THE SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA

A Lecture DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH

BY MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D. MISSIONARY APOSTOLIC, SYDNEY.

DUBLIN M. H. GILL & SON, 50 UPPER SACKVILLE STREET. LONDON AND NEW YORK: BURNS AND OATES. 1885.

Nihil Obstat:

W. FORTUNE, Censor Theologus Deputatus.

Coll. Om. Sanctorum, Die iii. Mensis Maii, 1885.

Imprimatur:

GU. CAN. J. WALSH, D.D., Vic. Cap. Dubliniensis.

Die iv. Mensis Maii, 1885.

PREFACE.

The following Lecture on the Spoliation of the Propaganda is given to the reader almost verbatim as it was delivered. It contains, however, in extenso, a translation of a valuable document furnished by Monsignor Conrado, Rector of the Urban College, from the archives of the Sacred Congregation. Some other documents, referred to when speaking, are, for convenience-sake, embodied in the text. Every fact stated has been carefully authenticated; and the lecturer will be amply rewarded for his pains if the simple statement he has given serves to make his readers fully acquainted with a great wrong done to one of the most beneficent Christian institutions in the world by the greed and Anti-Christian hate of the Infidel Revolution.

All Hallows College, April, 1885.

CONTENTS.

I.—STATE OF THE QUESTION.

Hostility of organized Atheism to the Vicar of Christ, shown since the French Revolution—Recuperative Power of the Papacy—Action of the Italian Freemasons—Destruction of the Temporal Tower—Suppression of Religious Corporations—Illusory “Guarantee Laws”—Forced Conversion of Church Lands into “Vinculated” Italian Bonds—Consequences—The Propaganda—Its Means and Destination—Difference between its Funds and the Funds of other Corporations—Its Funds respected by Victor Emmanuel—Action of the Italian Ministry after His Death—Decree to convert the Estates of Propaganda into “Vinculated” Italian Bonds—Violation of International Rights in this forced Conversion—Wrong done to British Catholics by it—Causes why British Statesmen have not insisted on our rights—Ignorance of the Origin, Nature and Purposes of the Propaganda Property—Necessity of Catholics being well informed on this point, in order to be able to show the nature of the wrong they suffer to their non-Catholic Fellow-citizens and non-Catholic Statesmen.

II.—THE PROPAGANDA FROM THE BEGINNING.

What is the Propaganda?—The Propaganda in the Days of St. Peter—St. Paul the First “Prefect”—The Propaganda as carried on afterwards by the Popes—Resources for this work supplied even in the ages of Persecution—Testimony of Monsignor Dupanloup—Conversions in the days of Constantine aided by the Popes—Palladius and St. Patrick sent by Popes to Ireland and Britain—Missions Organized by St. Leo the Great—St. Valentinus and St. Severinus—St. Gregory the Great and the Conversion of the Angles—Consequences—Conversions wrought by Irish Missionary Saints and by Saints from Britain, always authorized, directed and assisted by the Popes—Sts. Cyril and Methodius—Pope Sylvester II. and the Hungarians—Conversion of Northern Europe the direct work of the Popes—New Missionary Fields opened by the Discoveries of Columbus and Vasco di Gama assiduously cultivated by the Popes—Increase of Missionary Zeal on their part consequent on the Apostasy of many Nations at the Reformation—The Works of Gregory XIII.—Necessity for Organized Assistance causes the Formation of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda under Gregory XV.—The Bull of Formation—Powers and Duties of the Propaganda—The Appunti commenting thereupon—Its Staff.

III.—THE URBAN COLLEGE.

Foundation of the College commenced by Monsignor John Baptist Vives in the Pontificate of Urban VIII.—Acts and Beneficence of the Pontiff—The Offices of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda formed in the Palace of Vives in the Piazza di Spagna—Foundations for Students by Vives in the Urban College—Foundations by Cardinal Antonio Barberini—Notice of the Foundation of the College by the Rector, Monsignor Conrado, taken from the Archives of the Propaganda—Foundations from 1637 to 1883—Nationalities represented in the Urban College—Proportion of the Irish from the beginning—Privileges granted to Irish Students—Alumni of other Missionary Colleges Taught Gratuitously in the Propaganda Schools.

IV.—THE LIBRARY.

Its Contents—Books in Languages whose Literatures were formed by Propaganda Missionaries—Oriental Literature—Propaganda Linguists—Professors Ciasca, Ferrata, Cardinal Howard.

V.—THE PRINTING OFFICE.

The Vatican Printing Office—The Polyglot Press of Propaganda—Utility for the Spread of the Faith amongst Barbarous Peoples and amidst the various Oriental Rites.

VI.—RESOURCES OF THE PROPAGANDA.

Their Origin—Donations of Popes—The Cardinals’ Rings—Legacies—Careful Management—Gratuitous Services—Exemption from Taxes under the Popes—Devotion of the Officials Employed—Hard Work and Small Pay—Instances—Monsignor Agliardi—The Cardinal Prefect, Secretary and Minutanti—Spiritual Advantages, the Chief Reward—Distinguished Men connected with its present Management.

VII.—WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA.

Nature and Commencement of its Work—Its Care of the Oriental Christians—Successes—Its Work for India, China, Japan and other Asiatic Nations—For America—Its Zeal for the Conversion of Scotland and other European Nations lapsed into heresy—Consequences—Its Work for Ireland and the Irish People everywhere—Its Work in England—Its Administration in the Domain committed to its Keeping.

VIII.—THE PERSECUTION OF THE PROPAGANDA.

Persecution from the French Republic and Empire under Napoleon—The Students Driven from the Urban College—From Monte Citorio—Return with the Pontiff—Other Missionary Colleges Reopen—Persecution in our Days from the Italian Freemasons in Power—Extract from the London Tablet—The Appunti on the Situation—“Going to Law with the Devil and the Court in Hell”—Advantage to the Freemasons more Imaginary than Real—The Rights of Foreigners deeply interested cannot be taken away by an Italian Tribunal acting ultra vires—Injury to British Catholics.

IX.—THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE.

Who Endowed the Propaganda?—Wrong Done to the Founders—Wrong Done to an Irishman, Father Michael Doyle—The Premier’s Reply to Mr. O’Donnell, M.P.—Is Father Doyle’s Money a “Subscription?”—Other British Donors to Propaganda Robbed by the forced Conversion of the Funds of Propaganda—A Comparison—The Wrong Done to poor Oriental Catholics—The Wrong as Great to British Catholics—The Funds of the Propaganda given for the Administration of the Catholic Church in every portion of the Dominions of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria—If Confiscated, British Catholics forced to make up the Loss—The United States Government forces the Italians to respect American Catholic Rights less clear than the Rights of British Catholics—The Case of the Proposed Sale by the Italians of the North American College—Peremptory Demand of the United States instantly Respected—Confusion of English Residents in Rome—Certainty of our non-Catholic Fellow Citizens sympathizing with our Wrongs, if rightly informed, as we would in theirs.

X.—MEASURES TO MEET THE DIFFICULTY.

Necessity of fully informing our Rulers and the Nation of the Wrong done us in the forced Conversion of the Propaganda Funds—The Fallacy of Hopes in Italy being Realized by England—Italy’s ultimate Policy unfavourable to England—Opinion on the Question by the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan.

I. STATE OF THE QUESTION.

Having treated, as fully as I could in one lecture, of the nature of that secret and powerfully organized Atheism, which now for over a century has waged a fierce and sleepless war with the Church of Jesus Christ, and which means not only to destroy that Church but every form of Christianity and Christian civilization, I come this evening to speak, according to my promise, of a special feature in that war; namely, its intense hostility to the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and its determination to deprive him of every human means of exercising his divine mission with the view of thus preventing the government of the Church and the extension of the Kingdom of Christ in the world. This feature in the Anti-Christian war of Freemasonry and its attendant sects, has, as we have seen, been manifest from the very commencement. Scarcely had its adepts obtained power at the period of the first French Revolution, when they aimed and dealt, too, a deadly blow at the temporal power of the Pope, hoping thereby to cripple and eventually to terminate his spiritual ministrations. The blow was repeated under Napoleon, attempted frequently after the Revolution of July 1830, and again dealt with the effect of banishing the Pontiff from his See by the Italian Conspirators of 1848. The Papacy, however, with that perennial elasticity which marks its history since the days of St. Peter, returned to Rome, and made good in a short time the evils which its absence had created. The Revolution seeing this, seems to have no longer determined to drive Christ’s Vicar from the Vatican; but, while permitting him to remain there, practically a prisoner, to deprive him of every means necessary or useful for the exercise of his ministry for the benefit of the millions committed to his keeping by God. Power having come into the hands of the Freemasons of Italy, by means which I shall glance at further on, they have taken, step by step, possession of his temporal kingdom, until finally, in violation of every right, human and divine, they seized forcibly upon the City of Rome, and confiscated to their own purposes even its religious treasures. They promised at the time to respect such Institutions and persons in that City as all Catholics knew to be necessary for the government of the Church spread not only in Italy, but throughout the whole earth. For instance, though by law, the Religious Orders were suppressed in Piedmont, in the rest of Italy, and in some other countries fallen unfortunately into the power of the Atheistic secret sectaries, they were not suppressed with us, nor, geographically speaking, in the greater part of the world. Now, the Pope is sole Superior of all Religious Orders in the Catholic Church. They are all instituted to serve him specially and devotedly, and they depend directly upon him. None know this better than the Italian Freemasons, who forcibly took possession of Rome. They declared that though in the rest of Italy, Religious Orders and other Catholic Institutions were by law suppressed, yet even these and everything else needed by the Supreme Pontiff for the government of the Universal Church, should be sacredly respected by them in Rome. We know how they have kept this promise so far as the governing staff of the Religious Orders were concerned. They respected the Generals and their assistants by casting them out from their convents upon the streets. They took possession of these convents for secular purposes. They confiscated the whole revenues of the religious, and denied to the successors of the same religious the miserable pensions granted to those whom they brutally and ignominiously expelled. But we were told that this was to be done only to the religious, and that the rest of the Institutions of Rome necessary for the service of the Pontiff, for his dignity, and, above all, for the government of the Church, should be most scrupulously respected. His person was to be as much honoured, and to be as inviolable as that of the King. The one residence left him in Rome was to obtain the privilege of extra-territoriality, and his means were to be protected on the pledged faith and honour of the Italian King and Parliament. We know how the honour decreed by law to the Supreme Pontiff was respected by the Government, in the miserable insults offered by a body of hired ruffians being permitted, if not more than permitted, to outrage the venerated remains of Pius IX. on their passage at night from St. Peter’s to the Basilica of San Lorenzo. The Pope refused, of course, the ostentatious pension his plunderers voted him in lieu of the spoliation of his States. But this gain did not satisfy them. They proceeded, whenever they could, to violate or make null their own laws of guarantee in his regard; and they succeeded. For instance, they made a law by which the real property of the Church should be all sold and converted into the bonds of the new Italian Government. These bonds, at best, are only worth whatever the solvency of the Italian Government may be rated at, upon the markets of Europe. But the Church was not to be permitted to have the advantage of ordinary bond-holders. These latter could sell out their bonds at market value. The Church was not permitted to do this. The bonds purchased by the sale of her farms and houses were made a debt of the Italian Government, it is true—but a State debt due to the Church only—a debt apart, which could be dealt with at pleasure, and regarding which any dealing the Italian Parliament might think well to apply, could not in any sense affect the solvency of the nation in the markets of Europe. Regarding the payment of these bonds the Church has to depend absolutely upon the word of a body of men who have broken faith with her constantly, and whose promises were made, only to be broken at the first favourable moment. No man, therefore, values much the security of the money of the Church, depending upon the will of the Italian Masonic Parliament, for the payment of interest.

Now, amongst other necessary Institutions, the Pope had, for several centuries, in Rome, a well known and most beneficial corporation, endowed by the piety of the Pontiffs, and of Churchmen and pious laymen of every rank and nationality in the world. Its funds were destined not for Italy, but for us, and for the Catholics of every English-speaking land, and for the maintenance of the Faith and the extension of Christianity and civilization in all parts of the world, where as yet these blessings had not penetrated. If any funds could be secured from the grasp of the Masonic Italian Government, those funds ought. If any fidelity was to be kept in the observance of the laws which guaranteed the independence and free exercise of the universal spiritual mission of the Supreme Pontiff, it should be shown, by respecting scrupulously the funds of this institution. The very worst of the Italians, on entering Rome, protested loudly that the guarantees were real, and they pointed out the inviolable condition of the Propaganda as an instance of how sacredly these guarantees were regarded. There might be some confusion of ideas regarding the property of the religious orders in Rome, but regarding the Propaganda there could not be that confusion. They continued to point it out for years, to every stranger, as a proof of their fidelity. Victor Emmanuel, bad enough, in all conscience, respected it. In his lifetime it could not be touched. That would prove too flagrant a violation, even for him, of the guarantees given by himself and his Parliament. But the moment he passed away, the mean, sordid cupidity of the governing sect in Italy manifested itself, and an attempt was made, almost before the dead King was cold, to subject the real estate of the Propaganda to that law of conversion to which the property of every Italian ecclesiastical corporation was subjected.

Two millions sterling was too much to remain unmolested by the Italian “Left” in power. It was too much for their weak fidelity to principle. It meant the sale of desirable lands which those sectaries who made “an honest penny” somehow, by the change of affairs in the country, wanted to buy. It meant the addition to the not overstocked exchequer of the country, of money which Ministers could dispose of as they best knew how. It meant, finally, a profit to the revenue of thirty per cent. on the sale—a profit taken by various machinations of the Italian Fiscal laws for the benefit of the “Department of Finance.” It meant the reduction of that great Institution to the condition in which the finances of the smallest Italian Diocesan, or other Chapter, is reduced by the forced sale of its real estate and the conversion of its money into “vinculated” Italian Government bonds—bonds that cannot be sold, and may be any day discarded by the Italian Parliament.

This, in brief, is the condition to which the estates of the Catholic Propaganda have been reduced by the action of the Italian Government. It is a veritable spoliation which not only reduces the actual revenue of the Institution to a great extent, but which imperils the very existence of the rest of that revenue. Now this confiscation would be bad enough, if it were only a violation of pledges solemnly made to the Supreme Pontiff. But it is worse. It is a violation of international right, and no people in the world are more concerned in the maintenance of that international right than the Roman Catholic subjects of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. We are in fact the principal sufferers in this act of spoliation, for not only are our religious rights, most justly acquired, interfered with, but the making good of the damage which the Freemasons of Italy have done the Institution, will practically fall on our shoulders. The Propaganda for us means the actual exercise of the authority of the Vicar of Christ in our regard. By means of its funds it has carried out and borne the whole expense of the care and government of the Church in our midst for over two hundred years. It has done much for our ancestors, as we shall see. It has done much more for ourselves. We cannot do without it, so far as we are concerned, and then neither can we be, nor are we, insensible to that which it does for others. For us—for the Catholics of the world—the Propaganda is all that which the whole circle of richly endowed, zealously advanced “Missionary Societies,” “Bible Societies,” and “Evangelical Societies,” are for the Protestant world. Our honour is connected with its maintenance, and we cannot without a supreme struggle permit it to perish. Nor shall we. But there is no reason that we should have to do this if our Government be willing to protect our interest, and if that Government has not taken any steps to protect us, I am perfectly sure it is because they have not comprehended the wrong that is done us. In fact, the Propaganda has discharged its onerous duties so noiselessly by the side of the Vicar of Christ, that we ourselves came to look upon the beneficent effects, which we experienced from it, as we look upon the light of the sun or the air about us. We did not advert to the means which piety had, in the past, placed at its disposal, and of which we and our fathers received the fruits. It is the loss which causes us to know, to the full, the value of the benefit—a benefit, I say, so great, and so much a matter of course to us, that even we ourselves remained ignorant of the sources from which it was derived. When, then, even amongst ourselves there is not a full knowledge of what its history, nature, and the nature of its resources now endangered, are, how can we expect that our statesmen, who are not Catholics, can know these things? It is, therefore, to enlighten them as well as ourselves; to inform, in fact, our fellow-citizens of every denomination, of the great international wrong done to us, and thereby awaken true sympathy and co-operation, that I have undertaken the task of entering, this evening, as fully as the time at my disposal will permit, into the whole question of the spoliation of the Propaganda—into the nature and history of that noble institution doomed to perish by local greed, it is true, but still more by the anti-Christian hate and policy of those ruthless sectaries whose one aim is to destroy—root and branch—everything not only that advances, but that even fosters Christianity in the slightest degree. Their hate is not less for Protestantism than for Catholicity. Their aim is to eradicate the very Christian idea from the minds and the hearts of mankind. Now all this we shall proceed to see by a consideration, first, of the history and nature of the sacred Institution, and, secondly, by a review of the means taken to destroy it. From both, to-night, I am sure, all here, will come to the conclusion that it is a clear duty of our own Government to take some action for the preservation of the rights of British Catholics, and that in any case it is a sacred obligation on the part of Catholics in every land, but especially in countries benefited by its ministrations, not to let the great work of the Propaganda perish.

II. THE PROPAGANDA FROM THE BEGINNING.

The Sacred Congregation known as that of the Propaganda Fide, is formed, at present, like all the other Congregations of Rome, of a number of Cardinals, Prelates and officials, presided over by a Cardinal Prefect. They form a Corporate Body, and their duty is to conduct what we might call the foreign department in the vast administration of the Vicar of Christ.

At one period, at the very commencement, the Propaganda was conducted in person by St. Peter and his successors. It remained during nearly the whole of the first Pope’s lifetime his own principal occupation. He had to convert both Jews and Gentiles before he had a Church of any great extent to rule. He had, however, it must be confessed, a very excellent “Prefect of the Propaganda” in St. Paul, who carried out the work the Sacred Congregation now sees to, both by himself and his numerous companions and disciples. St. Paul died a Bishop of no particular locality—he was, so to speak, very like many of his successors and his present one, Cardinal Simeoni, an episcopus in partibus infidelium. He did great and lasting work, but on his death the successors of St. Peter had to find out other means to carry on the evangelization of the world. And they succeeded wonderfully from that day to this. We see them ruling with admirable wisdom, sanctity, and authority the vast empire left them mainly by the exertions of St. Peter and St. Paul; never forgetting the peculiar labours of the one or the other. The evangelization of the nations as well the government and teaching of the Church was never omitted by any one of them. From their side, principally, went forth those crowds of holy men who continued to prosecute the work of the evangelization of the world, until from the extreme limits of this then British Province, to the sands of the Great African Desert, and from the Pillars of Hercules to the frontiers of Persia, the persecuting Roman Empire had the followers of Christ in the army, in the navy, in every department, and even in the Courts of the terrible, anti-Christian Emperors themselves. They caused Christians to fill the towns, and spread at last to the remotest villages of the Empire, and then to be found far beyond its borders. And when the whole East and West, after ten terrific struggles, at last embraced the Cross, the successors of St. Peter with renewed zeal and increased resources attempted the evangelization of all then known, barbarous nations.

I say increased resources, for even in these times of persecution the Roman Pontiffs were not destitute of temporal means. The generous piety of the faithful recognised their immense responsibility, and supplied the means which heartless infidelity now strives to deprive them of. The Roman Pontiff, even when compelled to lay hidden in the Catacombs, was the father of the orphan, and of the widow, and of the poor. From the crypts of the Catacombs, as well as, afterwards, from the portals of the Vatican, he sent forth a never ceasing stream of apostolic men who at his bidding, and with his blessing, and with his authority, went forth to the very ends of the earth for the evangelization of the heathen, and the consolation of the people of God.

On this point you will allow me to quote a passage from the writings of a great French Prelate, Monsigneur Dupanloup, whom our present Holy Father has characterised as “the glory and the consolation of France” in his day. No one who recollects his history will doubt for a moment the weight of his authority. He says:

“Mother and Mistress of all Churches, the Church of Rome was from that time what she ought to be, viz., the richest, the most powerful, and also the most generous in her gifts. The Faithful throughout the world venerated her as the centre of Catholicity; and lavished their wealth upon her, together with their obedience and their love. They did not wish the head of their religion and the Vicar of Jesus Christ to be unequal to the immense calls of his spiritual administration; they wished the Pope to have sufficient to meet all the requirements of the universal mission which had been confided to him, the enormous disbursements that he was obliged to make for the welfare of so many people confided to his care, and also for the nations which were still infidel, to whom it was his duty to send the light of faith, by bishops, priests, deacons, and apostolic missionaries. Hence the riches of the Roman Church from the time of the persecutions; hence the considerable possessions which she enjoyed a long time before Constantine; hence also the generous liberalities which she lavished upon the world, as Eusebius tells us, for the maintenance of a large number of the clergy, of widows and of orphans, and of the poor as well as for the propagation of the faith, and the foundation of Christianity in the most distant countries. Eusebius cites Syria and Arabia, and our own histories add the Gauls and the Spains to these countries. This was not all; it was necessary that while buried still in the Catacombs, the Papacy should maintain apostolic notaries to keep the acts of the martyrs, and to be ever ready to reply to the questions for consultation almost daily addressed by all the Churches, whilst at the same time, the Roman Church was sending numbers of ships across the sea laden with alms. Such was even before the peace of the Church, the temporal power with which the faith of Christians surrounded the Apostolic See, and of which the charity of the Popes made so noble a use for the welfare of nations. Monuments and the most celebrated facts teach us that the Roman Church, in order to supply so many wants, not only possessed vessels of gold and silver and a great number of moveable goods, but also, considerable capital. The Pagans sometimes respected, sometimes carried off, these possessions. Constantine ordered, says Eusebius, that restitution should be made to the clergy of the houses, the possessions, fields, gardens, and other goods of which they had been unjustly deprived. What a strange thing! that Paganism should recognise that the Church had a right to property, and yet this is in the present day contested by nations which call themselves Christian.”⁠[24]

With the resources here so eloquently indicated, the Popes, even in the earliest ages, provided for the evangelization of the most distant nations. Indeed, we scarcely meet with a single Pontificate, not illustrated with this blessed characteristic of the Apostolic ministry—a characteristic which became more marked as time rolled on. Just as the Church had attained its first triumph, the Pope, who had most to do with the conversion of Constantine, and with the splendid works of that Monarch for religion, was consoled by the conversion of the Iberians near the Black Sea, and of the Abyssinians beyond the distant, southern confines of ancient Egypt. The Popes aided the terribly tried Christians of Persia, under the long persecutions of Sapor and his successors, just as Leo XIII. aids the persecuted Christians of China as I speak. We know of the solicitude of St. Celestine in selecting and sending Palladius, a dignitary of the Roman Curia, to convert the Irish and Picts. Then came the mighty Mission of St. Patrick, received at Rome from the same Holy Pontiff, and solemnly confirmed by his successor. Soon after, St. Leo the Great sent St. Valentinus, to carry the glad tidings of Redemption to those tribes once so formidable to Roman power, who inhabited the forests bordering on the Danube and the Rhine. St. Severinus, authorized by the same authority, was contemporaneously carrying the faith to Pannonia and Norica. The Rhetians and the faithful Tyrolese received, through the solicitude of Pope Leo, the grace of the faith, also from St. Severinus. Besides those absolute and direct conversions, by saints from the very side of the Roman Pontiff, every national conversion made, was helped on, and had to be watched over, by his fatherly, evangelical care. The conversion of Clovis and the Franks, and other barbarians; the destruction of Arianism amidst the fierce tribes who embraced that heresy, and brought it with them on their conquests; the care of the Faith amongst the ever-fickle Catholics in the East; the ecclesiastical formation of new realms, gained over by the Apostles despatched for the purpose, constantly exercised the zeal of the Sovereign Pontiffs in those days. Who does not know the love and care manifested by St. Gregory the Great for the desolate Anglo-Saxon ancestors of the people now inhabiting England, and so strangely in many instances forgetful, or worse than forgetful, of the debt of gratitude they owe the Popes? It was not so with the ancient Catholics of that land. The intercourse between them and then far-off Rome, was greater than it is to-day, with all our modern appliances for swift and easy travelling. But then, not as now, it was love of God and not of travel, that brought the crowds of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims to Rome. They loved to see Christ’s Vicar, to visit the tombs of the Apostles and Martyrs, and to manifest the gratitude of their nation at the Shrine of the real Apostle of England, Pope St. Gregory the Great. The same Pontiff was as zealous and as successful in converting all that remained of the Donatist heretics in Africa as in evangelizing the people of Britain. The care of his successors for the vast conversions wrought by the multitude of Irish missionary saints amongst the Pagans during the early middle ages, and of missionary saints like St. Boniface and St. Willibrord, who came from England, is just as remarkable. The connection of the Popes with SS. Cyril and Methodius, the Apostles of the Bulgarians, the Moravians, and the Bohemians, has been recently brought very prominently before the world of our day, by our present Holy Father who has just built a church to honour their memory, over the remains of St. Cyril, one of the two, who died in Rome. Pope St. Nicholas the Great and Pope John VIII. sent bishops, priests, and ample assistance to the same evangelic labourers, who are the Apostles and civilizers not only of the nations before-mentioned, but also of Moravia, Silesia, Bosnia, Circassia, Russia, Dalmatia, Panoramia, Dacia, Carinthia and several neighbouring nations. Under Pope Sylvester II. the great warlike nation of the Hungarians became converted by the zeal of their truly apostolic King, St. Stephen; and to this day the crown sent by the Pope to that Monarch, is used in the coronation of the Kings of Hungary (now the Emperors of Austria), who retain with just pride the privilege to have the Cross borne before them, and to take the title of Apostolic Majesty, both given by the Pope. With every conversion which afterwards took place in the North of Europe or elsewhere, the Popes had the same intimate connection, and their Apostolic zeal never flagged until a still wider field than ever opened out for it by the discovery of America, and the coming of that unfortunate torrent of heresy and schism from which all our present religious misfortunes flow, and which is known under the name of the Reformation.

The Popes of this period dealt with the duties brought upon them by one and the other of these momentous events, as became their traditions and their obligations. The vast fields opened up for Missionary zeal by the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco di Gama were soon occupied by their care. It was, after all, but a phase in the kind of evangelization which their predecessors had carried on in one part or another of the world, since the days of St. Peter and St. Paul.

More difficult far became the task of repairing the injury done to many countries by the ravage occasioned by many reformers of many minds and many degrees of hatred for Catholicity. Wars followed fast upon doctrinal differences. The face of whole kingdoms changed. Radical political changes grew apace. The work of the conversion of England, Scotland, Prussia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and several minor German States had to be commenced over again, with the difference that heresy was a far more redoubtable opponent than Paganism of any kind. It was a system of various-phased negations constantly changing, never knowing its own Christian belief, and satisfied only upon some points which it refused to hold in common with the Church of God. Its systems, all made by men, according to caprice, or logical necessity springing from error, differed one from the other fully as much as all differed from the Catholic faith of ages. The reasoning to be used against one sect would not suit against another. On points of the most vital importance all held opposite views. Some would have it that Christ was God, and others that He was not. Some held for Grace and others for pure Pelagianism. Some admitted the Real Presence, and others regarded that doctrine as idolatrous. One party held out for more or less sacramental efficacy, and others denied it, in part or entirely. So the babel went on, in nothing united save in hatred and opposition to the one, stable, changeless truth of the old religion. In Ireland, in France, in Germany, wars took place between fellow-countrymen on points of doctrine. In England and other countries the party in opposition to Catholicity found out, as they thought, not only that the religion of their forefathers for generations was wrong, but they further considered it to be their duty to deprive such of their fellow-citizens as continued to hold the old Faith, of goods, of liberty, of civil status, and even of life itself. Almost everywhere in Europe, confusion and anger reigned in those sadly troubled times.

None experienced more difficulty in dealing with the perplexing responsibilities arising from the Reformation than the Roman Pontiffs. The business of the Holy See increased to an enormous extent. Several new Congregations had to be formed by the action of the Council of Trent alone. Every department of Church administration had to be remodelled. New Orders arose providentially to meet the needs of the times. These had to be guided and watched over. Contemporaneously with the religious troubles in Europe, new fields for Missionary enterprise were opened up in America, in Asia, in Africa, even in some of the Isles of the Pacific. Mahometanism, instead of subsiding, began to grow more menacing. England, Scotland, and most of the Northern Kingdoms of Europe ceased to be Catholic. The fires of the sanctuary were completely quenched in Denmark, Prussia, Sweden, Norway and several German Principalities. Ireland sustained the full pressure of the power of England to force her—though, thank God, in vain—to abjure the Faith. France was in a state of civil war on account of religion. Switzerland was divided. Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia wavered. The work of real Reformation in purely Catholic countries; the repression of attempts at schism from without and disorder from within; occupied the common Father of the Faithful unceasingly. It was when the difficulties of his position increased to such an extent, that it was morally impossible for him to attend any longer, personally, to everything required for the purpose of spreading the Faith, that he at last called in the assistance of a special Congregation to assist him in a work which his predecessors had at all periods of their previous history discharged by themselves alone.

Gregory XIII. filled the Chair of St. Peter at the period when the work of the evangelization of the nations pressed heaviest. He may be said to have employed himself solely in that work. For the wants of the Germans and Hungarians he had, out of his own resources, founded and perpetually endowed a magnificent College which still subsists in Rome. He formed the English College for the resuscitation of the Faith in Britain; the Polish College for the Poles; and for the vast missions then evangelized by the zeal of the newly formed Society of Jesus, he built and endowed the magnificent Roman College of the Gesu, wherein he placed no less than three hundred cells for students and twenty auditories for instruction. Out of this went the men whose eloquence resounded along the banks of the Rhine, and whose holy lives, boundless zeal and great learning won back millions in the German Fatherland to the Faith. Thence, too, went forth the men who penetrated into the heart of the old civilization of China, to the East and West Indies, and to the fastnesses and virgin forests of the newly-discovered tribes of America. Gregory XIII. embraced in his zeal the East as well as the West. He founded in Rome Colleges for the Greeks, and for the Maronites of Mount Libanus. Nor did he forget, in his care for far-off nations, the claims of his own See. The Jews of Ghetto and the youth of Rome have to thank his great heart for permanent means established for their care and education. He was the patron of physical science as well as of sacred studies; and to him, to Gregory XIII., Hugo Buoncompagno, the modern world is indebted for the reformation of the Calendar on a basis more correct than that attempted before him by a man more famous, but not so great in works of real utility, Julius Cæsar, the first of the rulers of Imperial Rome.

The work of what may be called the Foreign Missions increased to such overwhelming proportions through the enlightened Christian zeal of this great Pope, that he found himself compelled to call in the assistance of a few Cardinals, and to commit to their vigilance the duty of watching over the Propagation of the Faith. These Cardinals could be scarcely called a Congregation. They were more a kind of committee of vigilance to keep the Pope posted in what should be effected by the centre of unity for the evangelization of the world. But the idea had its origin in the necessity which forced the Pontiff to call them together at all, and it soon produced its fruit. The successors of Gregory were forced to advert to it from the impossibility of dealing with every case; and at last Gregory XV., of the famous Bolognese family, of the Ludovisi, determined to found a real, formal, Sacred Congregation, for the work which we may call the Foreign Office of the Church. He not only established it, but conferred the most ample powers upon it, and gave it large means to commence that beneficent action, which was soon everywhere felt in the immense regions over which it exercised the paternal solicitude of the Vicar of Christ.

Gregory XV. founded the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda by a Bull bearing date July 22nd, 1622. In this he clearly made known, that his intention was to establish a department of Church administration and action which should assiduously attend to the important duty, hitherto discharged by his predecessors alone, without special organized assistance, of extending the Faith in countries where it did not exist, and of restoring it in places where it may have been lost or injured. The duty of the Congregation was, according to the words of this Bull, “to study diligently, that those sheep miserably wandering away should again return to the Fold of Christ, and acknowledge the Lord and the Shepherd of the Flock, to devise the best means by which, through the influence of Divine grace, they may cease to wander through the endless pasturages of infidelity and heresy, drinking the deadly waters of pestilence, and be placed in the pasturage of true faith and salutary doctrine, and be brought to the fountains of the water of life.”

The Appunti or Memoranda published by the Sacred Congregation recently, in reference to the definite sentence of the Italian Masonic Court of Appeal, to which it applied for relief against the action of the Government, state:—

“For this end, he (Gregory XV.) wished to depute in his name a Congregation of Cardinals, who unitedly should exercise the greater portion of the Apostolic Ministry, that most noble office, which, up to that time, his predecessors had discharged by themselves and without the ministry of others.”

The Appunti, afterwards, quote other passages of the Bull of Gregory XV., who thus continues:—

“For even although by the pastoral vigilance, assistance, study, and exertions of the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, of happy memory, it was provided that so many harvests should not be in want of labourers in the past, and our successors can also do the same, we have thought it well to commit to the special solicitude of a certain number of our venerable brethren, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, this particular business, as by the tenor of these presents we do commit and do give over to them. Desiring that, congregated together, and using also the assistance of certain prelates of the Roman Court, religious men, and a secretary (as we ourselves have desired, and named them for the first time), they should consult together, and watch over so great a matter together with us, and in the best possible manner that it can be done, attend to a work so holy and so exceedingly pleasing to the Divine Majesty. For the more convenient discharge of which duty let them hold congregations every month—once before us, and twice at least in the house of the senior Cardinal amongst themselves—and there learn and treat of all and every affair appertaining to the Propagation of the Faith throughout the world. Let them refer the graver affairs which they shall have treated in the above-mentioned house to Us, but other matters let them decide and despatch by themselves, according to their own prudence. Let them superintend all missions for preaching and teaching the Gospel and the Catholic doctrine, and constitute and change the necessary Ministers. For We, by Apostolic authority, concede and impart, by the tenor of these presents, full, free, and ample faculty, authority, and power of doing, carrying on, treating, acting, and executing both the above-named, as well as all and every other matter, even if such should be a matter which requires a specific and express mention.”

“But, in order that a business of such moment, in which great expenses are necessarily contracted by the happy commutation of temporal with spiritual things, may not be retarded by any impediment, and may proceed more easily and speedily, beyond that which we have already ordered to be supplied from our private means, and that which is given by the liberality of the pious faithful, and that aid which for the future we confide, will not be wanting, as the affair is our own and that of this Holy See, we contribute to this work certain revenues for ever from our Apostolic resources.”

The Appunti commenting on this, say:—

“The Pontiff, then, constituting the Propaganda the organic means for discharging the Apostolate amongst the infidel and heterodox, ever fixed to it a sublime ministry which was a substantial part of the spiritual sovereignty received for the government of the Church; and that to such great extent, that regarding it with respect to the territory over which it exercises jurisdiction, it can be said, without fear of error, that, in four at least out of the five parts of the world, the government of the Church is held and administered by the Propaganda. The power is so great and so unreserved, that all and every matter appertaining to the propagation of the Faith in the universal world, is confided to it by the Vicars of Christ, to the exclusion of any other organ whatsoever, and this with such solemnity, that Urban VIII., on the 2nd of August, 1634, and Innocent X. on the 3rd of July, 1652, ordered that the authentic decrees of the Propaganda should have the force of Apostolic Constitutions.”

In this way the Congregation started into existence.

The number of Cardinals, which in the beginning was fixed at thirteen, has been since, from time to time, increased. A Prefect was appointed over them as over other congregations, and subsequently a Cardinal was appointed specially over the finance department. A secretary—subsequently two, one for the Eastern branch, and one for the Western—and writers were added, together with many consulters taken from the foremost religious and secular ecclesiastics residing in Rome. The whole formed a distinct Corporation capable of sueing and being sued. It at once commenced the work confided to it; and the world has, from that day to this, experienced the benefits of its zealous and always prudent administration. The whole Church, except in the purely Catholic kingdoms of Europe, passed under its control; and its ministry has become not only valuable, but, in fact, absolutely necessary for the due exercise of the solicitude of the Vicar of Christ in such an immense area of the world committed to his keeping.

In the Bull by which Gregory XV. instituted the Sacred Congregation, we find it clearly laid down that it should be all this. Moreover, the help which he anticipated from the faithful, came almost immediately. This appears specially in the foundation of the celebrated seminary now known as—

III. THE URBAN COLLEGE.

Through the zeal of John Baptist Vives, one of its consulting prelates, the Sacred Congregation came into possession of the necessary property and the buildings which are now occupied by offices attached to Propaganda and by a college for the education of missionaries destined to carry out its principal aim in evangelizing the nations. The immediate successor of Gregory XV. was the celebrated Urban VIII., a member of the illustrious Barberini family. This great Pontiff earnestly resumed the work of his predecessor in the matter of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide. To him, Monsgr. John Baptist Vives, acting, as Moroni tells us, under the direction of his own confessor, Michael Ghislieri, of the Order of Theatines, offered his place in the Piazza di Spagna. This residence previously belonged to Cardinal Ferratini, from whom the street called Via Fratina, which at present leads directly from the Corso to the Propaganda, takes its name. Urban VIII. gladly accepted the offer; and with further aid from Vives, established the famous college to which he gave his own name—a name it bears to this day—Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide. Moroni thus speaks of this gift:—“Matters progressed so far that Monsignor Vives decided to devote all he had to this purpose (the foundation of the college), and he employed Father Ghislieri to draw up a plan for changing his palace into such a college. With these admirable sentiments the Prelate Vives made an offer of the Palace to Urban VIII. (Barberini). This illustrious Pontiff being animated with the liveliest interest for the augmentation of the Catholic religion and for the greater glory of God, approved of the gift of the good Prelate, and with the authority of the Bull ‘Immortalis Dei’ given on the Kalends of August, 1627, canonically instituted in the same palace an Apostolic College or Seminary for youths of every nation who should be promoted to orders after one year, and afterwards to the Priesthood, and he placed the College under the invocation and patronage of SS. Peter and Paul. He put it moreover under the protection of the Apostolic See, and under the rule and laws which he and his successors should be pleased to make for its government. He assigned to it perpetually the oblation of the well-deserving Vives, consisting of one hundred and three places on the mountain and other estates, yielding yearly about seven hundred scudi in rent, besides other revenues which that Prelate left it at death. On the principal façade of the building was placed the following inscription:—

“Collegium de Propaganda Fide Per Universum Orbem.

“And afterwards the same Urban VIII. caused to be substituted for this another, which was placed beneath his own arms, and still subsists, and which runs as follows:—

“Collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide.”

The palace of Monsignor Vives was greatly improved by Urban VIII., who employed the celebrated Bernini to construct the offices of the Computisteria, or finance department, on the ground floor; the Segretaria, or business portion, on the first floor; and the Stamperia, or printing office, on the upper floor. Alexander VII., the next successor but one of Urban VIII., carried the buildings on towards the Church of St. Andrea dei Frati. He also built the beautiful College Chapel in the form in which it is to be found to-day. He employed in both works the rival of Bernini, Francesco Borromini. Leo XII. removed the printing offices to the ground floor, at the end of the building; and in the part where these were placed before, he formed apartments for the Cardinal Prefect, so that the latter might be always on the spot for watching over the many important interests of the Congregation. On the highest story were also provided the apartments of the Secretary of the Propaganda, and the famous Museum connected with the Institution.

Besides the gift of the site and the Palace, Monsignor Vives provided also ten places in the College for students destined to carry the Gospel wherever the Sacred Congregation might send them. Almost at the same time with this gift, came another valuable donation from Cardinal Antonio Barberini, the brother of Urban VIII. This was the perpetual foundation of twelve places for as many students, who should be taken in the proportion of two from each one of the Persian, Georgian, Coptic, Nestorian, Jacobite, and Melchite rites or nations. The zealous Cardinal, elevated the number of students to three of each nation, soon afterwards, making eighteen in all, of his own foundation. And from that to this, these far-off peoples have been supplied with a constant stream of well-educated pastors from the centre of Christendom by the zeal of this good Prince of the Church, who was in his lifetime also one of the Cardinals attached to the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda. His zeal did not finish here. Before his death, Moroni tells us, that he founded thirteen places in the Urban College for the nations of Ethiopia, Abyssinia, and Brackmania. Wise regulations were in all cases laid down for the giving of these places, and for the discharge of the obligations of those who profited by them. Urban VIII. attached this College perpetually to the Sacred Congregation 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 continued 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, with prudence 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 Rector of the Propaganda College. It is interesting, and manifests the sources from which the educational funds of the College were derived. Translated from the original Italian, it is as follows:—

NOTICE OF THE URBAN COLLEGE, TAKEN FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE PROPAGANDA.

Before commencing to speak of the institution of the Urban College, from whence have gone forth so many personages illustrious for the profundity 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 establishments were in the beginning, the College owes its existence, certainly, to the Sacred Congregation. 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 della Scala. The Cardinals met together for the first time on the 6th of December, 1622. In this first meeting the Cardinal Ludovisi having mentioned the motive of its creation, asked his colleagues to manifest openly their sentiments regarding the best manner of propagating 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 Religious 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 Vives 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 projects 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 canonization 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 regarding the administration. Two Cardinals, with the Cardinal’s Secretary, were elected every year to superintend the temporal interests of the Congregation. Finally, 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, Immortalis, 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. Vives, and the confirmation 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, Ne 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 patriarchal 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, fight against, suspend, call in judgment for vice of nullity or intention, whomsoever 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 contraveners. 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 May 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 administration, government 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 Roman Pontiff in affairs of greater importance.”

FOUNDATIONS FOR 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 throughout the universe.

The second foundation was made by Cardinal Antonio Barberini with the jus patronatus reserved, so far as nomination was concerned, to his family. This was destined for six nations, each one of which ought to supply two students. These nations were the Georgian, Persian, Chaldean, Melchite, Jacobite and Copt. Urban VIII. gave a Bull—Altitudo Divini—erecting these foundations, on the 1st of April, 1637. 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 was 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 nations they should be 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 Congregation 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 should decide otherwise. It is to be here borne in mind that in this concession 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 Rome or outside of Rome.

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, reunited 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 Clemente.

The piety of the Emperor Charles VI., 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 alumnus was Monsgr. Avon, afterwards Bishop of Biaritz. To this bishop was afterwards assigned certain funds with the obligation of maintaining twenty alumni in the province, 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 Cardinal 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 alumni were sixty-four in 1759. Of these foundations some are of free collation, and others of the jus patronatus 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 being 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 occasions.

But if they do not receive them from the Sacred Congregation, the Congregation 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 Roman 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-General.

From the College here described, thousands of apostolic men have gone forth to distant lands, and not a few of these have won the crown of martyrdom. The visitor to Rome now meets with representatives of every race under heaven who come to that Urban College 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 Chinaman 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 alumni. 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 Propaganda. 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 evangelised. 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 influence of Irish faith in the missionary labours of the Church. The number of Irish Propaganda students who have rendered distinguished services to religion 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 considerable 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 gratuitously; 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 orbe.

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 amongst these comes

IV. THE LIBRARY.

In this are collected rare books in every known and spoken language, and in languages whose literatures were formed by the labours of Catholic Missionaries only. Of the latter class are works 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 archæological knowledge. The study of the Oriental languages 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 department 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 Ferrata, brother of the late Papal Nuncio to Switzerland. The linguistic capabilities of our own Cardinal Howard are of a high order, and he occupies a distinguished place 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 Propaganda 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

V. THE PRINTING OFFICE.

This magnificent department of Pontifical munificence, enlightenment, and care, at first arose in Rome, 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, diffused 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 conquests 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 of orthodox Christianity, but of knowledge and civilization, diffused, where superstition and darkness had for centuries prevailed. By this means a literature was given to the unlettered tribes in North and South America, and Missionaries were enabled, even before setting out for these uncultivated people, to learn the languages in which 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 forefathers in these three kingdoms—were supplied with the means of education.

VI. RESOURCES OF THE PROPAGANDA.

The various works connected with the Propaganda, of course, implied great expenses, and necessitated the possession 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 Propagation 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 valuable and perpetual source of revenue. Other sources opened continually. The generosity awakened by the two Pontiffs who were mainly instrumental in founding it, descended to their successors, and spread throughout the entire Church, so that it may be 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 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 Pontifical 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 of spiritual reward. In proof of this I 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 his 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 satisfy the humblest curate in any English-speaking country. He could at any moment leave this position 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 Minutanté’s desk to that of the Cardinal Prefect. All who visit Rome on business to the Propaganda are astonished to find him always at their 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 responsible 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 indulgences and are enriched with innumerable spiritual privileges. This I found to be the secret of Archbishop Agliardi’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 martyrs of China, Corea, and Japan, the labourers in every part of the Lord’s extended vineyard. I speak of Monsignor Agliardi, because he has left the Institution, and is now employed 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 Institution, 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 have never seen the late illustrious 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 Holiness looks often to the officials of the Propaganda for his diplomatic agents in places where rare tact, knowledge, and sanctity 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 represented 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.

Having now glanced at the nature and history of this Institution, we shall take a rapid survey of the work it has done, and is doing, for the world.

VII. WORK 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 confided to their subjects in every part of the world. It was further resolved that the papers of the Provisional Congregation 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 Pontiffs 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 responsibility 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 remained 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 destitute of the knowledge “of a God in this world” as the lower animals upon which they subsisted. Where a semi-civilization created caste-prejudice, as in India, or refined materialism, as in China, mankind in its masses descended into depths of degradation still lower and more worthy of commiseration than the wild tribes in savage life. There was no mercy. The weak “went to the wall.” 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 sway 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 was difficult for missionaries to reach them at all, and then there was another difficulty to be met with before Catholic missionaries could minister to them.

The Orientals were generally schismatics of various rites and nations, imbued with a fanatical hatred for the Church from which their fathers had seceded. Great zeal was therefore needed amongst these sects. The Missionaries of the Propaganda had to make their converts either from Islam, which punished what it called apostasy, with terrible severity, or from Christians made vile by ignorance and slavery in the lands of their ruthless conquerors. Yet the grace of God prevailed to a wonderful extent, and innumerable souls were reconciled and became Catholic.

The Armenians, 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 Roman 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 Egypt, 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 the Armenians—which 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 own days, the missionary enterprise of the Church. Under its care, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans penetrated to China, and worked the wonders 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 with 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 idolatory, it never ceased its exertions until now its bishops may be numbered by the hundred, its priests by the thousand, and its converts by millions. In all, it spread the knowledge of Christ; and orphanages, hospitals, schools, and other pious institutions, conducted by Catholic brotherhoods and sisterhoods of various 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 Propaganda; 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 prohibited 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 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 entirely, 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 Confederation 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 the Propaganda 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 College, and had access to authentic documents proving that point, which, as an Irishman, so much interested him.⁠[25]

His uncle, Cardinal Cullen, who besides being 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 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 Propaganda 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. 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 jurisdiction, 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 work. Public and private affairs are effected. 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, devoted, and best intentioned people 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 martyrdom for conviction. Such people in our midst, who are not Catholics, break up the little section of Protestantism to which they belong 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 suburb of London, in the year of Grace 1884. “Annual subscription £1, to be paid quarterly in advance.” As I already belonged to a Church of that title established in an upper 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 speaking, by the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, with a patience, skill, and knowledge which no words of mine could adequately express.