that that need concern us." "One might imperil the salient and sacred aloofness which marks off God's Work from man's work, the Church's unmistakeable contrast to the whole world," said the Cardinal of St. Nicholas-in-the-Jail-of-Tully. "And her complete discordance from the world by all the difference which separates the Divine Institution from the human, the Church of God from the churches of men," Saviolli appended.