The Progress of the Century

by Unknown

THE POPES OF THE CENTURY

Six Popes ruled the Church in the nineteenth century: Pius VII., Leo XII., Pius VIII., Gregory XVI., Pius IX., and the present venerable pontiff, Leo XIII. In the person of Pius VII. they have known what martyrdom was like, also the shame and humiliation of being subject to a civil power absolute in its character and prone to unwarrantable interference with the ecclesiastical power, even to contempt of its most ancient and venerable rights. In Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. they learned the purposes and the power of those who in Europe have succeeded to the men of the French Revolution. In Leo XIII. their line, the oldest line of rulers on the earth, can boast of a most enlightened mind and a very sympathetic heart. Long time a bishop of an important see before he was made Pope, he has been at the level of every task imposed upon the Papacy.

In a particular manner he has been the patron of ecclesiastical studies, by his scholarly encyclicals on philosophy, Scripture, history, and other branches of learning. A noble specimen of this activity is his late letter to the bishops of France on the studies of the clergy. His spirit is the Christian spirit of reconciliation and concord, yet without sacrifice of the immemorial rights and the solemn obligations of the Apostolic See. He may not live to see the restoration of his independence, and the reparation of the wrong inflicted upon the Holy See, but he can maintain a protest that will forever invalidate among Catholics the claim of the actual government and keep open the Roman question until it is rightly settled.

Catholics cannot forget that the Pope for the time being is, according to Catholic doctrine, the successor of Saint Peter in all his rights and privileges as the visible head of the Church, appointed by Jesus Himself. Hence, among other duties, he has to safeguard the approved traditions and the general legislation of the past, to protect the status of the Church as given over to him, and to hand it down undiminished to his own successor. Precisely because he is the head of the Church he may not licitly alter its organic and regular life, or arbitrarily abandon the almost sacrosanct ways along which his predecessors have moved, or give up lightly the institutions in which religion has gradually found a setting for itself.

I venture to say that this element of fixity in the attitude of the Apostolic See will be more appreciated in another age, more constructive and architectonic than the past, less querulous and destructive, even if less daring and brilliant. Forever to pull down and scatter, and never to build up and perfect, cannot be the final purpose of human society. It is perhaps worth remarking that the average reign of the Popes was much longer in the nineteenth century than in any other, being over sixteen years, and that two successive reigns, those of Pius IX. and Leo XIII., represent fifty-four continuous years of Church government at Rome, a phenomenon not witnessed since the foundation of that Church by Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY

During this century the Holy Father has been able to restore the Catholic hierarchy in England, Scotland, Holland, and to create it anew in India. This means the orderly management of the works and the purposes of the Catholic religion, since the episcopate is the divinely instituted organ for its spread and its administration. In many lands a numerous episcopate has sprung up. In our own beloved country it has grown almost at the rate of one see for every year of the century. The apostolic activity of the episcopate has been usually beyond reproach. The care of souls, the creation of parishes, building of churches, convents, schools, and charitable institutions has gone on in every diocese of the Catholic world. Some bishops have distinguished themselves by their sanctity of life and their love for the poor; others by their learning and their skill in their writing works of utility for the faithful; others by their holy martyrdoms, both in pagan and Christian lands; others by devotion to great works of common charity and utility—nearly all by their exemplary lives and the conscientious performance of their duties.

No nation has a monopoly of this outpouring of the highest sacerdotal devotion; and no nation or people, as far as I can learn, has been without a steady succession of remarkable bishops, men who would have done honor to any age of Christian history. I believe that it is the constant and edifying service of the episcopal body which is chiefly responsible for the improvement in learning, morality, and laborious enlightened zeal on the part of the clergy, diocesan and monastic, which it seems just to claim for the nineteenth century. In some lands the episcopal office is freer than in others, and its beneficent activity is more immediate and visible. In all the bishops have kept the bond of unity, often at no inconsiderable sacrifice of personal comfort. Neither schism nor heresy of any formal and noteworthy nature has been connected with the episcopal office. It would ill become me to discriminate where the merits are so equal. I may, however, be permitted to rejoice with my countrymen at the end of the century that the life and the teachings of a Carroll, a Cheverus, a Bruté a Neumann, a Dubois, have not been without salutary effect, and have set a shining mark for the imitation of all coming generations. Particularly have such men inculcated habitual courtesy and charity in dealing with all those who did not share the faith of Catholics. They were fresh from the storms of foreign religious hatred and infidel intolerance, and knew by personal experience the benefit of mutual good understanding and personal respect.

In the United States, particularly, the Catholic episcopate has been very active in providing for the most fundamental spiritual needs of their flocks—churches for religious services, priests for the administration of sacraments, schools for the preservation of the revealed Christian faith, orphanages for the little waifs and castaways of society. Whether short or long, the periods of government of these Church rulers have never been idle nor marked by self-indulgence. Almost every one has left some monument of faith as a contribution to the general good of Catholicism. I would neither exaggerate nor boast, yet it occurs to me, after many years of service, travel, and observation, that few ages of Christianity can show a more laborious and elevated episcopate than the nineteenth century.

The recruiting of the diocesan clergy has been the gravest duty of this episcopate, for religion lives by and for men. It can get along without wealth or monuments, but not without intelligent teachers of its tenets and faithful observers of its precepts. In keeping with the decrees of the Council of Trent diocesan seminaries have been opened where it was possible, and elsewhere provincial institutions of a similar character. Both flourish in the United States, and grow more numerous with every decade. The older clergy, long drawn from the venerable schools of Europe, have left a sweet odor among us, the purest odor of self-sacrificing lives, of devotion to poor and scattered flocks, of patient, uncomplaining contentment with the circumstances of poverty and humility. There is no diocese in the United States where there cannot be heard tales of the hardships and brave lives of the ecclesiastics who laid the foundations of religion. We remember them always, and hold their names in benediction. The younger generation of our clergy enjoys advantages denied to their predecessors; but we consider that they owe it to those predecessors if they have a degree of leisure to perfect the culture of their minds, and a faithful Catholic people to ask for the benefits which must accrue from greater learning, if it be solid and well directed.