Modern inventions and improvements, such as telegraphs, railroads, steamships, cheap postage, the press, have added time, increased efficiency, and lent an expansive power of action to men which poets, in their boldest flights of fancy, did not reach. These things have changed the face of the material world and the ways of men in conducting their secular business.
Pope Sixtus V. readjusted and improved in his day the outward administration of the church—a reform that was greatly needed—and placed it by his practical genius, both for method and efficiency, far in advance of his times. This same work might, in some respects, be done again and with infinite advantage to the interests and prosperity of the whole church of God.
One of the most, if not the most, important of the congregations of the church is that De Propaganda Fide. It is the centre of missionary enterprises throughout the whole extent of the world. No other object can be of greater interest to every Catholic heart, no branch of the church’s work calls for greater practical wisdom, more burning zeal, and more energetic efficiency.
There is, perhaps, no position in the church, after that of the papal chair, so great in importance, so vast in its influence, so wide in its action, as the one occupied by the cardinal prefect of the Propaganda. Could it be placed on a footing so as to profit by all the agencies of our day, it would be better prepared to enter upon the new openings now offered to the missionary zeal of the church in different parts of the world, and become, what it really aims to be, the right arm of the church in the propagation of the faith.
Who can tell but that one of the results of the present crisis in Italy will lead by an overruling Providence to an entire renewal of the church, not only in Italy, but throughout the whole world? Such a hope has been frequently expressed by Pius IX., and to prepare the way for it was one of the main purposes of assembling the Vatican Council.
VIII.—IMPENDING DANGER.
Scarcely any event is more deplorable to the sincere Christian and true patriot than when there arises a discord, whether real or apparent, between the religious convictions and the political aspirations of a people. Such a discord divides them into separate and hostile camps, and it is not in the nature of things that in such a condition both religion and the state should not incur great danger. Every sacrifice except that of principle should be made, every material interest that does not involve independence and existence should be yielded up without reluctance or delay, in order to put an end to these conflicts, unless one would risk on one hand apostasy and on the other anarchy.
The discord which has been sown between the state and the church by the revolutionary movement in Italy has not only excited a violent struggle in the bosom of every Italian, but has created dissension between husband and wife, parents and children, brother and brother, friend and friend, neighbor and neighbor, and placed different classes of society in opposition to each other. The actual struggle going on in Italy is working every moment untold mischief among the Italian people. Already symptoms of apostasy and signs of anarchy are manifest. Every day these dangers are becoming more menacing. A way out of this dead-lock must be speedily found.
The church has plainly shown in ages past that she can live and gain the empire over souls, even against the accumulated power of a hostile and persecuting state. She has shown in modern times, both in the United States and in England and Ireland, that independent of the state, and of all other support than the voluntary offerings of her children, and with stinted freedom, she can maintain her independence, grow strong and prosperous. The church, relying solely upon God, conquered pagan Rome in all its pride of strength, and, if needs be, she can enter again into the arena, and, stripped of all temporal support, face her adversaries and reconquer apostate Rome.
But who can contemplate without great pain a nation, and that nation the Italian, passing through apostasy and anarchy, even though this be necessary, in the opinion of some, as a punishment and purification? Can those who believe so drastic a potion is needed to cure a nation give the assurance that it will not leave it in a feeble and chronic state, rendering a revival a work of centuries, and perhaps impossible? Every noble impulse of religion and humanity should combine to avert so dire a calamity, and with united voice cry out with the prophet: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why, then, is not the wound of the daughter of my people healed?”