THE PAPAL RESIDENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6534, 4 February 1882, Page 6

THE PAPAL RESIDENCE.

The Pall Mall O-axette , discussing the rumours as to the Pope’s intention to quit Borne, remarks “The rumours which have prevailed give Salzburg as the place at which the Pope proposes to settle nimtelf; and there is no question that it is only at some place in the dominions of the Austrian Emperor that he can find comfort and the honour which ho asserts to bo denied to him in his own country. The Austrian territories are still the part of Europe in which most of the European order established in 1815 after the great war, still survive. In presence of a complex cluster of constitutional Governments the Emperor and King still does pretty much what he likes outside Hungary, and there are prelates, with splendid revenues and imposing state, religious orders, monasteries, and convents of every variety of rule and, though there is nowadays toleration of dissidents, and though the principles of the Josephist legislation have been in some degree restored, there is a deep fund of faith in the Boman Catholic Church and uf reverence for its head. The Pope, at almost any place in the Austrian dominions, might reckon not only on consideration and hospitality, but on genuine veneration. $ It shows how Europe has insensibly-altered, that there is probably no other country in which he would find himself in comfort. In some of the Protestant countries he would be received with civility, but in all he would be felt to be an embarrassment—even iu England, where his relations to the very delicately situated Irish Boman Catholic Episcopate would at once become a source ot trouble to the British Government and to himself. The * Latin ’ communities, once the stronghold of his Church, would probably object to receive him. It is from Italy that he is flying. No French Republican Government would venture to give him hospitality in France for more than a brief interval in his migration. Spain, in which there is probably less of religious belief than in any other portion of Europe, would find him the most inconvenient of guests- Even Belgium, in which he long lived, is governed by bis adversaries, who would make every effort to keep him aloof. As to the German Empire, it would depend on the stroke of -policy which Prince Bismarck happened to be preparing whether he would be allowed to find rest there for his feet. And thus it can be shown by a process of eihaustioh that in the Austrian territories only could he find a permanent or durable home.”