VIII. attached this College perpetually to the Sacred Con-

gregation of the Propaganda, and Innocent X. increased it by the funds and the alumni of a small Maronite College previously established in Bologna. So the College con- tinued to advance in its sphere of Church utility ; and with it arose and progressed institutions necessary for its own work and for the work of the Sacred Congregation, which, Avith pinidence and zeal, continued to direct the whole of the missionary responsibility of the Holy See from the days of Gregory XV. to those of Leo XIII.
I will here quote for you a remarkable document furnished me by Monsignor Conrado, the present, erudite, zealous, and greatly beloved Eector of the Propaganda College. It is interesting, and manifests the sources from which the educational funds of the C'ollege were derived. Translated from the original Italian, it is as follows : —
NOTICE OF THE TJEBAN COLLEGE, TAKEN FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE PROPAGANDA.
Befoee commencing to speak of the institution of the Urban College, from whence have gone forth so many personages illustrious for the pro- fundity of their knowledge, for the sanctity of their lives, and for their zeal for religion, it is necessary to give an idea of the origin of the Sacred Congregation destined for the propagation of the Faith. Because, however divided one from the other, these two pious establishmeuts were in the beginning, the College owes its existence, certainly, to the Sacred Congrega- tion. The immortal Gregory XV., called to the consideration of the duties of the supreme authority of the Church, saw amongst the very first that of carrying the Gospel light amidst the darkness of the Gentiles, that of uniting in the bond of charity those who lived disjoined from it, and that of bringing back to the true belief those who found themselves immersed in error ; he, therefore, in the second year of his pontificate, instituted this Sacred Congregation, to which he confided the propagation of the Faith throughout the universe. It was composed of thirteen Cardinals, two Prelates, and one religious first time on the 6th of December, 1622. In this first meeting the Cardinal Ludovisi having mentioned the motive of its creation, asked his collegues to manifest openly their sentiments regarding the best manner of propaga-
THE URBAN COLLEGE. 27
ting the Faith. It was resolved that all the Nuncios of the Holy See should be written to, in order that they should send information regarding the state of religion in the provinces and kingdoms committed to them ; also, that the heads of Eeligious Orders should receive instructions to send accounts of the state of the missions conducted by them amongst heretics and infidels. And first of all it was resolved that the Bishop of Cozentino should be written to for the papers which he held in charge regarding the propagation of the Faith in the time of Clement VIII.
The Bull of the erection, the revenues necessary, the purchase of a palace which should be an asylum for the converted, the residence for the alumni destined for the service of the missions, and the material foundation of the Congregation itself, were also matters of deliberation in that first session. Monsignor Yives of Valencia in Spain, Ambassador of Isabella, the illustrious Infanta of Spain and Governor of the Belgian Provinces, a personage of singular piety, offered for the purposes of the Congregation the Ferratina Palace, where even at present the most eminent Cardinals meet to decide upon religious questions which arise in different parts of the world. On the 4th of February following, the second Congregation was held. The principal things then considered were the faculties, the relations to be made to the Pope after each Congregation, and the manner by which a revenue might be created for that pious establishment. Amongst other pro- jects the Cardinal of Saint Susannah proposed the application of the Cardinal's rings. This project was pleasing to all, and the Pope by inserting it in his Bull approved of it, and it still subsists. The same Gregory, at the canoniza- tion of Saint Ignatius and Saint Isidore, gave two thousand five hundred golden crowns ; also when he prescribed that the Congregation should meet once a month before the Pope he offered ten thousand scudi. Nor did this limit his pious liberality, since other acts are found of his munificence.
The Bishops of Christendom also received impulses to collect alms for the promotion of this holy work in the Lenten times. A certain obligation, it appears, arose, since by reason of the pious contributions, great acquirements were made for the work. In consequence, regulations were drawn up regard- ing the administration. Two Cardinals, with the Cardinal's Secretary, were elected every year to superintend the temporal interests of the Congregation. Fmally, there was besides instituted a special judge, an agent, and a notary. Matters thus progressed until, on the 8th July, Gregory XV. passed to a better life. The Cardinal Barberini succeeded him, and took the name of Urban VIII. On the 4th September the first Congregation was held under the new Pontiff. Urban VIII. by his Bull, ImmortaUs, ordained the erection of the Congregation on the 1st of August, 1627. The spirit of the Bull is as follows : — The holy Pontiff first mentions the grave burden which he feels in the government of the Universal Church. He mentions the supplication of Monsigr. Vives, by which the intended College is reduced to some form, and by which the latter gives his palace and all its annexes, together with all the rest of his goods, with the reserve of the use only during his natural life. He institutes the College on the condition that if it does not become a reality during his own pontificate ; it should obtain it in that of his successors. He speaks of the instance of Monsigr.
29, SPOLIATION OF THE PIIOPAGAXDA.
Vives, and the confimiation accorded with the condition expressed in the instrument. He then institutes after the acceptation of the donation, after the confirmation of the conditions, and after the making good of any defects, the Pontifical College or Apostolic Seminary, under the invocation of SS. Peter and Paul, by the name of the Urban College, for the defence and Propagation of the Faith, called the Propaganda. (By the form of the Bull, iV^e nova, of the 13th of March, 1640, it is forbidden to every college or seminary to take that designation.) He orders that the alumni from the secular state can be taken from every nation. They should be of sound maxims, of pure morals, and of sound piety. They should serve throughout their whole lives, encounter dangers, sufferings, and, if need be, martyrdom. He assigns the dotation for the maintenance of the econome, of the rector, of the masters, and of the students, deputing as administrators three Canons of the three patri- archal basilicas, at the death of whom he reserves to himself the nomination of their successors, to be taken from that basilica to which the deceased belonged. He accords to these ample faculties to elect and remove rectors, economes, officials, and masters ; to make rules and give orders conformable to the canons and apostolic constitutions ; to change these, to correct them and interpret them. He exempts all the individuals of the College from every jurisdiction of the vicar, senator, conservator, and rector of studies, as well as from whatsoever tax whether of land or sea. He takes the college under his own immediate protection and awards to it every privilege conceded to the German, English or Greek Colleges. He inhibits any one from molesting either the college or the officials. He wishes that no one should regard as defective, tight against, suspend, call in judgment for vice of nullity or intention, Avhomsoever should be there found residing, and declares null all that which could be attempted, knowingly or unknowingly, against his constitution. He orders the Bishops of Ostia, the Vicar, and the Auditor of the Apostolic Camera to execute this Bull, so that no one under whatsoever pretext could molest it. He threatens censures and the secular arm against its contra- veners. He finally terminates his Bull with the most ample derogatory forms. The College remained divided from the Sacred Congregation until 1641. But on the 16th of lln.y of that year the same Urban VIII. gave another Bull — Romanus Pontifex. In this he revoked and annulled the faculties given to the three Canons of the Patriarchal basilicas. He unites the College to the Sacred Congregation, but leaving the adminstration, govern- ment and direction of it to the Cardinal of St. Onefrius "having taken counsel, as we hope," says the Bull, " with the Congregation of the before- mentioned Cardinals, and with the approbation of the Eoman Pontiff in affairs of greater importance."
FOUND ATI OXS FOE STUDENTS.
The first foundation for students was made by Monsgr. Vives for the alumni, priests or secular clergyman of whatever nation destined for the Propagation of the Faith througiiout the universe.
The second foundation was made by Cardinal Antonio Barberini with the ju3 patro7iatus reserved, so far as nomination was concerned, to his family.
Till-: uiinAN C()Lij:(iE. 29
This wus destined for six nations, each one of which ouj^ht to supply two students. These nations were the Georgian, Persian, Chaldean, Melchite, Jacobite and Copt. Urban VIII. gave a JiuW^Altitudo Divini — erecting these foundations, on the 1st of April, 1G37. In this he subjected the alumni to the rule of the College, and to the oath conceding to them all the privileges, faculties and exemptions already enjoyed by the other collegians.
The third foundation Wfis also by the same Cardinal Barberini. It was for seven Ethiopians or Abyssinians, and for ex-Brahmins in Eastern India. Urban VIII. gave a Bull erecting these in 1639 — Onorosa pastoralis Officii. In this he added that if young men could not be found in one of these nation.s they should bo taken from the others; and if in neither, they should be taken from the Armenians in this order, that they should be first those of Poland, then those of Constantinople, then from Tartary, Pericop, Georgia and Armenia the Greater, and Armenia the Less, and finally from Persia. The examination of these also belonged to the family of the Barberini. These students were also placed under the same oath, privileges, etc., as the others. The dotation was assigned for maintaining them, the protector and his faculties. As a crown to such great beneficence the same Cardinal gave in 1646 to the Sacred Congregation the houses which constitute the Island of the College valued at 56,233 scudi. In order to bring the fabric to its present form the same Sacred Congregation spent 96,496 scudi. He died the same year, and left heir to all his estate the Sacred Congregation, to which he also left 1000 scudi of pension which he had from certain episcopal sees.
In 1701 Monsgr. Scanegatti, Bishop of Avellino, left the Sacred Congrega- tion his heir, with the obligation of maintaining five students, reduced to four in 1733.
In 1704 Cardinal Barberini founded a new place to be added to the others of his house.
In 1708 Clement XI. gave 4000 scudi for the maintenance of a student.
In 1715 an Albanian Catholic gave to the Sacred Congregation an offering of 1600 scudi for the education of an alumnus^ with the right of alternative nomination.
In 1719 Cardinal di Adda left the Sacred Congregation his heir, with the obligation of maintaining as many students as it could support by his income. All these being free, the Sacred Congregation assigned one to the Basilian and one to each, of the four Irish Archbishops. But so far as it concerned the Irish, in 1726, the Sacred Congregation, having been requested if these places were conceded perpetually, replied affirmatively, until the Sacred Congregation shoidd decide otherwise. It is to be here borne in mind that in this cor.- cession there is a derogation from a decree of 1644, which laid down that no students should be received from nations which had colleges either in Pome or outside of Pome.
In 1743 the Sacred Congregation, with 100 LL. M. M., given by John Dominic Spinola, assigned two places to the Bulgarians and one to the Servians, as was found in the College of Fermo, re-united to the Urban College in 1746.
There were also two supernumerary, one Swedish, and another Algerine. The post maintained by Cardinal Albani, the second by Cardinal San Clemen te.
30 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
The piety of the Emperor Charles YI., in order to provide for the spiritual ■welfare of the Greek Wallachians of Transylvania, in the year 1736, ordered that the chamber of that province should pay annually the sum of 432 scudi for the purpose of maintaining three alumni in this College. This assignment was accepted and confirmed by the Pope. The first alumnun was Monsgr. Avon, afterwards Bishop of . Biaritz. To this bishop was afterwards assigned certain funds with the obligation of maintaining twenty alumni in the pro- vince, and to pay for the support of the three to the Propaganda. In the end negotiations were opened in order to diminish such expense, but the issue of them is unknown.
In 1772 two Scotch foundations were instituted, with funds given by Car- dinal di Burnis, and coming from the legacy Montesisto of the codex.
1772. In the College the monks sent by the Patriarch of Cilicia were received.
1754. The Chaldeans of Mossul obtained two places. For ten years the alumni were reduced to thirty-four.
By the reunion of the College of Fermo, and by the places having been brought up to the ancient number, the alumini were sixty-four in 1759. Of these foundations some are of free oollation, and others oi the jus pair onat us of the Barberini family. The Monsignor Secretary presents to the said family the students, and they forward the diplomas. They cannot, however, be admitted without the previous approbation of the Sacred Congregation. In the absence of ecclesiastics, even a lady — as was done by Cornelia Costanza — can use the right acquired. For the rest, that illustrious family beiug rendered so well meriting of the College, it enjoys the right to have a copy of all the works which issue from its printing office. In what pertains to the admission of the students, no one can be received if he has not been previously admitted by the Sacred Congregation. Therefore, Bishops and Vicars-Apostolic do not use arbitrary means in sending them, as happened on other ocuaiions.
But if they do not receive them from the Sacred Congregation, the Congre- gation is bound to accept them for compassion, and with its own loss.
The alumni ought to be sound, without defect of body, of good disposition and morals, of Catholic family, civil, and with the credit of having goods of fortune, sufficient to pay the expenses of the voyage to Europe.
There are the following recent foundations : — Six places were founded by Father Michael Doyle, of Dublin, an ex-student, about the year 1850.
Foundations for Scotland by the Cardinal of York, who left for that purpose the Eoman suburban tenement called the Loazzo.
On the 25th of June, 1853, Don Armando Heljen, ex-alumnus, left two foundations to the Propaganda for Belgium.
One was left in 1879 for the Diocese of Port Main, in the United States.
One place was founded by Monsignor O'Bryen, for America, in 1883.
Dr. Backhouse also left, for Sandhurst in Australia, as much as will perhaps sustain three students. He was an Alumnus of Propaganda, and left considerable means for the benefit of the diocese in which he laboured long and successfully, and of which he was the first Vicar-Qeueral.
THE uniLV>N culle(;e. 31
From the College here described, thousands of apos- tolic men have gone forth to distant lands, and not a few of these have won the crown of martyrdom. Tlie visitor to Rome now meets with representatives of every race under heaven who come to that Urban Colleii:e for an ecclesiastical education to fit them for the ministry in their several nations. Amidst the various bands of young students bearing the Propaganda uniform he sees the Red Indian of the American Forests, the dark son of Central Africa, the islander of the Southern Seas, the young China- man destined for one of the provinces of his Emperor's Celestial Kingdom, the native of Corea, the child of the Arabian Desert, the soft-featured Circassian, the swarthy Syrian, and occasionally a fair-haired son of Albion ; but never can he miss from the camerate of the Propaganda the tall, muscular forms of that wonderful Celtic race, which from the very opening of the Urban College, has never ceased to form a part, and even a great part of its aluiiini. The Irish come to it from their island home, although no less than three distinctive colleges for their nation exist in Rome. A mitigation in their favour was made in a rule permitting no nation which had a special College of its own in Rome to send alumni to the Propa- ganda. Notwithstanding this rule the four Archbishops of Ireland obtained places for students. And then the same missionary race sent alumni as Irish as the Irish at home, from America, Canada, Australia, India, and other lands which the vast migrations of its people had evangel- ised. No polyglot exhibition of the many which have been given in the Propaganda has ever been wanting in Irish names — a proof in itself of the wonderful extent and in- fluence of Irish faith in the missionary labours of the Church. The number of Irish Propaganda students who
•32 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
have rendered distinguished services to rehgion in foreign lands is very great ; and since the formation of the Church in North America, the number of the sons of Irishmen, educated also in Propaganda, who have there attained con- siderable eminence, is specially remarkable. It may be also well to state that the schools of the Propaganda, directed by the Sacred Congregation, and under the immediate superintendence of the Cardinal Prefect, are attended by the alumni of several Roman missionary Colleges, amongst which I may number the Irish College students, and those of the Greek, Armenian, and North and South American Colleges. They are all taught gra- tuitously ; and their Colleges, as well as other Missionary Colleges not taught in the Propaganda Schools, share in the solicitude of the Sacred Congregation, which watches over every concern of a missionary character in the city and in the world — in urbe et in orhe.
Besides the Urban College, and the great schools for sacred science there are other departments taught within the precincts of the Propaganda Palace, most interesting, not only to the Catholic, but to the learned of every nation. Foremost amonerst these comes
THE LIBRARY. 33
IV.
THE LIBRAKY.
Qn this are collected rare books in every known and spoken language, and in languages >Yhose literatures were formed by the labours of Catholic Missionaries only. Of the latter class are Avorks in the very difficult dialects of innumerable Indian tribes, whose tongues had to be learned, reduced to grammar, and made permanent by the labour of the devoted men, who went to carry the light of the Gospel, and with it brought, as Catholic Missionaries have ever done, the light also of true civilization. Through this means the Maori of New Zealand, the natives of Fiji, and Samoa, and of Tonga-Taboo, can read and write, and be brought into civilized contact with the white man. Eastern literature gives to this library a value still more extraordinary. In it learned men of every rite into which Eastern Christianity is divided, have left the wealth of their researches, during two centuries. These not only illustrate the history of their several nations, but throw an inestimable light upon biblical and archaeological knowledge. The study of the Oriental lan- guages is one which for obvious reasons the Propaganda has never omitted to foster. And at the present moment its professors are acknowledged to be amongst the foremost in Europe in this valuable depart- ment of linguistic science. I believe that since the time of Cardinal Mezzofanti, no greater Oriental scholar has appeared than Professor Ciasca of the Propaganda. He is being fast approached by Professor Fen^ata, brother
of the late Papal Nuncio to Switzerland. The linguistic
c
34 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
capabilities of our own Cardinal Howard are of a high order, and he occupies a distinguished j^lace amongst his brother Cardinals who form the special council of the Oriental Department of the Propaganda.
It is well known that a great part of the value of the Projoaganda library depends upon another department of that great institution which is foremost, if not unique, in its kind in Europe. This is the famous Propaganda Stamperia or\
THE PRINTING OFFICE. 35
V.
THE PRINTING OFFICE.
This magnificant department of Pontifical munificence, enlightenment, and care, at first arose in Home, soon after the art of printing was invented. The Vatican Printing Press which preceded, it, is one of the oldest and most prolific in Europe. By its means, Gregory XIII. , who, as we have seen, commenced the formation of the Propaganda, diff'used tens of thousands of catechisms in every known tongue throughout the world. But it was not until the Propaganda came into full working order as a distinct department, that the now famous Polyglot Press was established and became, then and since, the first institution of the kind possessed by any corporation or nation in the world.
By the zeal and ability of its officials, many of whom were priests, type was founded in all the known characters of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The numerous ancient liturgies of the East were printed in their original characters for the benefit of the various rites using them ; and uncivilized tongues were provided with a literature by which Missionaries might teach the truths of Faith, and advance their co-religionists or neophytes in the path of the truest progress. In this way the gross ignorance which had, by the action of schism, heresy, and the con- quests of the Mahommedans, fallen upon the ancient Christian lands and peoples of the once great Eastern Roman Empire, was taken away, and a new light, not only ol orthodox Christianity, but of knowledge and civilization, diffused, where superstition and darkness had for centuries
36 SPOLIATION OF THE PKOPAGANDA.
prevailed. By this means a literature was given to the un- letteredtribes in North and South America, and Missionaries were enabled, even before setting out for these uncultivated people, to learn the languages in Avhich they were to preach and minister to them. By this means the literatures of China, India, and Japan were made familiar to European scholars ; and by this means, too, Catholics condemned by penal legislation to ignorance — as were our Catholic fore- fathers in these three kingdoms — ^^\vere supplied with the means of education.
RESOURCES OF THE PROPAGANDA. 37
VL
RESOURCES OF THE PROPAGANDA.
The various works connected with the Propaganda, of course, imphed great expenses, and necessitated the pos- session of large revenues fixed and well-secured. The care of the Popes and the generosity of the faithful supplied funds which went far, for there is not to be found an establishment of its extent in the world managed at all times with such scrupulous economy and care. Many emulated the generosity of Monsignor Vives and of Cardinal Barberini. Others left to the general purposes of the Pro- pagation of the Faith large legacies — sometimes even their whole inheritance. Besides that which Gregory XV. bestowed upon it, and which Urban VIII. increased, Innocent XII. gave the Institution 150,000 crowns in gold, and Clement XII. gave it 70,000. From its first foundation, all future Cardinals were by a decree of the Pope bound to procure from it their Cardinal's ring, and to pay for this ring a large donation, varying from £400 to double that sum. This forms a most valual^le and perpetual source of revenue. Other sources opened continually. The generosity awakened by the two Pontiffs avIio were mainly instru- mental in founding it, descended to their successors, and spread throughout the entire Church, so that it may bo well said that no institution ever existed which has been more popular with Catholics, nor more unceasingly popular, than the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.
And it deserved to be so, not only because of the sacred objects to which it has devoted its unwearied
38 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
labours, but also because of that extreme economy which has characterised its management from the beginning to this hour. A very strong proof of the genuine excellence of this economy lies in the fact that the Cardinals and Prelates who willed it, either all, or a large portion of their means were members of its management — a management of great labour, for which the funds of the Propaganda never paid them anything. All connected with its care, except the absolutely necessary officials, gave to it the whole of their services gratuitously. These knew well the nature of the work which the sacred Institution did, and the urgency of the wants it supplied. When, therefore, such men have selected it from amongst the many objects which Rome presents for Catholic zeal as the most worthy and the most carefully conducted of all, we may judge of the supreme excellency of its claims. Then the whole of the work which it requires from the other Congregations of Rome must be done gratuitously. The Bulls for its numerous Bishops must be expedited, its cases of conscience, coming, as they do, from all parts of the earth, must be solved, its dispensations of every kind granted, its rubrical, ceremonial, and technical difficulties must be settled, its honours must be bestowed by every department of Church government under the Pope, without one farthing of cost to itself or to its innumerable clients. Then, it was completely exempt, as we have seen, from every kind of tax, for matters whether coming by land or sea, and was freed from municipal burdens, under the Pontificial Government. Its superior management cost nothing, and for its work, secretaries and under- secretaries, writers and teachers, gave their labours for less than that paid by any other Institution in Rome. This they do out of pure devotion to religion and the hope
RESOURCES OF THE Pltoi'AOANDA. 39
of spiritual reward. In proof of this 1 will relate an anecdote of one of its employes — Monsignor Agliardi, at present Archbishop Delegate of the Holy See to British India. This able ecclesiastic devoted his life until well beyond fifty years of age to the severest labours of the Institution. He was one of the overworked minutanti or under secretaries, and in addition acted as Professor of Moral Theology to the students of the Urban College. I believe no more able, learned, or laborious ecclesiastic lived in Rome. He worked as all the minutanti must do, in season and out of season. The Propaganda official is a drudge who seldom knows or looks for a holiday. When every other office in Rome is closed for the terrible Roman, fever-giving months, the Cardinal, the Secretary, and the minutanti are still at their desks. Rome serves all the world> and at the Propaganda all the world is served^ Now the particular official I speak of, left a high and lucrative position in liis native diocese for the work of the Propaganda ; and though his duties placed him in constant correspondence with the Church spread over Asia, and I may say over the islands of the Southern and Indian Ocean, he was paid a great deal less than would satisfv the humblest curate in anv English- speaking country. He could at any moment leave this ])Osition and obtain dignity and comparative ease. But for him, as for the rest of his brethren in harness, the work of the Sacred Congregation had a strong fascination. They seem somehow to thrive on hard work, and if not killed soon by it, to get so used to it, that they cannot do without it. The good Cardinal who now so worthily presides over the whole work of the great institution, has gone through all its grades, from the Minutant^'s desk to that of the Cardinal Prefect. All who visit Rome on business to the Propa- eranda are astonished to find him alwavs at their
40 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
service, from early morning to near midnight. It is so with the Secretary, who is also an esteemed official of the Institute. Their work is, no doubt, a deeply interesting and a most res23onsible one. But there is, I found, a far more powerful motive for attachment to this hard labour for long years and small pay. It is that the officials of the Propaganda, of every class, participate in every good work performed in the world committed by the Vicar of Christ to their care. They enjoy very many indul- gences and are enriched with innumerable spiritual privileges. This I found to be the secret of Archbishop Agiiardi's long years of contented, severe, and ill-paid labour. When we see other men immure themselves in Cisterican and Carthusian cloisters, we can realise the reason of so much devotion, but not till then. The work of the Propaganda is necessary for the greatest ends of God's service. Its officers are certain they are serving the servants of God, the mart}Ts of China, Corea, and Japan, the labourers in every part of the Lord's extended vineyard. I speak of Monsignor Agiiardi, because he has left the Insti- tution, and is now emjjloyed as Papal Delegate in the great Mission of India. But there are others as devotedly performing such duties as his in the Propaganda. There is no lack of attention, and I believe that all, both Bishops and Priests, who have ever had occasion to visit the Insti- tution, will say that they have been forcibly struck with the genuine goodness, prudence, learning, and general superiority of the officials employed in every department of that Sacred Institution.
It happens, by the care of the Popes, that only the very first men in the Apostolic College are appointed Prefects over the Propaganda. The men who occupied the position in this century alone will prove this. I
KESOURCES OF THE rilOPAGANDA. 41
have never seen the late ilhistrious Cardinal Barnabo, but his fame still lives in all the Churches. Before him lived the saintly Cardinal Fransoni, and he was preceded by one who was taken from the position of Prefect to ascend the throne of Peter in some of the most difficult days that have tested a Pope's peculiar worth in this most trying century. The present illustrious man who governs the Propaganda was its Secretary in the days of Cardinal Barnabo. He was taken from that position to discharge most difficult diplomatic duties in Spain, and was afterwards Secretary of State to Pius IX.-, in succession to the late celebrated Cardinal Antonelli. In fact, his present Hohness looks often to the officials of the Propaganda for his diplomatic agents in places where rare tact, knowledge, and sanctitv of life combined, are necessary ; and this has been manifested within the present year in the missions confided to Monsignors Agliardi and Chiavoni in India and South America, respectively. Monsignor Vanutelli, who repre- sented the Pope at the coronation of the Czar, and is now engaged in the difficult nunciature of Lisbon, may be also said to be a member of the Propaganda, in the service of which he discharged the duties of Archiepiscopal Legate at Constantinople.
Havino' now glanced at the nature and historv of this Institution, we shall take a rapid survey of the work it has done, and is doing, for the world.
42 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
VII.
WOPtK OF THE PROPAGANDA.
At the very first meeting of the Cardinals, held by order of Gregory XV., to settle upon the means of forming the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda,, it was resolved that the heads of all the religious orders should be written to for statistics relative to the state of the missions con- fided to their subjects in every part of the world. It was further resolved that the papers of the Provisional Congre- gation called together by Gregory XIII. should be obtained from the Bishop-Secretary. These two acts established the identity of the Sacred Congregation with the vast work carried on by the Roman Pontiff's for the spread of the Faith in preceding ages, and especially with the work of those Cardinals called in to assist Gregory XIII. The new Congregation set instantly to work at the immense amount of labour placed upon its members. Its responsi- bility was very great; It had to look to the East and to the West. The Church in the lands once Catholic, now committed to its keeping, was everywhere in ruins. Four- fifths of the population of the earth wandered still " in darkness and in the shadow of death " outside the narrow boundaries of Christendom. The interior of Africa re- mained a closed book to the European, and within it millions groaned in slavery under rulers who deemed it a sacred duty to offer human victims in thousands annually to idols. Budha and Vishnu held half the human race captive. Savage hordes wandered over the steppes of Asia, through the forests of America, and peopled the innumerable islands of the Pacific with races almost as
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 43
destitute of the knowledge " of a God in this world " as the lower animals upon which they subsisted. Where a semi-civihzation created caste-prejudice, as in India, or refined materiahsm, as in China, mankind in its masses descended into depths of degradation still lower and more worthy of commiseration than the wald tribes in savage life. There was no mercy. The weak " went to the w\all." Little children were slaughtered without pity, the poor were regarded as the accursed of God, and the helpless were trampled upon without hesitation or remorse. Islam had extended its ravages over the fair Christian States which once extended from the Pillars of Hercules to the Red Sea, and from thence through Syria to the waters of the Bosphorus. It was supreme in Persia, and spread its Crescent over all the lands from the crests of the ranges of Thibet to the Chersonesus. It had fixed its seat in the city of Constantine, and its SAvay was undisputed throughout the Balkan Peninsula^ and in the Isles of Greece and of the Levant.
One of the first duties of the new Sacred Congregation was to look after those Christian peoples who yet retained any vestige of Christianity in the nations subjected by Islam. They had become timid and abject slaves under the persecuting lash of their masters. It w^as difficult for missionaries to reach them at all, and then there was another difficulty to be met with before Catholic mission- aries could minister to them.
The Orientals were generally schismatics of various rites and nations, imbued with a fanatical hatred for the Church from wdiich their fathers had seceded. Great zeal was therefore needed amongst these sects. The Mission- aries of the Propaganda had to make their converts either from Islam, which imnished what it called apostasy, with
44 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
terrible severity, or from Christians made vile by ignorance and slavery in the lands of their ruthless conquerors. Yet the grace of God j^revailed to a wonderful extent, and innumerable souls were reconciled and be- came Catholic.
The Aimenians, the Maronites, the Melchites, the Copts, the Nestorians themselves, sometimes abandoned in a body, their errors and schisms, or individually passed over to communion with the Holy See-. In consequence, to-day, we have a Eoman Catholic Archbishop in Athens, another at Naxos ; and Catholic Bishops, Priests and flocks at Skio, Pinos, Andros, Santoria and Lyra, and other places in schismatical modern Greece. In the Turkish Empire in Europe and Asia, there are no less than sixty- six dioceses of various grades at present, not including those in formation, which amount to thirteen, under Vicars or Prefects Apostolic. The great Christian Community of the Armenians have also, by the constant care of the Propaganda, been kept in large measure from schism, and in the graces which spring from union with the Church. Incredible pains have been taken for the spread of the Faith in Egji^t, Nubia, and the old Christian State of Abyssinia. Apostolic prefectures have been established in the remotest regions of Africa ; and the spread of French and other European influences in Algeria and Tunis promises to renew the Faith of the great St. Augustine in the once fertile Christian Provinces which he enlightened by word and pen when he ruled the famous See of Hippo. A special congregation of Cardinals under the Cardinal Prefect devote themselves to the numerous, difficult, and important questions which arise from this department of the work of the Propaganda. Under it are also two flourishing Colleges — one for the Greeks, and the other for
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 45
the Armenians — Avliich latter was founded by Leo XIII. under the able and zealous presidency of the late Cardinal Hassan.
Further to the East, the Sacred Congregation directed during the period which has passed from the opening- efforts of St. Francis Xavier in India and Japan, to our o^vn days, the missionary enterprise of the Church. Under its care, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans penetrated to China, and worked the wondervS we read of during the long reign of Kang-he, and later on of Keen-lung. Innumerable and bloody were the persecutions its Missionaries had to suffer there, as well as in Corea, Thibet, Cochin-China, and other nations bordering upon the Celestial Empire. The Propaganda, besides, looked with ceaseless solicitude upon the changing fortunes of the missions in India, and nourished them amidst the wars and diplomatic arrangements which transferred power from Portugal and France to Great Britain, or to her East India Company of traders. In America it never ceased to follow the tracks of the red man in his forests, and those of the poor negro in his slavery. The history of Indian tribes from Canada to Patagonia, is the history of its Missionaries, of their labours, travels, and martyrdom. It sent witli equal zeal its Apostolic men to the islands of the Southern Seas, as these became known by the exertions of successive explorers. And in those vast regions, where barbarous or uncivilized man yet walks in the darkness of paganism and idolajtory, it never ceased its exertions until now its bishops may be numbered by the hundred, its priests by the thousand, and its converts liy millions. In all, it spread the knowledge of Christ; and or]-)lian- ages, hospitals, schools, and other pious institutions, con- ducted bv Catholic brotherhoods and sisterhoods of various
46 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
forms, now give to the pagan a knowledge of the earnest zeal and devotion of genuine Christianity.
But interesting, as this account is, of its labours — how easy and pleasing it would be to prolong the record if time permitted ! — it is not more interesting than that of the work done by the Sacred Congregation for the salvation of the nations which lapsed into heresy at the period of the Reformation, and for the Faith in this country, and in every land that speaks our language.
If the Faith has again penetrated into Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and those Northern regions whence it was long banished by a vigilant and persecuting heresy, it is owing entirely to the zeal of the Pi\)paganda ; and we have only to recall the history of the Church in England, Ireland, and Scotland, to know how sleepless was its care of our fathers exposed to such long continued persecution in the three kingdoms. Up to 1700, the law of the land pro- hibited a Catholic priest to put his foot into Scotland. Yet the few Scotch Catholic clans of the Highlands and the still more scattered Catholic families of the Lowlands, were never wholly without the ministrations of religion or the means of a Christian education. We have only to look at the annals of these dreary but sadly interesting times, to know that it was the care and the funds of the Sacred Congregation that kept both priest and schoolmaster in this country and so kept the Faith alive and in progress, until at length it needed a Superior over the missions, and at last, a Bishop, to take charge of the gradually increasing- flock. The increase consequent upon the influx of Irish immigrants who swelled the Church to the proportions of greatness, continued to occupy the zealous attention of the Propaganda, until at length the moment came when our present Holy Father was enabled to restore to the
"WOKK OF THE ritOPAGANDA. 47
land evangelized by Columba and Aidan, its ancient Hierarchy.
Ireland occupied so distinct a portion of the care of Propaganda, that I have been frequently led to think the Sacred Congregation was chiefly, if not entirel}', occupied with her concerns, And Ireland indeed deserved it all, for she has proved to be amongst all nations, far the most faithful daughter of the Holy See. Since the days of the terrible peace which followed the long struggle of Hugh O'Neill and O'Donnell for her freedom, and her ancient Faith, the Propaganda applied its whole energies to cure the woes of the Catholics of the country, to minister to them and preserve their Faith, Not only during the brief interval of national triumph secured by the Confeder- ation of Kilkenny, when enormous assistance was given to Ireland through the Legate, Cardinal Rinuccini, but before and after that transient gleam of sunshine on the Church in Ireland, the assistance given to the country by thePropaganda was ceaseless. It took care that in Rome and out of Rome, in many Colleges and Convents, her Clergy should be educated gratuitously. It gave large and well sustained grants for education, the nature of which has been shown by my own Archbishop, who was himself at one time Professor of Hebrew at the Urban Colleoe, and had access to authentic documents proving that point, which, as an Irishman, so much interested him.*
His uncle. Cardinal Cullen, who besides lieing for many years Rector of the Irish College in Rome, was also for a period Rector of the Urban College of the Propaganda has more than once evidenced the same. The Propaganda, besides, found funds for the support as well as for the
^' At the end {page 73) will he found a brief statement ofi this matter.
,.
48 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
education of the Clergy. And Ireland, I believe, is the only country which, having Colleges of her own, both in Rome and in other countries, obtained a right to a certain number of students in the Urban College. Of this number, at various seasons, were many of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of the Irish Church. Cardinal Cullen was a Propagandist, and so was the late Delegate Apostolic to Canada, of whom the Irish Church and Rome herself had such high hopes, Monsignor George Conroy, Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois,
In England, the history of its Church since the death of Elizabeth, is inseparably bound up with the Propaganda. The unwearied care which it bestowed upon that Church rendered so desolate by the action of the rulers — not, we must always remember, of the people— surrounding Elizabeth and James, is worthy of all attention. It never ceased that care from the appointment of the first single Bishop till it saw the ordinary Hierarchy of the country restored to something like its pristine glory. I need not say, that with the same care it followed the children of Ireland, who went forth to found the Churches of the United States, of British Canada, of Australia, and the other dependencies of Great Britain. Even at the present moment the Church in those regions, is not only equal to what she had been in the foremost Catholic States of Europe, but the wonderful zeal, energy, and generosity of her children, compensate for what Catholicity loses in older States, through the action of the Infidel Revolution.
But besides the continued works of zeal which the Pro- paganda has never ceased to foster since its foundation, there is another work which it carries on just as ceaselessly. The Church needs not only to be founded, but when founded in any locality or nation, it has to be administered and cared for.
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 49
This forms no small portion of the labour of the Propaganda. The zeal of its missionaries in many lands, the providential increase of the faithful in others, the self-arising return in response to the invitation and grace of God, in the cases of individuals everywhere within the borders of its jurisdic- tion, has rendered its work in our own days far beyond what it was at the commencement, or for many years afterwards. If we only consider the one duty of selecting the Bishops for the various dioceses in these Islands, in Canada, the United States, and Australia, we may form some idea of this work. We know how frequently priests and people are much exercised with ourselves regarding these appointments. Conflicting interests get at Avork. Public and private affairs are efl^ected. Interminable correspondence arises, for grave issues are at stake. All this work must be settled by the Propaganda before it is presented for final solution to the Vicar of Christ, with whom of course rests the ultimate responsibility. Now, peoples of whose affairs we know absolutely nothing, have interests as dear to them, to be solved in the same way by the Propaganda. The Sees which concern them spread from the rising to the setting of the Sun. Then come questions affecting religious orders, in general and in detail. Everywhere there are important interests to be settled or conciliated ; for it is wonderful how pious people can see the glory of God and the good of souls in directions so very opposite one to the other ; and the more sincere and holy the parties on either side are, the more sure are they to be obstinate, for reasons of the most conscientious kind. If the Propaganda was not there with the patience and experience it possesses, and with the power of the Supreme Pontiff" at its back, there would be no settlement for such disputes as sometimes arise between the most sincere,
D
50 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
devoted, and best intentioned peoples in the world. For what else but an authority that cannot be disputed could settle issues between people obstinate for conscience sake, and only too happy to endure jnartyrdom for con- viction. Such people in our midst, who are not Catholics, break up the little section of Protestantism to which they l^elong into still smaller fragments, whenever they happen to be much exercised by opposite religious views ; and hence we see over one church door the " Free Kirk," and over another " Kirk of Scotland." Indeed a certain good soul who became very solicitous for my own salvation invited me in a passenger car to join the Church of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, established in a subur]:) of London, in the year of Grace 1884. ''Annual sub- scription £1, to be paid quarterly in advance." As I already belonged to a Church of that title established in an uj^per room in Jerusalem in the year of Grace 33, I declined the invitation. It was, I suppose, a miniature " Free Kirk " which differed and broke off from some other, there being no one to settle the difference. But all differences in the Catholic Church are settled by an authority from which there is no appeal, and that authority is exercised for four-fifths of this world, materially sjieaking, by the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, with a patience, skill, and knowledge which no words of mine could adequately express.
And here you will permit me to quote what I wrote on this subject upon another occasion on the Propa- ganda : — ■
Over the minutest as well as the gravest concerns of the immense expanse of its jurisdiction, the Propaganda has always watched with a sleepless vigilance. Sustaining, with an instinct and a power that must be surely largely infused by the Holy Ghost, the divine principle of
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 51
authority, it has never been blind to the slightest manifestation of its abuse. The humblest missionary, the humblest cliild wronged anywhere in the vast extent of its care, is cei'tain to receive from its ollicials a just and a paternal hearing, and, if wronged, is certain of redress. There is not, and there never was on this earth, a tribunal more just, more patient, morekind to all committed to its keeping. Then, too, it watches over the interest of souls with constant assiduity. The most difficult questions are daily submitted to its judgment, and find invariably a solution which cannot be given except where the Vicar of Christ reigns and rules.
1
52 SPOLIATION OF THE TROPAGANDA.
YIII.
THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE PROPAGANDA.
From all that we have seen of the designs of Atheism on last Monday evening, we cannot be surprised that such an institution as the Propaganda should be one of the princi- pal objects of its hatred. And so it has been ever since Atheism, through the organization of Freemasonary, has had any power to persecute. It was amongst the very first of the institutions of Rome which the French revolutionists attacked in the last century. Napoleon, too, so far as in him lay, destroyed the whole of the work of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide. He took possession of the offices and buildings. He smashed the type formed for spreading the Gospel through the whole earth. He carried off to Paris the rarest and most valuable articles found in the museum and library. He suppressed the famous Urban College with a lie in his mouth, namely, that it was useless ; and in his day, children from every nation under the sun were seen in the city of the Popes no longer. He suppressed and plundered the whole circle of great Missionary Colleges, which the zeal of tbe Popes had founded for the many nations needing light. He did simply what mischief he could do, and when the return of the Pope restored the work of the Sacred Congregation in part, he, on his second coming, showed himself no less an Antichrist against the spread, at least, of the Faith. The students whom the first coming of the French had scattered, returned soon after the restoration of the Pope, and settled at Monte Citorio. But in 1809, Napoleon, having a second time taken Rome, at once suppressed that second
THE TERSECUTIONS OF THE PUOPAGANDA. -53
College ; and to obliterate the inemoiy of the beiietieent work of the Sacred Congregation, he destroyed the materials of the very type destined to civilize the barbarous nations of the world by literature as well as by the Gospel.
The tyrant's fall in 1814, however, not only liberated the aged, suffering Vicar of Christ from the talons of the heartless Freemasons, but also let the work of the Missions of the Catholic Church take their ordinary course under the renewed zeal and care of the Cardinals of tlie Propa- ganda. In 1817, the students returned to their old home ; and soon after, the various dependent National Missionary Colleges re-opened under the zeal and fatherly care of the Popes. Under the Pontificate of Gregory XVI: the Institution had not only its Colleges, but all its mighty energies at work, as if no revolution had passed over the sacred city. It continued with unabated energy to spread the Gospel as before, and daily to open out new fields of missionary enterprise. But when the Freemasons again got hold of Rome, all who know that the Freemasonry of our day is as malignant as that of the time of Napoleon, knew that the days of the Propaganda, so far as Freemasonry could affect it, were numbered.
To give you an idea of what it now suffers I shall quote from the Tahlet the exact state of the case : —
" The landed property of Propaganda, in value about eigHteen million lire, has for a long time attracted the attention of the Italian Govern- ment. As far back as 1873 a law was passed forbidding land to be held in mortmain ; but it was not until Victok Emmanuel was dead that the Giunta Liquiddtrice thought of applying it to Propaganda. Early in 1880 the Giunta resolved that the international character of the property of Propaganda should protect it no longer, and accordingly offered the whole of its lands for sale. Legal proceedings were then commenced, and have been carried on with varying success from that time till now. Beaten in the Court of Cassation, the Giunta appealed, with -well-founded confidence,
54 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
to the Supreme Court, and now it is finally decided that the Congrega- tion is for ever incapable of holding real property in Italy. If this were all, it might seem that we had been over hasty in describing as confisca- tion what in reality is only a forced conversion. But confiscation is the only word which rightly fits the appropriation to itself by the/Govern- ment of more than half the property to be dealt with. If the lands were merely sold, the gain to the Government would not be apparent, and action would probably nevei- have been taken, though Propaganda might well complain that Italian bonds were poor securities when taken in ex- change for Italian farms. But it has been arranged that a tax of no less than thirty per cent, shall be charged upon the whole amount of the pro- perty doomed t6 conversion. Again, there is a transfer duty of four per cent., and six per cent, for laud tax, making in all forty per cent. Then, for the benefit of the Government Ecclesiastical Fund — what- ever that may be — there is yet another duty, a progressive tax, be- ginning at fifteen per cent, on 10,000 francs revenue, and going up to forty per cent, on larger sums. The result of this scarcely-disguised spoliation is to strike a blow at the Church, the full force of which can hardly yet be measured."
The A2)pu)iti, already referred to, vainly striving to obtain justice, thus speaks : —
" If the Government, therefore, does not wish to show clearly to all that the pretended guarantees guarantee nothing, as is evident from other sources, it must abstain from limiting in any fashion the free possession of those means which are destined to the exercise of its great office. But whatever its aggressions are, and whatever device it may adopt to oppress the Holy See, it is well it should be known that the Apostolate among the infidels is a natural and a divine right, and, at the same time, a bind- ing duty of the Pontifi', for the exercise of which he needs absolutely to have at hand the pecuniary means free from the supervision of the State.
" Tlie Appunti meet the argument that there is no injury done by the forced conversion, as follows : ' But it may be urged that the freedom of the ministry entrusted to the Propaganda incurs no loss by the sale of its estate, seeing that it has the free disposal of the amount inscribed in the Gra7i Lihro. Now, let us repeat it again, does not the payment of this income depend entirely on the good will and the solvency of the Italian Government ? If it were to fail, many large and necessary missionary establishments would suffer ; and, what is more important, the very centre from which emanates tiie action for diffusing the Gospel throughout the world, would be so weakened as to be unable to supply its most ordinary undertakings.'
THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE PKOrAGANDA. 55
"The Aj}p unit then shows what the nature of the extraordinar}' expenses of tlie Propaganda are: ' Besides tlie ordinary expenses, which are many and very heavy, the Propaganda has continually to come to the aid of the ex- traordinary' needs of the various missions. Taking only, for instance, the decade from 1860 to 1870, a good two millions of capital were consumed in extraordinary grants ; and if these had failed, besides other evils, the Constantinople mission would have died out, for whose rescue it Was necessary to expend over a million and a half. AVith these funds were saved large numbers of Christians during the recent famines in China and Tonquin ; and recently, after the sale, pendente lite, of Propaganda pro- perty by the Royal Commissioners, if extraordinary resources had not been obtained from abroad, no aid could have been given to the missions in Egypt, Central Africa, the Christian communities of India, China, and Oceania, tried by terrible disasters."
The above remonstrance would be simply laughed at by the party in power in Italy if it were not supported by force from without. Indeed the only concern the Italian Government showed was lest Catholics outside Italy should insist on their clear rights to the possession of the funds of the Projiaganda. The Infidel inner circle, of which I spoke so much to you last Monday evening, have long determined on the destruction of the Propaganda ami all its missionary work. Antichrist has no greater enemy. The destruction of the Temporal Power, the disbanding of the religious orders, the whole system of disentegration and persecution to which they determined to subject the Church and the Vicar of Christ, would be useless so long as the Propaganda remained at its work, sustaining and propagating Christianity — and earnest, fervent Christianitv, too— in the world.
Next, therefore, to the spoliation of the Holy Father's temporal dominions and the spoliation and suppression of the Religious Orders, there was nothing the Freemasons in power now in Italy desired more than the suppression of the Propaganda. But the necessity of
56 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
going somewhat moderately and cautiously to work, in order the more efficaciously to succeed, has forced the Italian Freemasons to proceed with the suppression of the Propaganda in the circuitous, stealthy manner sketched out at the commencement. They liaA-e succeeded in causing the Executive of the Sacred Congregation to go to law with them in the Masonic Courts of Italy — " going to law with the devil and the court held in hell." Somehow, an intermediate sentence was given in favour of the Institution. But how little the Freemasons in power valued this, was manifested by the fact, that before the appeal made by themselves against that sentence was decided, they actually disposed of some of the real property of the Institution. The whole thing appears tO me to have been no more than the merest farce. They knew what the final result of the law proceedhigs would l^e. All they required was that the Church should acknowledge a local tribunal by contending with them, instead of appealing at once to the world against a flagrant act of injustice attempted against international right. Governments then wishing to shelve a difficulty with the Italian Ministry, could allege that it was an internal Italian question, admitted to be so by the aggrieved parties, who appealed to local tribunals, Vvith which, of course, externs could not interfere.
So at least the question has been dealt with by our own Government ; but most unjustly. If the Cardinals of the Propaganda contended for the rights of the Institution before the tribunals of Italy, that contention, no matter how it may have eventuated, could not affect the parties in- terested in the right. And who are the parties interested in the funds of the Propaganda. Is it the Italian people ? Decidedly not. There is not a people in the world who are
THE TERSECUTIOXS OF THE PROPAGANDA. 57
less interested in the funds and in the woi'k of the Propa- ganda than the Itahan people. In fact, the founders and the endowers of the Propaganda founded and endowed it, on the condition implied by their acts, and expressed by the very terms of the endoAvment, that their money should be applied for the benefit of those who should not live in Italy. The inheritors of these funds are foreigners to Italy, and amongst these foreigners there are no people more wronged by the action of the de facto Italian Government, than the Catholic subjects of Her Brittanic Majesty.
58 SPOLIATION OF THE I'EOPAGANDA.
IX.
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE.
We shall see this by considering its foundation. Who, then, first founded the Propaganda ? The man who gave the ground upon which it stands, and the palace in which its v/ork is carried on, was not an Italian. His money did not come from Italy. He was a Spaniard, and the representative at Rome of the Sovereign of the Netherlands. He formed the foundation of the whole institution, and all subsequent lands and moneys given to it were to carry out his intentions. His money was taken, and his intentions were solemnly guaranteed by the legiti- mate Sovereign of Rome at the period. They have been respected for two hundred and sixty years. I ask, can it be right now for the Italian Government to take his money, to sell his lands and houses, to put the proceeds of his funds into its own vinculated, uncertain bonds, and in the process steal the half of the proceeds. This seems to me such a gross 2)erversion of international right, that I believe if Spain was not dominated over by the same sect of Freemasons as rule Italy, she Avould force the Italian Ministry and King Humbert to disgorge the property left by Monsignor John Baptist Vives for the Propagation of the Catholic Faith.
The injustice of the forced sale of the houses, lands, and rents left hj a Spaniard for the extension of the Gospel, in trust to Italy, is only equalled by a like act of injustice done in the case of an Irishman, and a Priest of the City of Dublin, Father Michael Doyle, of the Church of SS, Michael and John, Arran Quay. Believing that
THE PKESENT STATE UF THE CASE. 59
his 2)oor country would be benefited by having a certain number of its priests trained in the Urban CoUege, he made an agreement with the authorities in Eome to give them a sum of money amounting to no less than £5,000 sterling, for the perpetual education of Irish-born missionary priests for Ireland. This was in the year 1825. His money was taken, and well invested by the Cardinals of the Propaganda ; and since, several most useful and distinguished Irish priests have been educated on the proceeds. Here is surely, if ever there was, an international arrangement lawfully and equitably con- cluded. But what do the Italians do ? They take this dead British subject's money and the increase Avhich belongs to it. They sell out the property bought for it. They put half the j^roceeds in their pocket, and the rest they leave in " vinculated" Italian bonds, to be disowned whenever the time comes to reduce or do away with income from that source in Italy.
I am certain that Mr. Gladstone, whose just and generous mind recoils from deceit of any kind, especially in purely commercial matters, would never have said that the Propaganda was an internal institution of Italy subject to Italian laAvs, if he duly considered the nature of these two cases of John Baptist Vives of Spain, and Father Michael Doyle, of Arran Quay, in the good City of Dublin. I believe he has not heard of them, for I remember Mr. Gladstone to have made a remark in reply, I think, to Mr. O'Donnell, that the general Italian character of the Propaganda, as he called it, could not be effected by a charitable "subscription." Now, surely no man calls an ordinary commercial agreement a " subscription." Father Doyle goes to the Cardinal Prefect of the Propa- ganda and makes a bargain with him for the perpetual
00 SPOLIATION OF THE PKOPAOANDA.
education of a certain number of liis countrymen — by the way he stipulated that some of them should be his relatives, — and the Cardinal Prefect takes his money. The Sovereign of Rome fiats the contract. That honest Sovereign carries it out to the letter. But the Italians come in who are not honest ; they steal one-half of Father Doyle's money ; they put the other half in Italian " vin- culations." The result is that Father Doyle's countrymen and relations cannot be educated. They — British subjects as they are — are simply robbed. And can it be believed by the generation that thinks nothing of many millions for the relief of a British subject in Khartoum, that when our Government is asked to make a gentle remonstrance to the Freemasons who have stolen Father Doyle's hard earnings it answers : — ■" We really cannot interfere. The Italians are our very good friends. And as to the money of Father Doyle, why that was only a ' subscription I' "
The case of Father Doyle is far from being the only case. To my knowledge, another ecclesiastic, now living, gave £1,000 for the education of a student in the Urban College. He meant most assuredly that his money should be spent for the one purpose he intended. When it comes out that £450 of his thousand has gone into the pocket of King Humbert and Co., and that £550 has been "vin- culated " prior to being SAvalloAved in the same way, will his Government in England turn round and tell him, " Oh, you only gave a subscription !" If Mr. Gladstone put his fortune into United States Bonds for the benefit of his family, and that the Government of the United States imt half that fortune in its pocket and the rest into " vinculated " bonds of the same value as the vinculated Church bonds of Italy, how would our admirable Premier be pleased if told that his contract was only a " subscription ^ " It is exactly such
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASK. 61
" subscriptions " that the Freemasons of Italy have stolen by manipulating the moneys of Britisli subjects. Is En^^land afraid or powerless to demand redress ? If so, Tempora mutantur et nos mutanmr in ill'is indeed !
And then, not only such money as that of Vives and Father Doyle, but all the money the Propaganda ever got was given for the lienefit of countries Avhich were outside Italy. The magnificent gifts of Cardinal Barberini, whose revenues, by the way, came from Church sources outside, as well as inside of Italy, were given for the benefit of the Eastern nations, whose various rites I have already referred to. Have these poor people not a right to the benefit of his legacy now, as well as at any past period ? Does tlieix' weakness make the right anything the less ? Twenty-three priests are educated for them at the present moment. When the estates which does this blessed work are sold for a song by Italian Freemasons to other Italian Freemasons — Freemasons alone are likely to buy them — and when half the proceeds are pocketted by the men in power, and the other half goes into " vinculated " Italian bonds, how will it fare with the poor Churches of the Orientals, dependent for educated Priests upon the grand charity of the Propaganda ? Surely the ruthless horde of barbarians who have laid violent hands upon the States of the Church must be devoid of all shame, of all honour, of all manhood, when they descend to such mean sacrilege. I think a man would prefer, if he were a man, to command a troop of banditti than a Ministry and a Parliament capable of staining themselves with such mean, such cowardly, such heartless theft.
Now, if Melchites and Circassians, Copts and Maronites, are thus pillaged by the spoliation of the Propaganda, so to a far larger extent are the subjects of
62 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. And how? The funds of the Propaganda were given principally for the benefit of her Catholic subjects in Ireland, in Great Britain, in Canada, in Australia, in the vast extent of India, in the West Indian Islands, in the Army, in the Navy, in the great military stations, and wherever, in fact, she has subjects.
In all this vast expanse of territory, the government and care of the Catholic Church is carried on by the Propagan(;;la. Not only are many of the clergy educated for these countries in its Urban and other subservient Colleges, but the whole education of the Clergy is looked after, the Bishops and Archbishops are selected, the Dioceses are regulated. Orphanages, Convents, Hospitals, Schools, and Institutions of beneficence are created and superintended by it. The whole work of the Catholic Church, in one word, is done through its instrumentality alone, in all the dominions of Her Britannic Majesty.
Now, if the existing funds of this institution are taken, the Catholic subjects of Her Majesty must supply others, and the action of the Italian Government in takincr these funds, consequently, puts a heavy burden on the subjects of Her Majesty, which they ought not to be asked to bear, in order simply to put money into the Italian Treasury.
They ought not be asked to bear such a burden, because they have a strict right in justice to the funds of the Propaganda, which, even when they were not given by British subjects or by other than Italian subjects or Princes, were always absolutely given for the intention that the Propaganda may be able to do the work, of which the administration of the Catholic Church in the dominions of Her Majesty forms an integral portion.
It is evident, then, that no matter who gave the funds
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. 63
of tlio Propaganda, they were given lawfully and justly and according to the existing laws of Italy at the period, for our benefit. We received that benefit uninterruptedly for over two hundred years, and it is monstrous that we should be now deprived of a long existing, acknoAvledgod right, by the violation of a clear international obligation on the part of the Italian Government.
Now to show that what I here state is perfectly just, a striking exemplification was given by one matter connected intimately with the spoliation I speak of. After the final sentence was pronounced by an Italian Masonic Court, the Italian Government proceeded, as a first step, to sell a College dependent upon the Proj^aganda. It happened, hoAv- ever, that this College did not belong to Copts or Maronites who had no Government to assert their rights, or to Catholic subjects of Her jNIajesty Avho might be told about " sul> scrij^tions." It belonged to a people who, when abroad, knoAV that they have a country ready to defend them against whoever may choose to rob them, insult them, or injure them. This College was possessed by the Catholics of a country called the United States of America — a country Avhich happens to be pretty well knoAvn to the Italian Government. It is a Republic, supposed to be very Protestant, for it sends missionaries, largely supplied with Bibles and coppers for the "conversion" of poor people in the slums of some large toAvns in Italy. The Italian Masonic Government, who laugh at the anti-Catholic fanaticism of the English and American nations, thought, therefore, that it could deal with the Catholic subjects of the United States just as it might with the Catholic subjects of England. It considered that the bigotry of the zealous Methodism of New York and Massachusets would be only too glad to hear that tlie resources
64 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
of " Babylon " were being swallowed up by the Free- masons of Italy. Accordingly the walls of Rome were plastered with large placards announcing the sale of the North American College. Now, if the Italians had ever a vight to sell any property belonging to the Propaganda, it was this College. It was a free gift on the part of Pius IX., for which no consideration whatever had been asked from the American Catholic people or Bishops. It was given only a few years previously, and had been before a Convent for reli- gious. Moreover, the Pope never gave the fee-simple of the premises to the American Catholics, That remained vested absolutely in the Propaganda. The house was therefore as much the property of the Sacred Congregation as that which it received by legal transfer from Monsignor John B.aptist Vives. In attempting its sale, the Italian Government thought rightly that no more favourable point could be seized upon by which to manifest their "right to do wrong" to the property of the Propaganda. The Catholics of America had given "no consideration." There was no deed of transfer to them. That had been asked and refused by the Pope. The buildings were only a few years previously the property of the Papal Government, which the Freemasons supplanted. It was a test case, indeed. Let us see how it ended ?
The moment the Cardinal Archbishop of New York heard that the College of his Catholic fellow-countrymen was about being touched by the Italians, he despatched his zealous and able Coadjutor at once to Washington with a letter to, the Government of his country. That Govern- ment, Protestant as it was, at once recognised that a right lawfully acquired — though without consideration or sub- scription, or deed of transfer — of • American Catholic
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. 65
citizens was about being violated. Did tliey talk about ''Italian laws" or " subscrij)tions," or "Italian internal aftairs not concerning outsiders ?" Did they seek, subter- fuge, evasion, or delay for the purpose of making necessary inquiries ? Far from it. Instantly there flashed across the Atlantic to the United States Embassy at the Quirinal, instructions to tell the Italian Government that it would touch the interests which American citizens had acquired in Rome at its peril, and demanding instant cessation of the sale of the North American College. There was no further parley about the matter. The jMinistry of King Humbert knew that Uncle Sam had ironclads, and could make his arm felt upon Italian ports and in Italian waters. And what was the consequence ? Well ! Such American citizens as were then in Rome had the satisfaction of knowing that they had a country. They had the satisfaction of seeing, one hour after the ultimatum of the United States Government was received, a number of employes of the Italian Government running about the streets with ladders and water buckets and carefully rubbing away from the walls every vestige of the placards which announced the sale of the Catholic North American College of the Propaganda. The College remains, and will continue to remain unmolested, for the Americans have a Government not afraid of Italy.
In the face of this fact I assure you that we British subjects then in Rome felt and looked very small indeed. The Propaganda, we knew, belonged to us by rights as sacred certainly, as the portion of it exclusively appertaining to North America belonged to the United States. It was handed over for our benefit by legal deeds of transfer. It was ours. It had absolutely nothing to do with Italy. It had everthing to do with us. It was always so con-
E
66 SPOLIATION OF THE PEOPAGANDA.
sidered by the Popes. Outside its own limits it has positively no jurisdiction in Rome or in any part of Italy. Its funds were contributed for us and to us, and to that portion of the world — always outside Italy — committed to its care. Its spoliation was clearly, even if none of our money was in it, a violation of our most justly acquired legitimate rights, unquestioned and in action for generations.
We expected some effort would be made by our rulers for us. We expected some representations, more gentle, perhaps, than those made by the President of the proud Union, but, as we thought, with some reason, not less efficacious, would be made by our Government. We confidently predicted that such would be the case. But we were bitterly disapj^ointed. Our bishops in a body made representations far more energetic and explicit than Cardinal M'Closky or his Coadjutor made to Washington ; but nothing came of them. The Catholics of the United States had a country. We felt that we had a country but in name, which for one reason or another treated us as stepchildren or outcasts, or worse and more humiliating still, was impotent to help us in our need.
Yet I believe that this policy of the Ministry would not, if the case were fully understood, be endorsed by our non-Catholic fellow-citizens. I am sure a very large pro- portion of them would deem the complete inaction of the Government, not wise, or sound policy — certainly not the I)olicy of the British Lion that used to be, in cases of the violation of the rights of British citizens, so potent once. I am sure they will feel for and with us when they come to understand that it is a question of unjustifiable inter- ference w^ith rights lawfully acquired by British subjects in a foreign nation which are interfered with by that nation.
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. (57
I am sure of this from the feehng which woiikl, I know, possess myself, if, for instance, the Government of France, or any other Government, induced any body of my Pro- testant fellow-countrymen to acquire in France legitimate interests for their religious necessities, and that upon the coming into power in that same country of another form of Government, monarchical or republican, such incoming- government should have confiscated the rights so acquired by my fellow-countrymen. If, for instance, the Wesleyans of England established a training-school for health or other reasons, say in the south of France. If they were per- mitted to do so by the law^ful government of that country. If the funds of that institution were recruited from Wesleyans in England, in the United States and all the world over. If the Wesleyans had the free use of that sanatorium for a number of years, and depended upon it for the training of their choice ministers, and for the management of their aftairs. If their Moderator happened to be a Frenchman, and needed such an institution for the government of their body. If they could not dispense with it without serious loss and money outlay ; and all this because the new Government of France had decided that such establishment should perish. If in pursuance of this law such Government proceeded, as France did actually at the Revolution, to confiscate all religious rights, and amongst the rest the legitimately acquired rights of English Wesleyans, I know that I would expect that the most strenuous eff'orts of the rulers of England should never cease until France was taught that while she might jilunder the interests of Frenchmen as long as Frenchmen let her, she should desist from such a course when the question came of plundering the rights of English citizens lawfully and Deacefully acquired. I am certain there is not a
68 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
Catholic ill the land who would not feel aggrieved at the injury thus inflicted on his unoffending fellow-citizens, and who would not move with them until the wrong insolently inflicted in defiance of international rights was redressed.
MEASUllES TO MEET THE DIFFICULTY. 09
X.
MEASURES TO MEET THE DIFFICULTY.
Speaking of these, I am yet sanguine that our rulers will open their eyes to see the grievance which Catholic British subjects suffer in the spoliation of the Propaganda. For my part I cannot altogether blame the Ministry. I think we have not pressed the matter upon them sufficiently, and they need, and, indeed, invite this kind of pressure. I know, too, that they are much disinclined to disoblige Italy, which the great Whig leader. Lord Palmerston, formed, though, as we have seen last Monday evening, for motives very much other than the real good of England. Still English Statesmen have had proof enough of what they may expect from " United Italy " since its formation. And I am persuadedj notwithstanding- seeming favourable symptoms regarding Eg}][3tian affairs, that England is destined to experience still more of the nature of Italian Masonic "gratitude." I think I know the feelings of the party now ruling in Italy; It is perfectly intolerant of English domination in the Mediterranean, and would, if it could, give a blow to her rule in Malta, in Cyprus, in Gibraltar, and in Egypt to-morrow. Masonic Italy is best kept in order by wholesome fear, and had Eno:land shown a bold front in favour of the riij^hts of British subjects involved in the spoliation of the Propa- ganda, she would have obtained, I firmly believe, much more from the respect her conduct would inspire than she will ever get from the love of Piedmont ese Freemasons. There is also something in the blessing of God which follows the doing of the right thing for the oppressed, and
70 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
perhaps much more will be soon lost to the nation by the want of this blessing in the conduct of Egyptian affairs than ever could be gained by siding with the heartless violation of British international rights by the Freemasons, now working their unholy will upon the city and the property of the Popes.
On this subject I had in London lately a long conver- sation with a great and good Catholic Irish Statesman, Mr. A. M. Sullivan. He was, of course, acquainted with the fact of the spoliation of the Propaganda, but he onl}^ knew in part the nature of the injustice. When I laid that fully before him he suggested that I should deliver such a lecture as I have given this evening upon it, and he promised to take the chair at that lecture, and to speak also himself upon the matter, as he of all living- Irishmen could best do. He had, I must say, great faith in the justice and spirit of fair play characteristic of Mr, Gladstone, and he believed that if the great Premier were properly approached by the Irish Parliamentary Party, he would use his influence to have the injustice done to us by the Italian Freemasons removed. He thought it, perhaps, difficult to get back lands already sold, but he also thought that the men in j^ower in Italy would surely yield to the pressure of England and liberate the vinculated bonds, thus at least saving us a portion of our property. Fie thought the case of Father Michael Doyle, one which no Government could refuse to recognise, while that of the other donors to the same institution, whether Spanish or of any other nation, was equally strong. I grieve that this good man is gone from our midst Avhilst the injustice I complain of, and which he would willingly have removed, lives on ; but I feel myself bound to give utterance not only to my own but to his sentiments, however feebly,
MEASURES TO xMEET THE DIFFICULTY. 71
regarding the merits of a case for redress, altbougli in itself it is all-powerful.
Our duty is to seek this redress if only to save our national honour. But come what may, I believe that all who have heard what I have stated this evenincj will a^ree that it is our duty to save at any cost an institution so valuable and so necessary to us. By it, we reach and save the Heathen. By it, we comfort the sadly oppressed Oriental Catholic, still groaning under the oppression of the Mahometan. By it, Ave carry on the vast machinery of the Church of God in three-fourths of the entire world. As Catholics, we can never permit Italian Freemasonry to destroy it. We must sustain it ; and how can we ? Lately, on hearing the news of its Spoliation, an Italian noble, faithful to the traditions of his princely house, gave us an example. He left it several thousand ^^ounds which the Italian Freemasons tried to prevent the Propaganda receiving, but failed. It is for us who benefit by the Institution to follow so noble an example. It is a way by which everyone blessed with worldly wealth may make a most useful protest against the Spoliation, and at the same time contribute to the continuation of the work of the Sacred Congregation. It can find for twenty times the wealth it had at any time, immense fields, yet unexplored by the Christian Missionary. I do say that no one ought permit a shilling to go where an Italian Freemason can manage to steal it, but money for the Propaganda can be left in trust to one's Bishop or Archbishop, as the case may be, and, as the testator may direct, that money can be applied either in a lump sum, or still better, as principal, producing interest, for the purposes of the Propaganda. It will then go surely and safely to its destination. I indicate this as one way by which God's people mav help a work
72 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
vSO worthy. There are many other ways which the gene- rosity of the faithful will easily discover. But there is one unfailing means which all, even the very poorest, can employ to assist the great Institution in the day of its need. That is by fervently praying to God, through the intercession of His Blessed, Immaculate, Virgin Mother, that the pride of the infidel may cease, and that the elect of the Lord may be liberated ; that counsel, and love, and strength may reign amongst the faithful of Christ ; and that surrounding His Vicar in a spirit of filial unity, they may show an unbroken, intelligent front to the foe, and so sustain the grandest cause ever given by God to man to support on earth — the cause of Christian Faith and Civilization, now imperilled by the most deadly enemies of the Cross that have ever appeared in this world.
NOTE. 73
NOTE.
The following statement is taken from the second edition of the Persecutions Suffered hy the Catholics of Ireland Under the Rule of Cromwell and the Puritans, by the Most Rev. Patrick Francis Moran, D.D., Archbishop of Sydney. Dublin : 1884. Appendix ii., p. 464 : —
The many links that for ceatm'ies have united Ireland with the Holy See are familiar to our Irish readers. Even during the persecu- tion of Elizabeth we find our country engaging Eome's special care. Pro-nuncios were despatched to her shores, to guard and defend the interests of the Catholic faith ; her children, who rose in arms to assert her rights, received from Rome not only words of encourage- ment but funds to aid their cause; and when her clergy were persecuted and imprisoned, the Holy Father not only stretched out to them an assisting hand, but by repeated briefs solicited the mediation of foreign princes, that the rigour of the persecution might be relaxed, and the captives restored to liberty.*
During the period of which we treated in the preceding pages, at the very commencement of the struggle of the Confederates, the saintly Searampo was sent to encourage them, and guide them by his counsels. Later still, we find the Nuncio Rinuccini sent on a like mission, besides being the bearer of ample subsidies. At every stage of their momentous proceedings, letters were sent from Rome to the French and Spanish monarchs, as well as to the minor princes of Germany and Italy, exhorting them to lend their aid to the Irish nation ; whilst other letters were from time to time transmitted to the bishops and confederate leaders, rejoicing with them in their triumph, condoling in their afilictions, healing their dissensions, and exhorting them to union and constancy in the cause of justice and religion.
It would be easy to give further instances of the solicitude of the Holy See for its faithful children ; and to record the many letters of exhortation and encouragement which were addressed to the citizens of Dublin, and others, during their long struggles and sufi'erings in the
* Several of these invaluable documents may be seen in the Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. ii. x,
74 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA.
cause of religion and theii* king ; but we reserve them for another occa- sion, not wishing to extend this note to too great a length.
We shall merely state for the present that during the interval of Cromwell's triumph, we find the assistance of the Holy See bountifullv given to the banished clergy and people ; and immediately after the restoration, letters were again addressed to all the Catholic powers, praying them " to commission their respective ambassadors at the English Court to defend and protect the interest of the poor Catholics of Ireland, and especially of the priests who were imprisoned for the faith in many parts of that kingdom.*
Thirty years later, when the sword of persecution was again unsheathed against the Irish Catholics, the Pope was still their unflinching advocate. Eemittances were j^early sent from Rome to the Court of St. Germain for the relief of the Irish exiles, whilst additional aid was bountifully supplied to the banished and persecuted members of the Hierarchy. In the Vatican archives we find it registered that 72,000 francs were then annually supplied by Eome for the support of the Irish secular clergy and laity ; on the 15th of July, 1698, we find an additional remittance of 23,655 livresfor the religious who were banished from Ireland. Instruc- tions were, moreover, sent to the Nuncios in the foreign Courts to give every protection and aid to the Irish Catholics ; and even a jubilee was proclaimed in Italy to solicit the prayers and alms of iJie faithful of that country for our suffering people. In the month of January, 1699, we meet with a list of 27,632 livres received from the Holy Father, and distributed to various Irish ecclesiastics who had lately taken refuge in France and Belgium. In the month of February there is another list of 11,832 livres similarly distributed; and in March, as we learn from a letter of the Nuncio in Paris to Cardinal Spada (dated 9th March, 1699), 53,000 livres were sent by the Pope to St. Germain, and distri- buted by King James to " the Irish ecclesiastics then sent into exile." There is another list dated from St. Germain, 29th March, 1699, which we give entire. Its details must be peculiarly interesting to our readers : —
" To Mr. Magennis, Superior to the College des Lombards . 1,200 To do. do. to be distributed amongst the Irish
Missioners 1,200
To Mr. Nolan, Superior of another Irish Community in Paris
for the support of the poor students in his community . 1,000
To Mr. O'Donnell for the Irish nuns in Ipres .... 1,000
» "Affinche vogliano incaricare i loro ambasciadori e ministri nella corte d'lnghilterra di diffendere e proteggere gl'mteresei dei poveri Cattolici d'Irlanda, e particolarmente dei sacerdoti carcerati per la fede in diverse parti del regno." — Acts of Sac. Conff., 22 May, 16fi2.
NOTE. 75
To the almoner of the Queen for the use of the Community
of poor Irish girls at St. Germain 500
To Father Nash, an Irish Franciscan, for some members of
his Order 41
To various other religious 99
To the confessor of the Queen for a young ecclesiastical
student 150
To Mr. Burke, chaplain to the Queen, for an Irish Carmelite . 60
Set apart for four missioners coming from Ireland . . . 600
To a poor Irish officer who has a wife and six children . . 150
In all, six thousand scudi."
Again, on the 8th of June, 1699, the secretary of the king, writing from St. Germain, acknowledges the receipt, from the Holy Father, " of 37,500 livres to be distributed amongst his subjects, persecuted for their faith."
AVhen, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the enemies of Catholicity had recourse to new arts to assail the time-honoured faith of our nation, and sought to poison the sources of instruction of our Catholic youth, the Holy See was again ready, not only with its exhortations and counsels, but also with its pecuniary aid to support Catholic poor-schools through the country, and from that time to the close of the century, when the Pope was momentarily deprived of his states and driven into exile, 1,000 Roman crowns were annually trans- mitted to our bishops for that pm-pose.
Thus were the Eoman Pontiffs at every period the fathers of our country, the guardians of our persecuted people, the support of our exiled clergy. "The blessings of faith were transmitted to us by the Popes, not only as the successors of St. Peter, but as sovereigns of Eome ; and when an opportunity is given Catholic Ireland of making them some return, it would be strange, indeed, if she did not gratefully remember the services rendered in her hour of distress."*
* Rev. D. M.''Carthy's Recollections on Irish Church Historij, vol. i., p. 320.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE
VUiGIN MOTHER OF GOOD COUNSEL,
A H ISTORY
OF THE ANCIENT SANCTUARY OF OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL IN GENAZZANO, AND OF THE WONDERFUL APPARITION AND MIRACU- LOUS TRANSLATION OF HER SACRED IMAGE FROM SCUTARI IN ALBANIA TO GENAZZANO IN 1W7.
With an APPENDIX on the MIRACULOUS CRUCIFIX, SAN PIO, ROMAN ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION, Etc.
BY
MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D.,
MISSIONARY APOSTOLIC.
(A VISITOR FEOM SYDNEY TO THE SHEINE.)
Large Edition, Printed at the Propaganda Press, Pome, Imperial 8vo, nearly 700 pages, in fine type, beautifully bound in cloth. (The ordinary edition (price 12s. 6d.) is all sold out.) Ditto, fine paper edition in superior binding (only a few
left) ... ••• ... ••• ••' ••• ••• ••• los.
Ditto, in Morocco, rich (suitable as presentation copies) ... 30s.
The large demand for the above has caused the author to prepare a New Edition in a more popular form. This will be shortly published by M. H. GILL & SON, Dublin, and will be sold, handsomely bound in cloth, at 5s.
LONDON: BURNS & GATES, ORCHARD STREET.
DUBLIN : M. H. GILL & SON, SACKYILLE STREET.
NEW YORK : BURNS & GATES.
The ivlioh lyrofiis arising from the sale of both these works, as zvell as the profits from the present tvoric on the War of Antichrist tvith the Church, ^'c, have been given over hj the Author to the Right Hev, Monsignor Kirlg, D.D., Bishop of Lita, Rector of the Irish College, Rome, for the bencft of the suffering Nuns in Italg, now despoiled of all their propcrtg by the existing Italian Government. For some account of the sufferings of these afflicted servants of God, see end of present notice, page 13.
The Autlior lias beea lionouved with tlie following letters from His Holiness Pope Leo XIII., and from Cardinal Simeoni, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda : —
Our Most Holy Lord Leo XIII. received the copy of the vohime presented by you, in which you give in tlie Eno-lish language the history of the ancient Sanctuary of the Virgin Mother of God, situated in the town of Genazzano, in the diocese of Palestrina, and which is venerated with the greatest piety by the faithful and by the constant concourse of devout pilgrims. As in this work the Holy Father perceives not only the evidence of your filial duty but also the affection of religious piety by which you study to advance the honour of God's Mother, he deems your counsel and service acceptable and pleasing, and desires that by this my letter yon should receive a pledge of his paternal love and commendation. The Supreme Pontiff moreover hopes that the salutary fruits wliich at this time are so much to be desired, may respond to your wishes, and that those who read your writings may be moved to imploro the protection of the Mother of God for the Church which, amidst the many adversities by which it is oppressed, places the utmost confidence in Her. Finally, granting your prayer. Our Most Holy Lord, in testimony of his paternal benevolence and in presage of all celestial graces, most lovingly in the Lord imparts to you the Apostolic Benediction.
While I rejoice to convey to you these tidings I willingly take the occasion offered me of professing to yon the sincere esteem by which from my heart J am
Your devoted Servant,
Charles No cell a, Secretary for Latin Letters to Our Most Holy Lord Leo XIIL Rome, May 2Tth. 1SS4.
Eome, May 17th, 1S84. Office of the Sacred Congi-egation of the Propaganda Fide.
I have received with particular satisfaction the book entitled. The Virgin Mother of Good Counsel, etc., which you, Avhile constrained to repose for some time in order to re-establish your health impaired by your missionary labours, have written during your sojourn in Eoine.
It is in every way Avorthy of a good ecclesiastic and of a zealous missionary to cultivate love for Most Holy Mary and to propagate devotion to Her, and as you have laboured for these ends by writing the history of one of the most celebrated Sanctuaries of Italy, I must rejoice with you in the result, and I hope that I shall have the pleasure of seeing your holy intentions happily crowned with success.
You have also added in an appendix to your work wise observations ujion Ihe Roman education of the clergy, and have referred opportunely to the institution of the Propaganda and its salutary influence over the entire world. This also has proved to me the excellent spirit with which you are animated, and I feel assured that the sentiments which you numifest will always serve to render yet closer the bonds which iniite the faithful of all countries to the Roman See, tin; Mother and Mistress of all Churches.
Finally, I return you thanks for the gift which you have made me of this your admirable work, and I pray the Lord, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, whom you have desired to honour by its means, to grant you His choicest benedictions.
Mo,?t affectionately yours,
John Cardinal Simeoni, Prefect of the S. C. of the Propaganda.
For Monsignor the Secretary,
Ant. Aoliaudi, Minutantc.
A large number of tlie Arclil)i.sliop8, Bishops, Digni- taries, and Supericn-s of Keligious Orders in England, Ireland, Scotland, America, and Anstralia, have also, sinc(^ the publication of the work, warndy congratulated the Author on its ap])earanee, aii circulation.
Notices and IveYiews of it appeared also in many newspapers, periodicals, and reviews, amongst which were the following

From " The Freeman's Journal," Januayy KSth, 1885.
Tins (lee])ly interosting work, wliich we mentionod rpccntly, claims sppcial attention by more than its ntility as an aid to one of the most important, con- solatory, and beautiful of Catholic devotions, and its authority as a learned and masterly contribution to the history of the Church, sent forth wilh the approval and the benediction of great prelates, and for a purpose in which Ireland is destined to have a conspicuous share. It is a delightful work from a purely literary point of view. The author, whose whole heart and soul are in his sub- ject, has so studied it, so informed himself with the spirit of the time and place, entered so thoroughly into the life of the people whoso great treasure is the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel, and whose richest endowment is the ever-growing devotion of the ancient sanctuary that is so eloquent a witness before men against the spirit of the world, that the reader accompanies liim as he might walk by the side of an accomplished expositor thi-ough a picture-gallery, seeing not only the works of art that clothe the walls, but the artist spirit that inspired them.
To make known as widely as possible the wonderful history of the ancient sanctuary at Genazzano ; to spread the etficacious devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, of which it is the seat and centre; to make his fellow-Catholics in Ireland, in England, and in the Australian Colonies, which are the scenes of his own labours (Monsignor Dillon describes himself as " a visitor from Sydney to the Shrine "), aware of the faith and fervour that still survive in Italy, under a system which he describes in a comprehensive sentence — such are the objects of the author's laborious and admirably executed task. He came to Italy to find rest and recreation after twenty years of missionary labour in Australia, and he was prepared " to see a great decay of religion in a nation where the most formidable atheism the world has ever seen was, with supremo political power in its hands, astutely planning the eradication of Christianity from the social, political, and even individual life of the people." What did he see? A nation, nine-tenths of whom are earnest, practical Catholics, who " oppose to all attempts upon their religion a passive but determined resistance, which no effort of the infidels has been able to shake. In general, family lifi' amongst them equals the purity and innocence of the farm homes of Ireland. They live, in truth, by faith. But above all, that which, in the eyes of the writer, most distinguishes them is their intense and universal devotion to the Virgin Mother of God."
The twenty-third chapter of this work, which is an exp(isition of the devo- tion of the Italian people, is full of pathetic interest and of edification, as well as being an eminently picturesque sketch ; but it is not upon this aspect of Monsignor Dillon's book, "' sijniputiai''' though it be, that we ouglit to dwell in the brief space which we may claim wherein to direct the att(>ntion of the reader to a great store of knowledge and beauty. It is to his history of the famous Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel at Genazzano, with its introductory chapters upon the nature and origin of the devotion, the translation of the
•I
Miraculous Image, and the " Pious Union," in which the Irish Augusiinians in Eome are deeply interested; to his vi^ad and pictorial sketch of Latium, whence tradition has it, that from the summit of its mountain, where the church and village of Castel San Pietro now stand, the Prince of the Apostles took his first view of mighty Rome ; to his marvellous account of the change from paganism to Christianity, and the reasons that exist for believing the modern Genazzano to be the actual historic scene of the too-famous games annually carried on bj'' ordinance published in the " Calendar of Palestrina," which may now bo insjaected at the Vidoni Palace in Rome; of Christian Genazzano, in 1467, and the miraculous translation of the Image of Our Lady from Albania to the Shrine where it still remains an object of the deepest veneration to the inhabit- ants, and of incessant and innumerable pilgrimages from all parts of Italy. Proofs of the apparition of the picture, and subsequently of its translation, ai-e largely supplied by Mousignor Dillon, and although it is not " of faith " that the beautiful and consolatory history is to be received unhesitatingly, we do not think it can fail to convey assurance to the minds of all who are inside the Church, who have "tasted of the graciousness of God," who being of the Household of Faith are accustomed to its divine administration in all things, and in ways which, however wonderful, are not " hard " to the " little children'' of the Kingdom, though to the wisest of outsiders they be " foolishness," as was Jesus Christ to the learned Greeks when preached to them by St. Paul.
The author's description of the picture — copied innumerable times, yet never reproduced — is very beautiful, and deeply affecting. We can but urge our readers to acquaint themselves \^dth it, and with the details of the active, vital, and vitalising devotion of which the sacred Shrine at Genazzano is the centre. The book which records these things is a rich contribution to general knowledge of Italy and its people as well, and we hope that the great desire of its author may be realised by the spread throughout Catholic Ireland, tried, tortured, persecuted, and tempted, even as Italy, but like her, faithful still, of that same beautiful devotiou. The Mother of God reigns over the Island of Saints as over the Land of the Popes ; let the people of the one join with the people of the other in giving her increased honour, and resorting to her with fi-esh confi- dence in the communion of the " Pious Union," which invokes " Our Lady of Good Counsel," at that marvellous meeting-place of souls, the Shrine of the Miraculous Image of Genazzano. ^.
'. From '' The Tablet," Augitsf 30///, 1884.
This interesting and remarkable volume has already been noticed in our Roman correspondence. Since then the Holy Father has been pleased to approve of it in a special letter to the aiithor. Cardinal Simeoni, prefect of the Propaganda, by whose permission the book was printed at the famous Polyglot Htidn^icrin of that Sacred Congregation, calls the work in another warmly commendatory letter " admirable." It is moreover dedicated by permission to Cardinal Mar- tinelli, Prefect of the Index ; and, as we gather from the dedication itself, is the only work which that saintly and learned Cardinal permitted to be so dedicated. The theologians deputed to examine it on behalf of .the Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace, were Dr. Martinelli, Regent of the Studies of the Irish Augus- tinians and Consultor to the Congregation of Rites, and Mousignor Carbery, at present Bishop of Hamilton in Canada, then Assistant General of the Dominican Order in Rome. These learned theologians not only gave it the usual nihil ohstdt, but speak in laudatory terms of its contents. The work, therefore, comes before the Catholic public well guaranteed as to the safety and soundness of its doctrine. We believe the erudite author did well to have it so fortified. It treats largely, not merely of the supernatural, but of the supernatural witli which English-siseaking Catholics are not generally acquainted, and, there- fore, in many instances not inclined toreceive without considerable preparation. A history of Loreto, or of any sanctuary which circumstances have rendered familiar, would meet with loss difficult}'. But mii-aculous events, which, how- ever well known to others, are new to us, require to be told with care. Living in an atmosph' re unfriendlv to the miraculous because it is Protestant, and
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tostiic to all ttat concerns tlie supernatural, since it has become impregnated with modern naturalism, wo bcconl(^ cautions, if not suspicious of everything new to us. Wc laugh, indeed, at the philosophy which, while disdainfully rejecting all miraculous occurrences as absurd, ends in accepting with childish cn'dulity the ludicrous absurdities of mediums and spirit rappers. But avc go often into the extreme of caution in receiving such supernatural facts as are continually repeated in the inward life of the Chiu'ch. Where the atmosphere is Avholly Catholic, belief in the existence of miracles is not so difHcult. They are tested, like other facts, and if favourably recognised by ecclesiastical authorityare admitted. Inthis way our forefathers received withouthesitationthe s*:atement of St. Simon Stock, their countrjuuan, regarding his reception of the fcapular as from the hands of the Mother of God ; and, in the hope of obtaining miraculous favours, millions of them made pilgrimages, not only to the shrine of St. Thomas and other national sanctuaries, but passed beyond the seas to visit the tombs of the apostles in Eome, and the great sanctuaries of Mary there and elsewhere. They were, perhaps, the most remarkable people for pilgrimages during the ages of faith. It is a very beautiful manifestation of the kind of devotion they so much loved, that Mgr. Dillon brings now under the notice of English-speaking Catholics everywhere. The sanctuary of which he writes is, as Cardinal Simeoni terms it, " one (>f the most celebrated in Italy." It is, as the Holy Father states in his letter to the author, " venerated with the greatest piety by the faithful and by the constant concourse of devout pilgrims." More- over, the peculiar and beautiful devotion to the Mother of God, of which it is the source, may be spread everywhere. The wonders worked at the shrine ai-e even surpassed by those which have been wrought through copies of the original in Italy and other countries. It was a copy of it that was so loved and so tenaciously held to old age by St. Liguori. It was a copy from which Our Lady spoke so frequently and fondly to St. Aloysius at Madrid. It was a copy which saved Genoa and restored Calabria to fervour. The image, whether in the original or in well executed copies, has certainly great devotional power over all beholders. It increases fervour, and powerfully excites the petitioner to confidence in seeking graces through Mary, especially the gift which may be said to contain all others, and which is so much needed in our days, the gift of good counsel.
The history before us is a very exhaustive one, both of the shrine and the devotion. In his Introduction the author says of the latter :
" It sprang up, as will be seen, almost at the same time with the rise of Christianity upon the ruins of Paganism in the Eoman Empire. The very spot Avliere the beautiful Image of Marj"- and Jesus now reposes, was once the scene »)f the foulest rites of idol worship in honour of Venus. There, every April for centuries, came from far and near the men and the women of Latium for the Robigal Games. There, year after year they abandoned themselves to all the abominations not only tolerated, but prescribed, by the Pagan Jus Pontificiam of the Romans. No civilised nation of antiquity that Ave know of, had rites more demoralising than these proud masters of the world ; and nowhere, not even in the Flavian Amphitheatre, do the same rites seem to have been carried to greater excess, than near the site of the present temple of the Madonna in the borough of Genazzano, where, when the worship of idols had given place to that of the one true God, the statue of the foulest Goddess of heathendom fell to make way for the Shrine and the sway of the Purest of God's creatures, His Virgin Mother. It was meet and, no doubt, was so arranged by a merciful and wise Providence, that the mother and synonyme of a vice which, with other dark and sorrowful characters, has folly emphatically stamped upon it, should be succeeded, when faith shed its light upon Latiuiu, by the Mother and S>tio- nyme of purity and supernal wisdom, the Mother ' of fair love' and of • holy hope,' of consolation and of Counsel."
He continues :
"To make the contrast here indicated more clear, the writer has thought it of use to give a sketch of the history and locality of Genazzano. This cannot fail from its classical as well as Christian recollections to interest the English- speaking visitor to Rome, who can got but scant, and, in a Catholic sense, almost no reliable information from the guide-books published in his language ; and,
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to enalble the reader at a distance to realise tlie full meaning of the dc^votion, it is necessary. It will serve to show to all, that, though confined to one locality, the devotion existed from a very early period. When God willed its extension it was by means of a most striking and significant miracle. A beautifnl image of His Mother holding the Divine infant in her sacred arms, passed from aland jnst taken by the Turks to the very spot where the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel had been honoured for over a thousand years. The translation of this image was effected without human interference and amidst many prodigies. It naturally created a wide-spread and deep impression at the time. On a festival, it appeared amidst a multitude in the public square, and rested near the wall of the church where it still remains. The fervour it created amongst the people of God, the graces, the consolations, and the miraculous favours obtained at its shrine, continue to this day. It has thus become the fountain of devotion to the Mother of Good Counsel for all the faithful of Christ, in all the lands which own the sway of His Vicar on eai-th."
In fulfilment of the promise; made in this extract, the author has given some very interesting chapters on Latium, Genazzano, Pagan and Christian, and upon Albania, the land from which the miraculous image was miraculously translated, and its last great King, George Castriota, or, as he is better known by his Turkish appellation, iScanderberg. The following description of the physical features of Latium will give an idea of the author's style in treating of these subjects :
" All this expanse of country may be seen on a clear day from the Tiber's bank outside Eome, or better, from the dome of St. Peter's. Thrilling memories of the past ai'e connected with almost every spot of it. Taking a central stand, say, on the summit of Mount Artimisio, a hundred scenes of world-wdde celebrity at once come under view. In Velletri at your feet, Augustus the first Eomau Emperor was born. Near it is Civita Lavinia, the ancient Lanu\dum, the site of the great temple of Juno, the birthplace of Milo, of Antoninus Pius, of Marcus Aurelius, of Commodus, and, in more modern times, of Mark Antony Colonna, the hero of Lcpanto. Far in the opposite direction is seen Anagni, the ancient capital of the Ernici, which gave to the Christian world four Popes, amongst whom tow^ers the majestic figure of Innocent the Third. Between these two points, the eye passes over Cori, Segni, 8acro Porto, the valley of the Sacco — the Latin A'alley — Artena, and other places famous in the early warfare of the Latin tribes. In front the long sea coast is visible, from the Circaean Promontoi'y still protecting Antium, at in'esont I'urto d\i)i?:io, from the miasma of the Pontine Marshes, to Ostia at the Tiber's mouth. Dotting the dark bosom of the hills beneath, are seen Genzano, Ariccia, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Fras- cati, and other celebrated suburban retreats of the Rome of to-day as well as of the Rome of antiquity.
'' Turning to the Sabines, Palestrina, the ancient Praeneste, is seen standing out upon the mid-declivity of its mountain. Near it are Zagarolo, Gallicauo, and then a wide plain encirling the hills which run towards Tivoli. Higher uj) than Artemisio, is the summit of the Alban range, Monte Cavo, where stood that great altar of Jupiter to which all Latium 3'early repaired for sacrifice and prayer. A monastery in the keeping of the Passionate Fathers now takes the place of the Pagan temple and altar. It was built, strange to say, by the Cardinal of York, the last of the Stuart Princes, who had much love for the fine scenery of these hills upon which his bishopric was situated.
" The memories connected with almost every mile of this territory makes it one of the most interesting in the world. But there is much more to be said of it. There is not on the earth a couuti-y of the same extent more beautiful to look upon.
" The traveller leaving Rome does not first realise this. The flat campagna which expands before him on leaving any of the southern gates of the city, looks dreary and uninviting enough Avhen not diversified by some interesting- ruin. This dreariness becomes all the more intense when the imagination travels back to the period when the vast plain bloomed like a garden under the assiduous care of the hiisbandman."
After giving a history of the miraculous apparition and translation of the baci'cd image, the author gives several chapters in proof of the facts he bi'ings
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forward. He speaks of the miracles recorded and witnessed by himself, of the devotion of the Popes iuid distin,2:uish(sl persons noting the pilgrimages to the shrine made by Urban VIII. and Pius IX., and the continuous pojjular pilgri- mages ; of the indulgences granted ; of the Pious Union established by Benedict XIY., and of which that celebrated Pontiff' was the first member; of the proper mass and office granted in 1770 ; of the Church of Santa Maria ; and, in order to dispd certain illusions not always confined to Protestants, regarding Italy and the devotion to Our Lady, he has added two very valuable; chapters on the faith of the Italian people and on the Catholic worship and invocation of Mary. An Appendix treats of several important matters, amongst which is a chapter on the "' Value of a Roman Ecclesiastical Education," written evidently with the view to aid the establishment of an Australian college in Pome ; and as Cardinal f^imeoni expresses it, he has here also opportunely touched upon the recent spoliation of the Propaganda by the Itsdian Government.
We but follow the i-xample of the Holy Father and the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda in congratulating the author upon the production of this use- ful and interesting Avork. It establishes on a sold basis the beautiful devotion to Our Lady which it aims at extending. It is well printed, and considering the difficulties of correcting the press when dealing with compositors not acquainted with the language they put in type, unusually free from errors. We are glad to learn that the author means to bring out a more concise and popular work on the same subject. But no such work could well appear in our language unless the documentary evidence given in this volume had preceded it. The